Page 17 of A Novel Love Story

THE SUPER SMUTTY BOOK CLUB DIDN’T MEET IN PERSON UNTILtwo years later, during the Year I Wanted to Forget. Pru had to drag me out of my apartment to go because I hadn’t wanted to—I would just ruin the mood. I was still picking up the pieces of my broken heart. I wasn’t in a state to be a person. But she dragged me along anyway. The book club picked a cabin in the middle of Dutchess County, New York, a nice breezy jaunt from Rhinebeck and the seat of the Hudson Valley, and we all met there. Aditi came from some remote part of Canada, and Olivia came from Seattle. Matt flew in from Texas, and Janelle came down from Maine. Benji had the shortest trip, since he lived in New York City,so he was in charge of all the big foodstuffs. Pru decided to make a road trip out of it, packed our bags and two cases of wine into my Pinto, and we drove up.

I squirmed in the driver’s seat as Google Maps inched us closer and closer to our destination. What was thirty minutes turned into fifteen, and Olivia was blowing up our phones asking about our ETA. Google Maps led us up one of the winding hills of the Catskills to a small, secluded cabin. There were a few other cars parked in the dirt lot out front, and I pulled in beside them and turned off the engine.

We were the last ones at the house. It was a secluded A-frame cabin with six beds and two pullout couches, a Jacuzzi that Benji later ended up passing out in after one too many glasses of Riesling, and rocking chairs on the back porch, where Janelle took a cat nap every afternoon. We decided to all read a series together while we stayed in the house for a week, nothing but paperback romances and box wine and good conversations.

Or at least, that’s what I had hoped would happen.

“What if things go wrong?” I asked, looking out the windshield at the A-frame cabin. “We’ll be trapped here for a week with them. What if they get tired of me, and what if I burst into tears, and what if—”

Pru grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. “Hey, hey, look at me.”

I did.

“These are our friends. They aren’t Liam. Okay?”

Liam.It was the first time we’d said his name aloud in …months. The name made my stomach twist, but I squeezed her hand back and gathered up my courage. This wasn’t like me. I had to get over this. “Okay,” I said.

Pru said, “Repeat after me: we’re going to have a great time.”

“But—”

“Repeat it,” she said.

I swallowed the stone in my throat. “Great time. We’re going to have a fucking great time.”

Pru smiled. “There’s a glimmer of the Elsy I know. Now come on!” She dropped my hand, and shoved herself out of the passenger side. I took a deep breath, unbuckled my seat belt, and followed.

The woods were quiet, the sound of birds bright and twittery in the summer afternoon.

Breathe, I told myself.It’ll be okay—

The front door burst open, and a bear of a man walked out. Blond hair, black-framed glasses. It took a moment to recognize him, because he looked so much smaller on video. Matt grinned and threw his arms wide.

“Let the debauchery begin!” he boomed.

My stomach dropped. Oh, no. This was going to be horrible. This was going to be bad. This was going to be—

“And by ‘debauchery,’” added Olivia, who had dyed her hair teal to match the cover of the newest Quixotic Falls novel, “we mean put on your bunny slippers and bring in that wine, because if the cops don’t find us in a week half-dead under a mountain of Romancelandia, then we did it wrong.”

Amazing.This was going to be amazing.

I couldn’t unload Sweetpea fast enough. As Pru and I hauled our things from the hatchback, she winked at me as if to say,See? Trust me.

Because for Prudence, things always worked out. She was the main character, and I was happy just being along for the ride. It was safe that way. Easy. Her heart never led her wrong—not once.

I wished I could say the same about my own.

6

Honey, Honey

ARE YOU HUNGRY?” ANDERSasked, shaking out the rain from his umbrella. Sunlight streaked through the clouds, and slowly ambled in golden splotches across the town.

I glanced up at him, squinting. He was right in the sun, so I couldn’t read his expression. “Am I dead?”

He snorted. “No. You’re not.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down Main Street again, “then I’m running out of ideas for how this is real. Because it’s not—I know it’s not.”

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