Julien's Book (2 page)

The night was a success. Shea didn't write a single thing down, but she gained a ton of insight into his job as a coach, his aspirations as a fighter, and life with a
Port-wine stain. Julien Breaux sat across the table from her and answered all of her questions with a level of humility and intelligence that, quite honestly, surprised her a little. She wasn't quite sure what she expected from a 23-year-old fighter, but it wasn't that.

Chapter 2

The writer and her family loved their MMA gym, and all of them participated in classes. She continued to show up to Julien's kickboxing class as she began composing the story of how the character Julien found love. The character in the book was shaping up to be somewhat different than the real guy, but Shea figured that was unavoidable since she'd only known the real Julien for a short time. She changed many of his details, including the color of his eyes. The real Julien had blue eyes. They were gorgeous, and she was sad she couldn't use them, but the very last book she'd written featured a hero with blue eyes, and she knew she couldn't get away with writing about two blue-eyed heros in a row.

She approached him after kickboxing class one day and reminded him that she'd be using a good bit of real detail
s about him, but also changing a lot. He assured her he didn't care what she wrote, and was just happy he could serve as inspiration in any capacity. She said she was going to change his blue eyes to brown, and he said that was fine and she could make up whatever she wanted. He started to walk off, but turned back toward the writer rubbing the top of his head. "I get to keep my mohawk, though, don't I?" he asked in his deep voice.

She smiled.
"Of course you do," she said. "It's gonna be on the cover, remember?"

****

Weeks passed.

Shea continued to go to class at the gym, but didn't talk to Julien about the book other than to ask him the occasional question if
there was a real detail she wanted to use.

The cover was shot, and Shea wrote
at a breakneck pace. The story seemed to come to her so quickly and naturally that, at times, she felt like she couldn't type fast enough.

She decided to set the story
in a small town in south Louisiana, just like the place where they all really lived. In fact, the whole set-up couldn't have been more perfect for a romance. They lived in a really cool, small-ish college town, steeped in Cajun tradition. It was like a mini New Orleans, and she couldn't imagine a better place to set Julien's love story.

She
a named his love interest Nadine. It was a French name, which was the only qualifying factor, but she also just liked the way it flowed. She looked at a list of French girl names, and knew as soon as she laid eyes on Nadine that was the one.

Nadine's character was born one day when Shea was drinking
a cup of coffee. She was staring blankly at her favorite coffee mug when Nadine's character fell into her mind and made herself at home there as if that's where she belonged. Shea
knew
Nadine instantly, and knowing a character was something that usually took hours and hours of brainstorming. Nadine and all her details took root in Shea's mind like no other character ever had.

So, Shea was basically dealing with a heroine that came to her
instantly over a cup of coffee, and a real guy. The book basically wrote itself. She just had to put her fingers to the keyboard and the words flowed without much thinking at all on Shea's part. Her husband was sympathetic to her need to get the story out, so he made tremendous effort to help with the kids while she holed up in her office for hours and hours at a time.

Shea truly loved writing, but nothing she'd ever done was quite like this. Julien and Nadine's story came so naturally to her that she felt like she had no other option
but
to write it.

Shea had been in the
office for three hours one evening before she came out to get something to snack on.

"How's it going in there?" Chris asked.
The kids were long-since in bed, and he was watching a documentary on Netflix. He paused it as Shea came into the living room.

"It's good.
I really need to figure out what I'm going to write about his status as a fighter, and I still can't decide how much experience I want to give him. Part of me wants to make him a big, hot-shot local fighter who's on the verge of getting called up to the UFC, but there's also part of me that wants to tell the truth."

"What? That he's only had two amateur fights?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"There's nothing wrong with that. Besides, he knocked his last opponent out with a kick to the head. That's rockstar. You can't make that stuff up."

"I know.
I'm leaning towards just telling the truth too. I just sort of thought I should embellish a little bit."

Chris shrugged. "If you make it like it is in real life, you could do a joke where he's talking to some of the guys at the gym and he says
'undefeated, baby,'
and they say
'you're 1 and 0,'
and he says
'still. undefeated.'
"

Shea laughed, thinking she could imagine the guys at the gym saying something like that.
She liked the undefeated joke, and she liked the idea of using real details about him, but she ultimately decided to make Julien's character a more experienced fighter. She wanted to have a make-or-break fight somewhere in the story, and it was just a more believable scenario with an experienced, pro fighter.

Nadine was from France and her character spoke with a French accent (although, Shea didn't
write her parts to be phonetically French). She had dark hair with green eyes, and was a teacher at the French immersion elementary school. There happened to be a French immersion school in the town where they lived, and Shea thought it'd be logical choice for Nadine. Her job as a teacher, along with most of her other details, was part of that cup of coffee revelation Shea had experienced.

As with all of Shea's
novels, Julien's Book told the story of how they met and fell in love. Shea figured the women's kickboxing class would be the perfect place for Julien to find love, so that's the place where she introduced him to Nadine. That was an obvious choice since she could easily imagine him falling in love with one of his students.

Shea wrote about how Nadine had been caught in the crosshairs during an altercation at a bar, and it scared her. She never wanted to feel defenseless like she did when that guy grabbed her, thinking she was someone else. She sought out
a Jiu Jitsu class as a means of learning a little self-defense. She had family in France, but was alone in the U.S., and wanted to feel safe in her own skin. It was totally believable and Shea thought the readers would like a heroine who wanted to protect herself and learn how to kick a little ass.

It took Shea
Miller two months to write Julien's love story, and by the time she finished, she was convinced it was one of those things that was just meant to be. Nothing she'd ever written had come to her so naturally. It was as if the story had already happened and she was just recounting facts. Naming the book came easy as well. She did the only thing that made sense and called it Julien's Book, since that's exactly what it was.

In
the book, Julien and Nadine shared instant chemistry. They experienced a whirlwind romance, but when Nadine's psycho ex-boyfriend reentered the picture, they were blindsided by tragedy. As a result of the tragedy, they spent five years apart, but were ultimately reunited for the happy ending.

The last chapter of the book was like
an emotional, romance novel version of Rocky. Julien, whose professional fight record was 10 and 2, was in the middle of the biggest fight of his life. He was losing, and almost completely out of gas in the cage when he got the news that Nadine was okay. The news inspired him to come from behind and win the fight. The climax and conclusion of Julien's Book was an intense, tear-jerking love fest that Shea thought was worthy of the big screen. She was thrilled with the how the story unfolded.

Julien's Book
released in the spring, and by the end of the summer, she'd sold more copies of that book than all her other works combined. She did an interview with a major book blog when it first released, and somehow during the questioning, she revealed that the character Julien was inspired by a real guy. She didn't know when she did that interview that the book would explode. If she'd known that, she might have thought twice about revealing that piece of information.

Julien's Book
was one of the biggest romances of the year, and the news of Julien's character being inspired by a real guy spread. The women's kickboxing classes, which normally contained about twelve women max, had twenty plus women in every class. (Keep in mind this outpouring was in small-town Louisiana.) Shea was actually relieved that they didn't live in a huge city because she was afraid Julien would be eaten alive by all his young lady fans. As it stood, women's kickboxing class was overrun with a bunch of giggly, flirty girls. Other than that, life didn't change much for Shea or Julien.

****

It took about eight months for the women's kickboxing classes to dwindle back down to their normal size of ten or twelve. Once all of the eager ladies got the picture that Julien was only interested in them professionally, they decided kickboxing was too hard to continue. Shea and her family continued going to the gym, and she marveled that whatever level of recognition Julien had received from the book didn't affect him in the least. He just kept right on training, fighting, and coaching as if he'd never inspired a beloved character. Not a single thing changed about him.

Something else
that took Shea by surprise was the fact that Julien didn't date. He hadn't had a girlfriend since she'd been there, which was almost a year, and everyone at the gym said he never dated anyone long-term.

She
a was at the gym one Monday night, watching her boys' class while wrapping her hands for kickboxing when Julien came up to the side of the bleachers wearing his characteristic easy smile. "Those boys are looking good out there," he said, pointing at the mat.

Shea glanced up at him long enough to see
who he was talking about then refocused her attention on wrapping her hands. "Aw, thanks," she said. "They enjoy it, that's for sure. We all do." She clapped her palms together and then turned to square up towards Julien as if she were ready to throw some punches.

Julien laughed. "Chris told me you were taking a fight."

The statement made Shea giggle. "He's been saying that since I started doing this class. He just likes to tease me because I have so much fun striking. Plus, I do a bunch of smack talking and walk around the house all buck after every class."

"You get buck and
start talking smack after kickboxing?" Julien had a fist to his mouth, with a big smile.

"Well yeah. Who wouldn't? We do spinning elbows and flying knees. It's impossible
not
to get buck."

Julien just smiled and shook his head. At that very moment, one of the other instructors, a blonde guy named Christian
, came up from behind Julien. Shea saw him approach before Julien did and she leaned over Julien's shoulder to give Christian a hi-five.

"Sup," Shea said with a lift of the chin. She liked to act gangsta sometimes, and
didn't care in the least that she was a little, white soccer mom.

Christian smiled, returning the gangsta smirk. He reached out and punched Julien's ribs, which made
Julien put out a hand to block.

"We got a call from a girl looking for Julien St. James today," Christian said. "It's been a while since one of them called looking for Julien St. James. Most of them at least know your real last name."

"What'd you tell her?" Julien asked.

"I told her class started at five thirty, and you'd be wearing stretchy pants."

Julien scowled and faked a punch in Christian's direction, but knew he was just joking. "Is she seriously coming to class? Is she local?" Julien asked.

Christian shrugged and smiled. "It sounded like she was going to be here." He walked around the front of the bleachers toward the storage closet on the opposite wall. "Have fun at class Coach St. James," he said from over his shoulder.

Julien rolled his eyes. That simple gesture made Shea worry for a second.

"Do you get tired of the attention?" she asked.
"Does it make you feel weird to know that one of the students in there tonight will want your body?"

Julien
gave her a reassuring smile. "It's really not that much attention—and no, I don't mind knowing that… especially if she's cute."

She
a had heard him make comments like this in the past, but had never seen or heard about him with a girl, besides how he was spotted making out on the dance floor a time or two when some of the gym people had all gone out together. Shea asked personal questions all the time. But for some reason she'd never felt comfortable asking Julien why he never had a girlfriend.

All that was about to change. Shea used Julien's com
ment as a way to bring it up. "What do you mean,
if she's cute
? You've had cute girls showing up in droves for months and none of them make it past the first few classes."

Julien just smiled and shrugged in that mysterious way only he could.
Shea didn't budge. She just stared at him, waiting for an answer.

"Nobody's
been right," he said. He shrugged again, but this time it was as if he were a little embarrassed. "I'm not going to waste time, energy, or money if it's not the right girl, and so far I haven't met her."