Quick Sketch of Betta Fish by talented Micheal Doyle Designs! Thoughts?

Synopsis

Charlie Gold’s on a ledge, beneath him an ultimatum from his girlfriend, behind him a last ditch attempt to publish Shoreline. Should he quit his job at City Reads and cave into the cravings of the corporate world? Rings are expensive, after all. When Kat’s manuscript gets delivered to his writing group by a hooded man, the dilemma takes an entirely different turn. It’s an odd move by the only successful author in the group and it doesn’t take Charlie long to realize that Kat is in trouble, and so is he – She’s the only one that can prevent him from making the biggest mistake of his life. He has to find her, first, and all he has to go on is her script and their hidden past.

Excerpt

Charlie let gravity pull him down the long flight of stairs and out onto the street. Just past the corner grocer, he found the right square of air to stop and pull where his hair used to be. Stitches tried to help, he knew that, but it didn’t mean he wanted it. Any of it. Advice on Claire was one thing, but the topic of his mother was something completely different. Stitches knew the story, at least most of it. Enough to know why galaxies grew between Charlie and his mother.

“He knows why she should forgive me first,” said Charlie.

“Excuse me?” asked a traffic cop. She ripped off a ticket from a gadget strapped to the back of a slender hand. Her finger nails were painted black to match the ropes of hair she had pulled up into her hat. With a pointy nose, perfect skin, and inviting lips, Charlie wondered how she ever ended up in the parking ticket business.

“Talking to myself, I guess,” he said. Her smile was too kind for the line of work, the lack of lines beneath her dark green eyes too forgiving for what came with it.

“No crime in that, but you weren’t talking, you were screaming. And when someone screams, it’s usually at someone other than themselves. Take it from me, I get screamed at all the time.”