And I've caught myself really liking how I wrote them. The way I phrased things and, in my mind, made the dialogue like something two or three people would actually be saying.
I was especially pleased with a conversation between Devlin and his sister in law, Diana, in Underground Guy. When she tells him how she met his brother. Devlin knew the basics; she gives him the full story...and I think it's very well done.
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After another minute of watching me and sipping her tea and nibbling at her food she said, “Dev, you know how Colin and I met, right?”
I had to nod. “He ... he got lost and you ... uh, you found him. Brought him home.”
“You know where I found him?”
I shrugged a yes.
She smiled. “I always thought it interesting you never said anything.”
I sighed and glanced at her, my mind beginning to focus. “I didn’t need to.”
Her smile widened. “Y’know, the only reason I approached him was I’d heard my usual connection got busted and that I should assume the new guy’s a cop. So when I saw Colin — no way did he belong in that neighborhood. Fuckin’ rookie, was my first thought so I went over to play. Be a real bitch. But he looked at me with those lost dark lovely eyes and the first words he said were, Oh my God, you’re so beautiful.”
She sighed. “I wasn’t. I was at the tail of a party weekend. But his attitude ... his whole manner ... it was so simple and straight and honest and sweet ... I fell apart. Sobbed. He said he was sorry and gave me a handkerchief. Cheap white cotton. Buy ‘em by the half-dozen. I still have it. Wouldn’t part with it for anything.”
I turned to her. “You’re good for him. For both of us.”
“Thank you for that.” She smiled and pulled out a tissue to dab her eyes. “It took me ten minutes to find out he’d met with a client and parked his car in a cheap lot to save a few bucks, but couldn’t remember which one and was close to falling apart. I offered to call someone but he panicked and said you were at school and your father off on business and no one could know how he’d screwed up. So we went to every lot I knew — and found it at the fifth one. By that point, he was shaking so badly he couldn’t drive so I got behind the wheel. And I stayed. And we have three beautiful perfect sons.”
Then she looked straight at me to add with a near growl, “And I will never, never, never let anyone — anyone at all — hurt him or them. So if you don’t give me the complete and absolute truth, I’m here to have fun at a baby shower for an old friend, and then back to New York.”
Where they would build walls to protect the business and I would be fucked.
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