Today I am excited to share the release of Romancing the Author by Julieann Dove. This is the first book in the Cara series and includes fate dating & opposites attract. It’s a funny, low-heat romance that will leave you begging for the next installment. Check it out, grab your copy, and be sure to enter the giveaway!
Cara Shoemaker, divorced romance novelist, just received a text from her daughter that she was getting married…in two weeks. The wedding would be in California and her ex-husband and hottie girlfriend would be in attendance. As if that wasn’t enough reason to crawl underneath her bed and remain there, the text ended by saying she wanted her mom’s boyfriend there for the occasion, too.
Dalton McCormick, male Adonis, and everything her lousy ex-husband was not. Cara made up his existence so her daughter wouldn’t worry about her. For the last year, they had done everything Cara wanted…traveled to Italy, antiqued in sleepy towns, and woke up late on Sunday mornings. He was the perfect guy, on paper.
Cara’s best friend, Janey, arranged for an actor friend to accompany Cara to the wedding and check all the boxes that solidified them as the couple she described them as being. The only problem was when Dominick Balteros showed up, nothing about him resembled the nice guy, Dalton. In fact, Cara wondered if she and Dominick would even survive the plane trip to California. He was outspoken, laid back, devilishly charming, and had the ability to undo years of Cara’s demure composure. It was going to be a weekend no one expected or would soon forget.
Chapter One
Once Upon a Text
Jasper’s breath caught as he looked at Jeanne for what he knew would be the last time. Her wet lips were parted and by the rising of her breasts up and down, he figured she was receptive to a farewell roll on that bed they’d shared for the last week. But this time would be different. This time he’d make her cry out for more. He would take her to the point of no return and stop short of the crescendo moment. Stop short because tonight it would all end. And when she was lying there, gripping the sheet, he would look her in the eye and—
Cara drummed her fingers on the table and took a deep breath. Crescendo moment? A man stopping short? Not likely. “Grrr…” She stared at the screen through her twenty-dollar pharmacy glasses. It was one thing to write romance and quite another to write the semi-smut scenes. It would be easier for her to train cats how to swim. Luckily, when the story moved in the direction of a little bedroom action, Cara’s friend Janey stepped in with her expertise and wrote all the dirty details that still made Cara blush.
This would be one of those times. Her new book was due to her editor in two months. She’d outlined all the plot points, settings, and dialogue, but somehow she lacked in the tawdry areas. Perhaps it had something to do with all the sex she wasn’t having. Or hadn’t had in the what was it? Two years? Maybe more if she counted that last year of her marriage. But who was bitter and counting, anyway?
She picked up her phone and dialed Janey’s number. She glanced at the clock; it was 10:30. Too late to call, probably. She most likely was at the restaurant with her husband, Ross. Helping him close up. They were such a super couple. They got married about six months after Cara and Jim. Cara was actually the one who put them together. Ross was in her economics class in college and they discovered their shared hatred of economics when they got each other’s returned homework paper by accident. She was elated when her best friend and best guy friend struck up a relationship that kept both of them near and dear to her.
“I have five minutes till Ross comes looking for me. What’s up?” Janey said, after the phone stopped ringing on Cara’s end.
“Another word for crescendo moment,” Cara asked.
“As in…give me more. Are you writing musical scores now? That’s different.”
“Funny. As in, you’ve got to write this scene for me. I’m drowning over here. You know I don’t do bedroom scenes. And I’ve been forced to ever since you’ve started that new play. It’s not pretty.”
Janey worked on Off-Off-Broadway productions. She either wrote the scripts, directed, or did both. She was great at what she did, and Cara knew one day someone would discover her talents and give her a chance at something bigger. Maybe a place where she didn’t have to step in and help change stage props during the performance.
“We read off-script tonight, so we’re in the home stretch. I should have some free time soon.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying. My agent needs this finished.”
“So finish it. But what’s a crescendo moment?”
“Forget it. It’s the moment I stop writing tonight, I guess.”
“Cara, just google some hot, sexy scenes. They’ll give you inspiration.”
“No, they’ll give me pop-up ads for lingerie, Hims medicine for erectile dysfunction, and call-sex lines. No thank you. I’ll just wait patiently until you can haul your butt over here and empty your potty mouth into my computer keyboard. I don’t even want to know about what goes on with you
and Ross to get this inspiration to write this stuff.”
“Trust me, it’s all very G-rated.”
At this point in her humdrum life, G-rated sounded better than No Rating For This Yet. Which was what her life was: Not Rated Yet.
“Okay, okay. Go before Ross comes looking for you. And don’t forget to take off the hat this time.”
Janey smoked. Like a chimney. And Ross hated it. She said she quit like seven months ago. Again. But the patch, the gum, and the hypnotist only made her crave it more. She was going to try stopping again, once her new play was in wardrobe stage.
“Okay. Hey, I know what you can do while you wait for me.”
Cara’s ears perked. “What?”
“Get some stupid paint on those kitchen cabinets so we don’t have to eat on our laps the next time we come over.”
“Funny. I’ll get right on it.”
She hung up the phone, closed her computer, and stared at all the open shelves that once were hidden by doors. The same doors that were now stacked on the dining room table. And had been for the last six months. In Cara fashion, she watched a YouTube one night about giving life back to your kitchen. She figured considering there was little chance to get life back to her own, at least her kitchen deserved a second chance at it. So she bought all the supplies and got to the labor part right away with a drill she found in the garage. The first cabinet door took thirty minutes, but the rest took no time to finally have all of them down. By the time the paint, the sander, and the clear coat stuff that really made the difference arrived, Cara was sort of on to something else. Basket weaving.
Of course, the woman wearing one on her head giving the demonstration would make it look easy. Next to the table with all the doors was one enormous sized square of straw, sent from the farm of the woman’s family. One hundred dollars for a completed basket that would cost upward of six hundred if you bought it finished from her. But who would have any fun with a finished basket?
There was one upside to being abandoned, divorced, and seriously deprived of human contact—there was no one to judge her. A bale of hay, a fleet of doors, and who knew what next week would bring. And it didn’t matter. Cara was doing her thang. Like Stella, who finally got her groove back. This was like the prequel, when Stella was maybe in the phase where, like Cara, she took joy in ordering from Instacart. And waiting on the sofa to see him drive up, like it was a date showing up to take her out. Only to hand her a bag of Oreo cookies, milk, and cucumbers and run off the porch as if he were delivering parts of a bomb. The milk and cookies were selfexplanatory, somewhat of essential nutrients. The cucumbers were for the pesky water bags that collected under her eyes from drinking the milk probably. Her doctor was very vague about her lactose symptoms, so Cara took it to be a suggestive allergy. Until further tested.
She pushed her computer off her lap and grabbed for the remote on the ottoman. It was almost time for her beloved police dramas. Something that didn’t deal with romance, thwarted feelings, and insane desires. All of which her readers would be disenchanted to find out she had no intimate knowledge of. Except the thwarted feelings. She was certainly full of those. Seen her fair share throughout life. It stemmed from her mother. Actually, it was her dad who was thwarted. It must be a generational karma thing. Her mother thwarted her dad, and the daughter gets thwarted by the son-in-law. Yep, karma was definitely a dirty bird.
Before she was able to push the button on the remote, her phone dinged on the end table. She grabbed for it to make sure it wasn’t anyone in trouble. After all, it was almost 11:00. At her age, the only dinging that came this late hour was something likely to entail hospitalization or incarceration.
One swipe, and her daughter’s name and picture showed up. Cara’s face lit. It’d been a few days since they spoke. Exams were going on and although she wanted her daughter to do her best, she also wanted to chat about anything and everything with her. Brie was her only lifeline, other than Janey and Ross—and whoever drew the short straw at the Instacart group.
She grabbed the glasses she’d just set down and put them on to read what her darling girl wrote. Exams must be finished. Finally they could FaceTime again. Then, it was a strong possibility—if she didn’t get the intern job at the embassy—she would return home. Cara’s heart pounded with excitement over the possibility of having her girl stateside again.
Mom, I’m texting instead of calling because I want to give you time to process it. Ezra and I are getting married. He proposed and I said yes! His family talked us into doing the ceremony at their vineyard in California! They want to meet you and dad and realize this is a great way to do it. Don’t worry, they’re putting together all the arrangements and paying for everything. Can you believe it? I know I said I didn’t ever want to get married, well, you know…I’m still salty about yours and dad’s choice to divorce, but they’re soo nice. And Ezra pointed out that they’re still together, so we could end up like them. You’re going to love them. Ezra and I fly into Monterey next week, so the plan is to have it the following week. I know it’s short notice, but dad and Lulu said they can make it. I hope the same is true for you and Dalton. I know he’s a pilot, but hopefully he can get some time off. I wished I was able to meet him at Christmas. Tell him there’s no getting out of this one! I want to meet the guy who makes you happy. I love you Mom. I can’t wait to have my family and loved ones with me on my magical day!
I’ll call you tomorrow once this news has settled with you.
Cara waited until the last period to finally blink, but her jaw remained slack. Her eyes burned from re-reading each line. Then double-checking to see whether this in fact was from her daughter. The one she raised from wee-high. The one who pinky-promised her they’d always live together. No matter what. Or at the very least, have adjoining houses. The dormitory in England frowned upon Cara staying past five days after the parents’ weekend. And the roommates were beginning to complain to Brie that she snored. Which she emphatically denied.
It’d been a tough two years without her girl but Cara knew this was what Brie always dreamed of, and she wasn’t going to be the person to stand in her way. Like her own mother, who clearly stood in the way of all things Cara wanted. Stood tall…on stilts…with outstretched arms. Bodyblocking tons of things she wanted. But that wasn’t Cara. No, indeed. And it killed like a fresh knife wound every time she passed her daughter’s room on her way to bed.
Okay, again. Read it again, her mind instructed her brain. This time, she read it slower. Like, having just learned English-slow. Married? Was she kidding? Oh, she knew why this was text form and not a call form. Suddenly, she jumped up from the sofa and began to march around the room. Like a mad person. A stupid piece of straw jabbed her foot, and she went down like one of those inflatable things you bop and it immediately goes flat. Until it pops back up. Cara didn’t. She lay there, holding her foot, crying like a child. Her daughter was leaving her. She could barely face it.
What, was she crazy?
Cara stood up again. Damned her stinging foot and that basket-wearing woman who clearly couldn’t teach a monkey to find fleas. It wasn’t her fault those pieces of straw wouldn’t bend. And it wasn’t her fault that her mother got dementia and she had to be her caregiver. And it wasn’t her fault that her husband left her. And it wasn’t her fault… She stopped the marching band of things coming to her mind, trying best to console her soul, while her body was sending clots for her throbbing, wounded foot.
Maybe all of it was her fault. Okay, so not her mom. Clearly, she couldn’t pass dementia on to her mom like the flu or common cold. And who else would have cared for her? She was an only child, and her dad certainly couldn’t. Her mom stopped being his responsibility the moment she told him to eff-off. Turned out her strange mood swings through the years might’ve been contributed by the strokes that showed up in her CAT scans. There was a colony of them. Cara wondered how far back they went. Middle school when she picked out horrible clothes for her? High school when she demanded to go on every date with her? Probably not.
Obviously, Cara’s daughter was being coerced into writing this message. She scanned the words again. Could someone be putting her up to this? Already having her dad on board? She told him first? Cara folded over like a chair, grabbing her stomach most dramatically. Really, Brie? Or should she ask, et tu Brutus? Could the fact of her getting married be ever so gravely received, than to put it alongside of, “I told your nemesis and his childlike whore first. They will be there waiting to see you. And laugh because you still have no one.” She was going to be sick.
It wasn’t the good fortune of every dumped wife to have your cheating ex-husband to ride off with a YouTube rockstar, who flaunted their happiness across the internet. But Cara had hit the jackpot with Lulu. She cooked, danced, made twisting stupid little sticks into wreaths for centerpieces look easy. Try straw, Lulu. It’s not so easy. And then all the temptation to stalk them. And take pictures of the screen with her phone so she could magnify things she couldn’t discern with her little readers that she knew very well was not the strength they used to be.
Cara took a deep breath and dialed Janey again. Yeah, she knew hearing a ding this late hour was no good. And Janey would soon discover the same experience.
“Okay, woman. Seriously, I will promise—”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Lord, what is it?”
Cara read her the message. Word for word. And waited for the particles of the bomb to settle. Kind of like Brie’s instructions told her to let happen.
She did say let it settle, right?
“Oh. My. Gosh. You’re going to be a mother-in-law!” she screamed.
“That’s what you got from that?” “Yeah. Oh.”
It must’ve sunk in.
“Honey, you like Ezra. He’s such an amazing guy. You said so yourself when he was here for Christmas. He was a darling to Brie.” Janey had skin in the game, seeing as Brie was her godchild.
“That’s before he did this. Now he’s a big, fat jerk. A big, dumb jerk. Who thinks he’s going to just take away my girl. Take her away. Did you get that? I’ll never see her. What is she thinking? I mean, really. She’s not finished with college. We haven’t gone backpacking yet. You know she promised me she would.”
“Yes, and I’m sure she’ll have time for you later. She’s getting married, Cara. She’s not taking a shuttle to Mars and converting to alien.”
“Marriage means just that.”
“Honey, read that last part again.”
Cara took the phone away from her ear and found the text again. She repeated the last part. Then she tilted her head. Maybe the whole “I’m leaving you” part overshadowed the “I want to meet Dalton” part. Cara sighed.
Dalton, Dalton, Dalton. Her little fictitious, almost perfect boyfriend. Dark hair, dark eyes…bedroom eyes, actually. When she imagined him in her head and wrote about their frolicking to her daughter, she always imagined strong arms, chiseled jaw, and like a magic lamp that you could rub and get your wishes come true, he knew all the right things to get Cara through Brie’s education. His entire creation was based on necessity and suggestion from Janey.
Turned out a person can live through hell, wake up the next day, shower in gasoline, and have someone toss you some lit matches. At least that’s what Cara remembered about leaving her daughter in a foreign country for four years of college and returning home and having her husband ask for a divorce. She made the mistake of calling her daughter, like drunk dialing a friend, to cry about it. It was the dysfunctional relationship she had with her own mother, and dealing with the divorce of her parents. Brie returned home and refused to return to school until she knew her mother would be okay. Janey took full responsibility for the situation, made Cara wave goodbye to her daughter, and then worked on a plan to get everyone through it.
The whole ordeal of Jim leaving her was worse than anything she could ever conjure up in her author-ran mind. In the beginning, or as Cara affectionately referred to it, “moments after the hit-and-run” stage, Cara mostly spent her time balled up in a corner, refusing anything but chocolate and bottled water. Her self-wallowing eventually turned to hate, and she designed targets with Jim’s face on them. She laid them in the sink and spit her toothpaste on them. Then came the anger. All those years together and for what? This type of thinking led to her packing up his clothes, the ones he told his attorney to tell her attorney that he wanted back. The coveted football jerseys, some signed. She drove them to the homeless shelter and let the men take their pick. When she saw the guys panhandling at the intersections wearing them, she’d honk her horn and wave. She almost took a picture to send to her ex but felt it might incriminate her, so she kept that secret to herself.
Eventually, all her anger circled back to grief, and when it did, Janey came up with a solution to give Brie the feeling that her mom was safe, happy, and secure. Because Janey knew that one day she would be. Until that day, she needed something for Brie to know things were okay back home so she could focus on her education. That something became someone—Dalton, to be exact. A man who cooked, to let Brie know her mother was eating. A man who doted on Cara’s well-being…he even had a security system installed for when he wasn’t able to be there with her. Details were orchestrated to the smallest degree. Janey and Cara gave him an occupation of pilot, so he was never home when Brie came to visit. Life, or pretend life, was set and in motion.
“Oh my gosh, Dalton. She wants to meet Dalton.”
“It’s okay. How long have you two been dating again?”
“Um, like…” She tried to make calculations in her hysterical brain. It was like juggling cups of water. “Over a year?”
“You’ve done some great writing, I guess. I’d forgotten about that Italian hottie. Well, actually we did have him gone this past Christmas, right? Oh my gosh, do you remember I brought over Ross’s jacket so Brie
could find a man’s coat in the closet and not get suspicious?”
“Yeah. We’ve been quite good with keeping the little figment of our imagination living and breathing. I’m afraid it has come home to bite us now.”
“Just break up with him. Like, say it’s been over and you didn’t mention it because you didn’t want to talk about it. When did you last bring him up to her?”
She thought back on when it was. Oh, last weekend. Before her exams. “Dalton and I will be cheering you on from here, Brie! He’s such an amazing guy. You’d love him. Before I go, I just wanted to tell you we went antiquing last weekend and I found you that Strawberry Shortcake doll you lost when you were in the first grade. Can you believe it?”
It was actually an eBay auction she won and the seller mailed it from Nebraska. What could she say? Making up stories was in her DNA. And when her daughter ever sounded worried for her mother, Dalton would rear his head and assure her it was okay. Of course, when Brie graduated, Dalton would turn into dust. She wasn’t quite sure how he’d depart, but she’d make it easy. Maybe he’d drink water from another country and suffer a bacterial thing. Of course she’d be sad, but who could stop bacteria or argue it? It happens. To good people. To Dalton. And then she and Brie could travel the world. But then this.
“He’s alive and well, and I mention him a lot, unfortunately.”
“Well, hey. I know this is like the most monumental news, but Ross is now honking the horn. I’ve got to go spray myself with Pam cooking spray or something and get going out there. Come to the restaurant for lunch tomorrow, around noon. Don’t text her back until we talk. But this is good, honey. Ezra is a good guy. And it doesn’t mean you’re losing Brie. I promise. Now kisses and goodnight.”
She clicked off the phone, threw it on the sofa and got ready for the tears. Because she was like that. She’d let her thoughts keep her hostage and play out scenes of a Brie montage until there was no more tissues and scabs on her nostrils. One more thing in life that’d eluded her. Her mother, her lousy husband, her joy, and now her daughter. What was left to take?
Hold on a sec…did she really say salty about her mom and dad’s “choice” to divorce? Who had a choice? For that fact, who was able to see a bullet train barreling at you when you were blindfolded with little answers like “honey, really, I’m okay.” She asked Jim if everything was fine a lot when he failed to come home for dinner or elected to work Saturdays at his dental practice. As if having to go during the week wasn’t bad enough, but scheduling to have drills in your mouth on a Saturday was ever popular?
She walked her butt up to her room and picked up the picture of Brie from her nightstand. It was of her making a silly face at her sixth birthday party. She stroked the wooden edge and smiled. She hoped the fate of her daughter’s marriage didn’t bear any resemblance to her own. None of them tended to come with warning labels such as, “May contain years of loneliness, bickering, and second-guessing any or all of your life’s decisions about where to spend your vacation.”
She was sure their final family trip to Disney was the stake to the heart of her limping marriage. They waited until Brie was old enough to enjoy it. Sixteen was not the recommended year, by the way. She spent all her time avoiding family pictures, rolling her eyes when her mom whipped out the itinerary, and walking three feet from her parents. Jim blamed Cara for emptying their savings and making them wear color-coordinating outfits every day. Did anyone really keep score in the park?
Two things Cara felt certain about before Disney, and sixteen years before even then… Jim was her true love, and that she was nothing like her mom. Turned out she was wrong, on both accounts. True loves didn’t leave you standing in the pouring rain in front of the Disney castle, shouting “Are you happy now?” when their daughter screamed she wanted to go home. And if she thought about it long enough and stared into the mirror for longer than to get a brush through her hair, she could see how she was aging like her mom. Forget the slipups of sayings her mother used, like “It’ll all come out in the wash.” It was those dark circles that no makeup concealer could hide, and the fact she still bought baskets to organize things, even if it was a basket to hold her other ones.
Cara opened her drawer and got out the picture that never saw light after Jim left. It was the three of them at the pumpkin patch. A strange man wearing a large hat with a corn ear on it took it and charged ten dollars at the exit door for it. She looked closer at it. Jim’s arm was actually around Cara’s waist. Little Brie was between their legs, smiling for the camera.
It wasn’t a total nineteen years of disgust and misfortune. Cara and Jim’s marriage was blissful in the beginning. Sort of like a newborn baby: cooing, smiling, laughing, and making you want to celebrate everything. They were babes in love. Then came the terrible two’s, if you will: the unplanned pregnancy. Then the unforeseen care of her mother when she got Alzheimer’s and had to move in with them. Which naturally led to the rebellious teen era of their marriage of late nights at the office for Jim to avoid the home scene. And then, of course, that pesky affair of Jim’s rounded off everything before it came to a close. Now that they were all grown up, Cara was left alone, writing about the life she wanted and Jim was living it, according to the documented YouTube channel of his gorgeous girlfriend. How was it that the divorce rewarded him with fun and sexy Lulu, and she was rewarded with bitter resentment and a made-up man who was never going to materialize?
Cara leaned over and grabbed a miniature Hershey bar with nuts from the bedstand. She unwrapped it without guilt. Each crunch of the surprise nut made her eyes close with ecstasy. If only her readers knew when she was describing how the sultry neck of her protagonist tasted, she was crunching on a Symphony bar. Cara looked around her empty bedroom. The toile curtains against the perfect shade of white on the walls. The Renoir painting underneath the soft light of the little sconce above it. This was her sanctuary. The air conditioner turned on, and the sheer curtain began to sway. Now all she needed was Dalton—her imagined perfect man—exiting her bathroom, wearing a cotton towel around his waist, toothbrush hanging from his mouth, and grinning that way she knew she should’ve not just eaten that bar of candy.
Dominick glanced at the notification on his phone from his editor and winced. It was seven o’clock; he’d just been on a stakeout in the lot across from the Plaza for twelve hours, waiting to take a picture of the heiress, Rochelle Bancroft, to exit the hotel with bad boy Tommy Page. Dominick hadn’t slept, his stomach was still turbulent eating from the hot dog stand that he knew gave him food poisoning, and worst of all, he never got the picture or the confirmation they’d been together that night. Not even his snitch who worked on the inside could help him on this one. And it was his big break. The story that would take him from paparazzi to hopefully some type of reporting-in-front-of-the-camera action, although with this publication, the most promotion he’d get was writing articles. Which was better than this, but still not his dream job.
He turned the knob to his apartment door and pushed it with his arm. There seemed to be something blocking it. He pushed harder, stepped inside, and heard some faint noises coming from the bedroom. Nicole’s suitcase toppled over, making the five pairs of shoes that sat on top of it fall to the ground.
“Whoa,” he said, looking around at her belongings. “Babe, what’s going on?”
Nicole came from the room, carrying her cat. His fluffy white fur draped her shoulder like a scarf. He hissed at Dominick when he caught sight of him.
Dominick hissed back.
“Would you not?” Nicole asked, as though she were talking to a child.
She slid him into his pet carrier and turned to face Dominick. “This is not working, Dom.”
He stood there, looking at the warehouse of things blocking his entryway: small bags, larger bags, Tom-Tom the hated cat. And was that his new coffee maker?
“What are you doing? This is crazy.”
“Jason is going to be here to get me.”
“Jason? Jason Tremper? The man I can’t stand? Who steals leads from me? That we, both you and I, talk crap about? That Jason?”
Dominick, Nicole, and Jason worked for The 4-1-1, a celebrity tell-all venue. It consisted of Gerry Tolbert, the editor in chief, and thirty or so writers. The underlings, such as Dominick and Jason, had to earn their steps up the ladder to investigative writer. Nicole was already there. She dabbled in underlings every chance she got. Dominick, being new to The 4-1-1, hadn’t realized that yet. But he was getting his first look that night.
“Jason is moving up to writer. I can’t take all the nights alone, Dom. You’re never going to find anything meatier than Paula Abdul leaving her studio in a hooded jacket. Jason doesn’t have to stay out all night. And there’s parties. You know, where you don’t hide out in bushes. He’s been invited to the one at the Monticello. There’s going to be some notables there. I’ll probably get a lead.”
She stood there, all four foot eleven, frosted blonde hair, and caked makeup that his mother would never approve of. That was why he never took her to Queens to meet her. That, and he and Nicole had only been dating for about a month. On their third date, Nicole met him at the door with what looked like more than an overnight bag and something meowing in a crate. She said her roommate was trying to poison Tom-Tom. Now he could see why. Since then, most of the time he’d spent on stakeouts. One thing was for sure—he wouldn’t miss that jungle cat that knew only one octave.
“This isn’t cool, you know. Jason has had it out for me. He stole that story that got him into the writers’ room. You know that.”
“I know that you said that. But, Dom, you’re the one covered in leaves, and what is this?” She pulled something flat and brown from his sleeve. “I’ve got to go. We can still talk at work, you know. I had fun. This was fun.”
“Yeah, it was something.” He opened the door, and she looked like she was waiting for him to actually help her. He bent over and heard Jason’s footsteps getting nearer. He stopped and backed up while the two gathered all they could and nodded in his direction before leaving the scene.
Dominick shut the door, kicked off his shoes he’d been wearing for a day and a half, and fell into the couch. He leaned forward to grab something he’d sat on. It was a cat toy. He flung it across the room and stared at the wall. It wasn’t as though what he was feeling was heartbreak. He knew Nicole’s type: use ’em and lose ’em. He knew it because he spoke the same language. Although he was usually the one packing up the bag to make a clean getaway.
He wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, he did trip and fall in love. His speedbump was named Elizabeth. And the injury he incurred from it forced him to write a new set of rules for the playbook of love. He’d set expectations to never level up from the mentality of disposable flings. That way he’d never get hurt again. Every now and then, the wounds from that one would act up and bring back sad memories. Kind of like a trick knee injury when the weather changed.
He pulled his buzzing phone from his pocket.
Meet me at Freddy’s tomorrow. Eleven thirty sharp.
It was from Gerry, his editor. Had he heard about Nicole already? He warned Dominick not to get involved with her. But that’s the thing; he didn’t. She moved in on his life like a looming hurricane, making its way to the land of all the new employees. Hurricane Nicole had littered his sink with makeup, cotton balls, and left her underwear on the side of the tub. One morning, she moaned from the bed for him to take her stuff to the laundry with his—she was running low on sweatpants. He didn’t get her; she always dressed as though she were coming or going to work out, but he’d yet to see her do more than lift her wine glass at night and ask for refills.
She did come with her bouts of destruction, but he had to admit, it was nice having somebody in the place. Even if she turned out to be more like an annoying sister than a lover. In fact, they didn’t sleep together one time. He was always gone or she was always passed out from wine when he did get home. In the scheme of things, it had to end like this. Although the added bonus of Jason one-upping him to the writers’ room actually hurt more than Nicole bailing on him.
Julieann Dove takes great pleasure in writing about love and all the mess that goes along with it. How else does happily ever after become realized, if not for some type of hardship and journey? When she’s not writing, she loves playing with fabric at her sewing machine, baking new recipes, and playing in the dirt, trying to get things to grow. Julieann loves old movies, and never tires of listening to music—it’s where she finds most of her inspiration for her books.
