First off, I want to thank you all for being sup­port­ive. It really means a lot, espe­cially now as I nav­i­gate through some soul-crushing stuff.

Hey. Here’s a thank you — a small excerpt of Into the Hollow:

 

If Dex wasn’t tense before, he was now. I was ready for him to flip around and go after Max­imus again, but he didn’t bite. He just kept his mouth shut and picked up the first box. He turned and I could see the tem­per swirling around in his eyes, the killer grip on the box’s edge. He gave Max­imus a forced smile that looked com­pletely menacing.

“Please move,” he said, ges­tur­ing to the way he was block­ing the door. “I’d like to get out of here before I break your nose.”

“I’d like to see you do it,” Max­imus answered, not moving.

“Oh, come on,” I chided them. “You can mea­sure penises after I move out.”

“You don’t think I can do it?” Dex con­tin­ued, ignor­ing me.

“I know you can do it. I just want to see it.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“I want to see you do it…now,” Max­imus replied. I didn’t like the squir­rely way he sounded, like he was attempt­ing to do Dex a favor or something.

“Dex,” I said loudly. He and Max­imus were locked in some inter­nal show­down, brown eyes against green, short against tall, cave­man against caveman.

“Dex!”

With great reluc­tance, he broke the star­ing con­test and looked my way.

“Please. Let’s go.”

He nod­ded and read­justed his hold on the box.

I glared at Max­imus. “And you, please get out of the way. I, per­son­ally, have no prob­lems with break­ing your nose.”