Page 47 of The Rom-Commers

“Maybe,” Charlie said. “But I have to believe in it.”

Uh-oh. Please tell me I did not just agree to work on a rom-com with one of those men who do not believe in love. I almost couldn’t ask. “Did you believe in cannibal robots when you wrote about them?”

He saw where I was headed. “No.”

“What about aliens? Did you believe in those when you wroteThe Destroyers?”

Now he was getting evasive. “I mean, the universe is a big place.”

“I’m thinking of that one alien with the elephant trunk. Did you believethat alienmight be out there somewhere, living its best life?”

Charlie took my point. “Not exactly, no.”

“So what you’re telling me is, you can take the imaginative leap to get on board with an alien from another galaxy that somehow managed to evolve a trunk that is functionally and visually identical to the elephants of earth, but you simply cannot fathom two ordinary humans falling in love with each other?”

I let us all sit with that for a second.

“It’s just different,” Charlie said.

Logan nodded to confirm. “He’s lost his mojo.”

“It’s not lost,” Charlie said, rapping on his sternum with his knuckles. “I just can’t find it.”

“Yeah,” Logan said. “That’s what ‘lost’ means.”

“Right,” Charlie said, “I was thinking of the ‘dead’ meaning of ‘lost.’ Like, ‘lost at sea,’ or ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’”

Logan shook his head and said, “Writers.”

“Preaching to the choir,” I said, all deadpan and relaxed. But inside, I was on high alert. Charlie Yates had lost his mojo? How was that possible? This guy was the king of mojo. Was this a sign of the apocalypse?

That’s when I met Charlie’s eyes and asked, “You’re all better now health-wise, though, right?”

“Good as new,” Charlie said.

“What were you sick with?” I asked.

Charlie looked down, like there was something on his shoe he needed to check out, and then, glancing off in the distance like he might see someone he knew, in a beyond-casual tone, as if whatever came next was so boring it couldn’t even merit any follow-up questions… he said, simply, “Soft tissue sarcoma.”

Eleven

GOING TO BRUNCHwith Charlie Yates forced me to rapidly release the fantasy version of him I’d cherished for so long. Seconds after Charlie spoke the word “sarcoma,” Logan had stepped away from the table to take a call, and the next thing I knew, Charlie was scooting his chair back and saying, “I’m gonna go take a leak.”

Yeah. Exactly.

MyfantasyCharlie Yates would never have said that.

Alone at the table, with no one to distract me, my heart decided to start doing that weird, violent thumping thing it was so into these days.

I tapped on my breastbone, as if to say,Come on, buddy. You got this.

But my heart was just insulted.

He definitely did not have this.

And neither did I.

Here I was—no thanks to Logan—in the fanciest brunch venue I’d ever seen, breathing the same air as Meryl Streep, with Jack Stapleton’s… I don’t know,palm energystill coating my hand from that bonkers handshake, and I’d just ingested a brunch cocktail with an edible flower in it,and my all-time greatest writing hero had just been teasing me about orgasms.

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