Page 43 of One-Star Romance

When Jeff stopped talking, Rob realized he had no idea what the man had been saying for the past thirty seconds and thus had no idea how to respond.

Luckily, Natalie jumped in. “Well, maybe we should go see if—”

“Wait,” Zuri said, “but what do you do?” Zuri often took it upon herself to make sure that men didn’t dominate career conversations while their overlooked girlfriends stood silently by. In normal circumstances, Rob appreciated this. Right now, though, he wished Zuri had let Natalie make her excuses and go to a different corner of the church. Perhaps even another church entirely if she so desired.

Natalie’s mouth tightened, as if she were suppressing a sigh. “Currently my main job is as an office manager for a start-up.” Her eyes darted to Rob, then away. What had happened to her writing? Had she chucked it entirely? Rob hoped…he didn’t know what he hoped. He shouldn’t particularly care. He didn’t. You wanted people to achieve their dreams, though. He opened his mouth to ask, then caught himself, trying to keep his face neutral.

“Oh? And what does that involve?” Zuri asked.

“Fascinating stuff like keeping the fridge stocked. Making sure we don’t run out of pens.”

“Pens are important,” Rob said.

“Are they?” Natalie asked. “Does anyone use pens anymore?”

“I use them all the time,” Rob said.

“It’s true,” Zuri said. “I’m always finding them around the apartment in the oddest places.”

“You two live together?” Natalie asked, an almost indiscernible waver in her voice, and Rob nodded.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Jeff said to her, then turned to Rob and Zuri. “She also does some amazing freelance writing projects on the side.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Natalie tucked her hair behind her ears. “Anyways—”

“Anyone reading any good books lately?” Jeff asked, seeming to get that Natalie wanted to change the subject. “I, for one, have been loving the new memoir by Tyler Yeo.”

Rob let out a half snort. Zuri put a hand on his arm. “Robert read that on the plane ride over.”

“I wouldn’t have taken you for the target demographic,” Natalie said.

“Well, it was front and center at the airport bookstore, and I’d forgotten to pack a novel.” Forgetting a book was out of character for Rob nowadays, but he’d been focused on making sure he had more important things safely tucked away in his suitcase. At the airport, he’d wanted something engaging and not too complicated, and Yeo, It’s Tyler! had seemed like it would do.

Tyler Yeo had been the lead in a comedic action franchise back in the early aughts, about a guy who discovers a portal in his college library. Angus and Rob had gone to see the second one at midnight, along with teenagers across the nation. Tyler hadn’t exactly been an amazing actor. He’d been good-natured, serviceable, bolstered by the more interesting performances around him. (And honestly, the idea of him spending time in the college library was…well, let’s just say he didn’t have much going on behind the eyes.) The third installment had never happened, amid rumors of on-set drama, and Tyler’s follow-up projects hadn’t done well. This memoir had been marketed as a nostalgia trip, perhaps offering some behind-the-scenes secrets as to why The Portal Makers had really fallen apart.

“How many stars would you give it?” Natalie’s tone was dry. Teasing him? Goading him? Zuri and Jeff smiled politely, oblivious.

Rob straightened his shoulders. “Two and a half. On a sentence level, it was well written. But overall, a disappointment, obviously written more to set himself up for a comeback than because he had anything insightful to say.” He turned to Jeff, whose smile was sagging. “No offense if you’re enjoying it.” He turned back to Natalie, unable to stop himself, for some reason, from bashing Jeff’s apparent new favorite book. Natalie listened with a calm expression, one eyebrow slightly raised. “But he was so determined not to offend anyone in the industry who might give him a job that he caveated himself into banality. Where were the interesting stories? The stakes? It was just, ‘Oh, this person was awesome on set, and I liked this one too,’ and on and on until I nearly fell asleep.”

Silence stretched out between them all for a moment as Rob concluded his rant. Jeff’s mouth hung open. Perhaps Rob had gone a bit too far in insulting his book recommendation.

Natalie cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, “I tried. Tyler didn’t give me much to work with.”

Rob’s stomach fell onto the floor. “No. You…?”

Natalie turned to Zuri, her expression still mild. “One of my freelance writing gigs was ghostwriting.”

“Oh,” Zuri said. She opened her mouth, then shut it again, at a loss for words.

“As I said,” Rob began, feeling inexplicably terrible, “on a sentence level, it was well written.” Zuri elbowed him. “But I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Natalie said.

“I think it’s a fantastic book,” Jeff said. “And Nat worked so hard on it.” For just a moment, displeasure flickered in Natalie’s eyes, her mouth turning down, before she returned to neutrality. No one besides Rob seemed to register it. To notice, one had to have been looking closely at Natalie’s lips and eyes. Why was Rob looking so closely at Natalie’s lips and eyes?

“She beat out a ton of other writers for the opportunity,” Jeff went on.

“Thanks, love.” Natalie kissed him on the cheek. Jeff gazed back at her in adoration. “But, hey, I’m not precious about this one. It was a job, not a passion project. And most readers seem to be enjoying it just fine. Not everyone has Rob’s exacting standards.”

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