Page 74 of How to Write a Rom-Com

“Hey, Max!” I smile as he puts the box he was carrying down and makes his way over to us. The rest of my traveling Motley Crew are still making their way into the restaurant.

“It’s so nice to see you. What are you doing here?” Max asks, giving me an awkward hug.

I exhale, feeling like I’m admitting to a crime. “I’m looking for Liam,” I say with a hesitant smile. I see in Max’s eyes that he’s curious about the backstory behind my statement, but I really don’t want to go through it all right now. After a moment, he smiles confidently, giving me a knowing look of approval.

“I knew there was something going on between you two,” May interjects as she embraces me. She looks around at the crowd of Heartwarming employees behind me looking very out of place.

“Sure you did, May,” Max says sarcastically.

“I can’t wait to tell Mella; she’ll be so happy that you found your way back to us,” May says, beaming.

The air is heavy with expectation between us. I’m waiting for them to say something or for Liam to walk out of the kitchen, but neither happens.

“LIAM!” Elle screams into the restaurant, causing us all to jump.

“Elle!” I scold in a whisper.

“What? No one spoke for like thirty seconds,” she says, widening her eyes as if her actions were warranted. “We’re all kind of on edge with anticipation here.”

May and Max look at each other grimly, and then back at me, but their eyes are full of pity.

“He’s not here,” May says solemnly and something in my chest drops.

“He’s meeting suppliers out west this weekend. He won’t be back until Monday,” Max adds.

I inhale sharply, a mixture of relief and disbelief swirling in my stomach. I feel Elle’s hand on my arm, but her words don’t register in my mind. This was the single most ambitious and exciting thing I’ve done in my life, and it was all for nothing.

“Lucy, I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Anne says from behind me. I feel a soft hand on my back.

I shake my head quickly. “It’s fine—” I start.

“Of course it is,” Elle interjects. “This changes nothing. You still want to see him. You still need to talk to him. This is not the end.”

“Of course not,” Anne adds. “It may just be the end of today’s adventure,” Anne says with a reassuring smile.

My face suddenly feels very hot, like the reality of the situation has finally hit home with my nervous system. I came all this way, and Liam is not here.

That makes my stomach lurch.

“We should go,” I mutter.

“You guys should have something to eat,” May starts, placing a hand on my forearm.

“That’s sweet, May, but I don’t think I could eat anything right now.” I feel Elle’s eyes on me like lasers as I talk. “You guys get something for the road if you want,” I say to the team. I quickly embrace May. “It was so good to see you guys again,” I stumble over my words as I move from one Lucia to another. “I’ll go outside and call an Uber.”

I turn and walk out the door of Liam’s restaurant, feeling like a hole is growing in my heart with each step I take. When I see the mountains in the distance, as picturesque as the day I first saw them, I yearn for the feeling of reassurance I thought I would feel when I saw Liam again. I thought I would feel like this choice, this crazy spontaneous choice that I made for myself, that it was right. That I was finally doing something for myself and it was going to pay off.

But instead, I feel regret. I feel ashamed. My entire team of colleagues just saw me crash and burn. But that is not the worst part. The most significant piece of emptiness I feel comes from the unknown. If I made this jump once, will I ever be able to do it again? At this point in a romance novel, the hero should be in the place where the heroine goes to confront him. This is the happy ever after,right now. And yet, for me, it’s not. What comes next in my story?

The bus ride back to Manhattan might be the most silent the Heartwarming team has ever been in the time that I’ve known them. Elle tries and tries and fails to get me to speak about the clusterfuck of a situation I just found myself in. She holds my hand for most of the ride, squeezing it occasionally when she sees me gazing out the window without blinking for too long.

When we arrive back in the city, it’s just about the end of the workday, so we all head back to the office together to gather our belongings for the weekend. Elle was supposed to go to her mom’s in Jersey for the weekend and she invites me to go with her, but I decline. I know by the time we get back to our desks, she’ll have found an excuse to stay at the apartment with me instead.

We walk from Port Authority to our office on Sixth Avenue, the warm breeze of late August blowing my hair along the way. I’m in a daze as we exit the elevator into our lobby. I’ve been staring at the floor for most of the walk anyway. As we turn to enter the glass doors of our department, Elle stops suddenly, her sandals scuffing on the floor. She places a palm on my arm and my head snaps up, looking for any signs of danger.

“What’s wrong?” I say, but before the last syllable is out of my mouth, I see a wisp of blonde hair in my peripheral vision.

Holy shit.

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