Page 252 of The Hopelessly Bromantic Duet

His bluntness officially pops my bubble of avoidance.

“Don’t remind me,” I sigh as I toss a blue Henley into my backpack.

“Someone has to.”

“No. No one has to. Literally, no one. I’m well aware of how I feel. But that’s okay,” I say, keeping calm. “It’s fine. It’s all for the best that we’re not a thing.”

With anI-don’t-buy-itexpression on his face, TJ stops and parks himself on a bench along the cobbled sidewalk. A faint dusting of snow covers the ground from a storm a few days ago that dumped a few inches on the slopes. He adopts a serious expression. “O, I’m going to level with you for a minute.”

“Okay,” I say tentatively.

“Have you ever considered just telling River how you feel?”

My gut twists. “That I’ve thought about having sex with him a bajillion times?”

TJ scoffs, shaking his head. “No. I’mnotactually talking about sex this time.”

TJ and I have been friends since I started working in sports marketing. His twin brother, Chance, is the star closer for the San Francisco Cougars, and even though I work for the other team in the city, I met TJ at a sports award event and we grew close over the years. TJ and Chance are an interesting study in contrasts—one is straight, one is gay, one plays professional baseball, the other is a best-selling romance writer. They both totally support each other, and they also rib and trash-talk each other till the cows, horses, and sheep come home.

Sort of like my sister, Grace, and me.

Family—gotta love ’em.

“Then what are you talking about?” I ask.

“I’m talking aboutwhyyou want to have sex with him. You’re into the guy, and you have been for years,” he says, plain and simple.

And too on the mark.

I groan, sagging my shoulders, slumping down on the edge of my bed. “Why do I pour out my pathetic heart to a romance novelist?”

TJ laughs. “Pretty sure we’ve both served up our war stories.”

The last time I was in New York, TJ and I grabbed drinks at a hip spot in Chelsea, where he unspooled the tale of the painfulcrash and burn of his one-time epic romance, then I attempted to one-up him with the story of Ezra’s let-me-take-you-on-a-trip-and-dump-you strategy. After another Tom Collins or three, I moved on from Ezra, and walked straight into a confessional booth. I’m not Catholic, but it was like talking to a priest as I served up the contents of my unrequited heart.

“If memory serves, not only did you tell me all about your pact, you called him a chocolate bar you can’t get enough of,andsaid he makes you giddy like a glass of champagne,” TJ adds.

Dropping my head in my hands, I groan, wishing I had a better handle on my runaway emotions. “Fine. I’m into him. But it’s a moot point.”

TJ arches a brow. “Or is it?”

I raise my face. I bet I look miserable. I feel that way. “River doesn’t think the sex gamble is worth it.”

TJ huffs. “It’s not about sex. Stop thinking about sex. I keep telling you that.”

But it’s easier to laser in on the bedroom stuff. The other stuff involves emotions. Those scary creatures are harder to manage than Goldilocks’s eating habits. “Did you, King of the Scorching Hot Sex Scenes, actually tell menotto think about sex?”

He nods exaggeratedly. “Yes. Because I’m going to let you in on a little secret.” He beckons me to inch closer to the screen, and I oblige. Then TJ whispers, “Even the sex scenes in romance novels aren’t really about sex.”

“What are they about?”

“They’realwaysabout something else. Power, connection, intimacy, desire, trust,” he says. “Or they’re about taking a chance. Opening your heart. Showing another person what’s in it.”

Yup. Way more terrifying than fueling a picky feline.

“What I’m saying is,” TJ continues, “this thing you have for River is about so much more than fucking, so stop thinking this is a sex gamble. It’s a heart gamble.”

I can see his point, yet it comes with the possibility of risking a friendship. Of hurting a heart. Of getting one broken.

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