Page 54 of The Perfect Rom-Com

“Bryony. You wrote a book. About your grandmother and this organization. And that was sweet. Honorable to her legacy. But have you considered that this is just too big a burden for you to bear alone? That this is just impossible to accomplish without something, somebody, else?”

“Of course I have. But I have you. I’m not alone.”

Jack’s lips press together and he squeezes his eyes shut. Throws his head back with an inhale. A particular vein in his neck is pulsing quicker now.

I’m driving him crazy.

I know I do, I know.

I didn’t mean to make my voice wobble at the end like that. I didn’t want to give away the earnestness of how I feel about it all. In fact, I feel like I’ve been found in the streets wearing nothing but a sheet and it slips off, and there I am—naked. Completely vulnerable.

“Fine.”

I feel his hand on mine.

And with that word it’s like he’s handed me a coat. Tucked it around my shoulders with one single word. Fine.

“I’ll do what I can, Bryony.”

“Right away?”

“Right away,” he says, and slips his computer into his arms. “But please, do me a favor. Two.”

“What?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. Like I say every time, it’s not easy selling a book. Particularly a speculative, quasi–magical realism, quasi–women’s fiction, fifty-thousand-words-too-long one like yours. Even with you at the helm of this story.”

There is no way I’m not going to get my hopes up.

This is all I can do now.

Hope.

“And second?” I say.

And to this he points to my computer. “Go back and edit the manuscript.”

I’ve done that. Three thousand times. Two years ago.

I looked at those words so many times I probably have them memorized.

“How many people will you message?” I call after him. How many people does Jack Sterling know? How many contacts does he really have in the world of publishing? Dozens? Hundreds? “Will it be today?”

There’s a tightness in his jaw as he grimaces. It’s obvious, oh so obvious, he is doing this solely for my sake, not really because he believes in this.

He believes in me, I know. Just not the story.

What will this do to his own reputation? I wonder suddenly. Sending off for consideration a manuscript he doesn’t really believe in?

Because he doesn’t really. It was obvious during that first pitch session. He liked my eye for Amelia’s story. Not my own.

“I have to do something first.” He avoids a direct answer to my question, a direct ask for a worldwide outreach. “And then I’ll do what I can . . . today.”

“Jack!” Amelia calls. “I’m about to pitch these out the window if we can’t get this cleared out!”

He slips out of view and I open my laptop, feeling a breath of relief for the first time in ages.

My mouse slips over to hover on the folder for Water Under the Bridge. Something in me hesitates.