A Tale of Two Pretties by Dawn Pendleton, Magan Vernon Page A

Dragons? Queens? Mountain towns? I thought you would be writing a romance or something that people actually read.” My defenses were up. I was proud of my first chapter and now she was treating it like it was no better than the fan fiction that random girls posted online.
    Okay, so Barry may have been loosely based on a British boy bander and my lead female was kind of based on me, but it was fiction. Pure fiction. Okay, and maybe just a little bit of fantasy.
    “A lot of people like high fantasy and I happen to be one of them!” She yanked her lap top back.
    “Really? You mean to tell me that you sit around reading books about Jodo who wants to find some precious ring?”
    She rolled her eyes. “You’re a fucking moron. It’s Frodo. Didn’t you at least watch the movies?”
    I shook my head. “Nope. No desire to sit through three hours of that shit. I’d rather see a Judd Apatow movie any day. Did you know that he’s married to Leslie Mann, who plays the sister on Knocked Up and those are his two kids in that movie?”
    Mac raised her eyebrow. “How do you know this random shit?”
    “People magazine is kind of my guilty pleasure. I think I have last week’s issue somewhere in my bag if you want to read it.”
    She held her hand up. “No, I’m cool. I’m not really into all that celebrity gossip stuff.”
    I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
    Mac’s phone vibrated on the bed between us and she picked it up, probably happy to break our conversation. “Hey, Kiki. Okay. Yeah.”
    I listened to bits of her conversation with the mythical gatekeeper known as Kiki. The girl called her in the mornings, told her about a new job and Mac went running, but it was unusual for her to have a call this late in the day.
    “Okay, thanks Kiki. I’ll be there soon.” Mac hung up the phone, tossed it on the bed and stood up.
    “What was that about?” I asked.
    “Kiki has a new job for me, three to eleven doing the late shift at some high end clothing store. I guess they’re packed in the summer and need some extra help. It shouldn’t be too bad.”
    “That sounds cool.” I nodded.
    “I’m gonna take a quick shower, so if you have to pee do it now or forever hold your pee.” She sauntered into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
    I could have gone back to working, but Facebook stalking sounded a lot more fun. I only had a cheap ass flip phone, so I was stuck doing all my internet stuff on the computer. It didn’t make it any easier that we were using the free Wi-Fi out of the pizzeria, so the connection was always spotty.
    As soon as I logged on there was a message waiting for me.
    Congrats, Darcy!
    You’ve won two reader tickets to The Savannah Author Event in beautiful, Savannah, Georgia! Check in at the hotel on Friday and your VIP tickets will be waiting for you at the event registration table. Below I’ve included a link with all of the hotel information and the itinerary.
    Have a great day and see you in Savannah!
    “Eeeek!” I squealed. I’d entered the contest on one of the blogs I was following with no hopes of winning, but now that I’d won, I was uber stoked.
    I set my laptop down and ran to the bathroom, knocking loudly on the door. “Mac! Mac! I have great news!”
    “Did you win the lottery and we can get an apartment with a bigger shower?” she yelled.
    “No! But it’s still great news so open up.”
    “Ugh, fine.” Mac opened the door slowly. She stood there in just a towel with her wet hair falling around her shoulders. “This better be good.”
    “It is. We totally just won reader tickets to the Savannah Author Event for next weekend! Isn’t that awesome? We get to hang out with real authors.” I couldn’t contain my excitement. I was absolutely giddy.
    But Mac. Not so much.
    “Uh, I hate to burst your bubble but we can’t afford that and what the hell are we going to do with Heath?”
    That damn hedgehog. The thing was the bane of my existence. I thought of poisoning his