Page 27 of Bonfire and Bliss Bookstore

Somehow I’d managed to play it off like I was completely calm. Like I’d just been making a point. I know how to hit on a woman. I know how to leave a reader wanting. I could write fucking romance if I wanted to write romance.

Which I don’t, for the record.

But if I wanted to, I most certainly could.

Instead of proving that point to her, though, I have given myself something else to obsess over.

How to describe what it would have been like to kiss her. How to put into words the way I felt with her pulse thrumming beneath my fingers. How with just a brush of my lips against hers I’m hooked. If she said yes to this fake dating thing, we’d have to kiss, right? Then I’d know exactly how she tastes.

Fuck.

I’m supposed to be writing a book, not fantasizing about the girl I’ve wanted to kiss since I was seventeen.

It turns out, however, that repeatedly clicking the top of a pen does not magically help ink to flow onto the page. Leaving my life in the city to seek out a change in scenery doesn’t seem to be doing anything for my creativity.

Maybe Penny is right. Maybe I don’t know how to write a fucking book.

As if she can hear my internal musings, my phone lights up with a call from my mother.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, honey, how’s it going?”

I push back from the table and stand, pacing the length of the kitchen. After having breakfast with Vovo, I stayed to work here. The view from this spot of our long lawn leading out to the harbor felt like the perfect calming space to write.

But it’s been two hours and all I have are some adjectives down on the page and a semblance of an outline for a story I can’t quite bring myself to start.

I blow out a breath. “I can’t write.”

“You can,” she replies quickly. “You’re just putting too much pressure on yourself. Remember, Jake, you need to experience some real life in addition to writing about it. Maybe the best thing for you is to go outside and live.”

I chuckle. “That’s your big agent advice?”

“That’s my mom advice. It’s not time for you to talk to your agent yet. You don’t even have a book to pitch.”

“Mom!”

We both laugh and the tension in my chest loosens a little.

“How is Hope Harbor? Have you been by Tally Darling’s new bakery? I heard it’s fabulous. Oh, and how’s Penny? What’s her bookstore like? I bet she could help you with plotting. That girl was always nose-deep in a book.”

“Mom, take a breath,” I tease. “I haven’t been by the bakery but I’ll make sure to check it out and let you know. As for the bookstore”—I smile—“it’s just as charming as you’d imagine. You’d love it.”

“Oh, I’m sure I would. And what about Penny? How is she?”

“She seems good,” I tell her. What I don’t tell her is how delicious she smells, or how soft her lips looked last night. And I definitely don’t tell her how the only thing I’ve been able to think about is how much I wanted to kiss her. I must have written that scene at least ten times in my head since dropping her off last night.

I can imagine every sensation—how her breath would have hitched right before our lips touched, how she’d have tasted of crisp apples with a hint of orange. But what I don’t know is how she would have responded. Would she have whimpered in surprise against my lips? Would her tongue have tangled with mine? Would she have fisted my shirt and tugged me closer? Perhaps wrapped a hand around my neck and pulled at my hair?

“Well, please let her know I said hello,” my mother continues, dragging me from my thoughts.

“Will do,” I choke out in response.

“All right, honey. I’ve got to run. But take care and remember what I said. Go get some fresh air. Live a little.”

“Okay, Mom, I will.”

I hang up and am still smiling when I turn around to find my father standing in the entrance to the kitchen.