Page 128 of One Touch

I glanced over to see Jack looking straight at us, that shit-eating grin back on his face.

“Yeah. She’s been so excited for this.”

Her brow furrowed. “Listen, can we talk?”

I tensed, my throat tightening. “Uh, now’s not really a good time, Lils,” I muttered. I could feel panic rising in me.

She bit her lip, her freckled face creasing with concern. “It’s just . . . I’ve been thinking about last night. I think we should—”

“Look,” I cut her off, harsher than I intended. “It was a mistake, okay? We were drunk. Let’s just forget it happened.”

Lily’s eyes widened, hurt flashing across her face. “A mistake? But you said—”

“I say a lot of things when I’m drunk,” I snapped, immediately regretting my words. I sighed. “I’m sorry, Lily. I just . . . can’t do this right now.”

Without waiting for her response, I turned and strode away. I needed to get out of here. Far, Far away.

I needed to find my way back to a place of rules and stability. A place where Ava and I were standing on solid ground. A place where Lily Lane was living her best life, in New York, in the arms of a younger man, or a rock star, or a book boyfriend, or wherever she wanted to be.

Chapter 21

Lily

There had been countlesstimes in my life when I’d sat back, sighed, and thought to myself, “If only my life were a romance novel.”

Right now, though, as I slumped over my desk in the back room of Happy Ever Affogato, I found myself wishing for something else.

“If only my life were a horror novel.”

The trouble with romance novels was that they were complicated. Even the ones with the sweetest set-ups had that difficult stuff in the middle. Tricksy stuff. Third-act breakups. Dark nights of the soul. Heroines and heroes with big decisions to make. Emotional wounds to heal. You had to watch them really go through the wringer before they found their way back to happiness. And often, happiness looked nothing like they imagined it would at the start.

Horror novels, on the other hand, were simple.

There’s a bad guy? Run away.

There’s a ghost? Exorcize it.

There’s a vampire? Okay, with a vampire, you might actually want to have sex with him because vampires were kinda hot. And werewolves, actually. Ever since Ethan told me he was a werewolf, I’ve had a thing for them, too. Come to think of it, a lot of monsters were in fact extremely sexy.

But normally, in horror stories, monsters just ended up killing you. And the good thing about that was at least you could predict it. Which meant that to save yourself a ton of heartache, you knew you just needed to run away from the start.

“Focus!” I chided myself. I wasn’t meant to be thinking about romance or whether to kiss, marry, or kill vampires.

I was meant to be preparing for my imminent interview with Coco Brookes from Brookes Books, one of New York’s most prestigious—and nepotistic—literary agencies, for the position of Head of Horror.

I’d devoured a stack of horror novels by now, dissecting trends in the genre like a mad scientist. What makes a good horror novel tick? The structure, the tropes, the characters—I’d pieced together a basic understanding, but deep down, I felt like a romance writer treading water in a sea of blood and gore.

I took another swig of coffee, grimacing. In my rush this morning, I’d brewed a watery excuse for an Americano. No time for a do-over, though. The bitter taste lingered on my tongue, matching my mood.

The store stood empty, thankfully. A romance bookshop owner hunched over The Curse of the Brain-Eating Zombie wasn’t exactly on-brand.

My eyes ping-ponged between the pages and the wall clock. I tried to focus on the author’s masterful description of brains being gobbled up—the horrific squelching noises practically echoing in my ears. But my mind kept drifting, like a distracted zombie searching for its next meal.

Ethan.

The wedding.

Ethan.

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