Page 34 of The Fix-Up

Ali tapped her mouth with a finger. “Yes, we do.”

“Something to get her on the right track.”

“I’ve got it.” Ali grinned and shouted, “Hey Chris, where does Mae keep all the romance novels she pretends she doesn’t read?”

“In the cabinets under the built-ins,” Chris shouted back from the next room where he and Oliver were playing video games. “All of them. Full of romance novels.”

“Excuse me.” Mae sniffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chris appeared in the doorway with a huge cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. “Aw, Sprinkles, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

He waltzed over to her, leaned down and whispered something in her ear that had her cheeks almost matching the red of her hair. With a gasp, she shoved his shoulder; he chuckled low, dropped a kiss on her forehead and stole a chip from her plate.

“You should check out the pirate ones by Alicia Night. They’re Mae’s favorite.” Mae chucked a throw pillow at his head as he ambled away.

Ali skipped to the cabinets and came back with an armload of books. She dumped them on the couch next to Mae. “All the Alicia Night books.”

I picked one up and stared at the pirate on the front cover, his shirt unbuttoned and billowing in the breeze. In his arms, a woman with long dark hair and one long leg peeking out from her dress. To be honest, I’d never been much of a reader unless it was a true crime novel.

“O-kay.” I stared down at the pile. “So, ah, which one should I read first?”

“The Pirate’s Booty,” Mae and Ali said in unison.

“You’ve read it?” Mae asked, her eyes wide.

“Yeah.” Ali’s eyes darted to the left. “You know, in my spare time. Alicia Night is a pretty amazing writer. Really knows how to tell a story.”

Mae’s eyes narrowed. “Huh.”

“What does that mean?” Ali asked.

“Nothing. Just huh.” She shoved a chip in her mouth and smiled around it.

“So,The Pirate’s Bootythen.” I plopped on the couch and stared at the book. “I’ll give it a try. Although I’ve never been one for romances. People don’t fall in love like that. Not in real life. Honestly, these things should be classified as fantasies.”

Mae and Ali shareda look, the kind that communicated things only best friends could understand.

“I mean, sure,” Mae said. “Love isn’t exactly like the romance novels tell us it’s going to be.”

“No kidding.” I set the book on the coffee table. “I, for one, have never been the recipient of a grand gesture.”

Ali perched next to me on the couch. “Real love, truly loving and being loved by someone, it’s better than anything in a romance novel. It’s hard to put it into words what that feels like.” She shook her head, a small, secret grin on her face. “It’s magical.”

I slumped back into the couch. “You’re going to have to forgive me if I am leery of the magic of it all. You two seemed to have done that but I don’t think it’s in the cards for me. No one has ever been close to putting a ring on this finger, no pining or secret kisses. Definitely no meet-cutes. The last guy I met in the wild that seemed interested in me ended up trying to sell me cryptocurrency.”

Ali winced.

“You should have all those things—the grand gesture, the proposal, the meet-cute,” Mae said quietly. “The right man will want to do those things for you. It might not look exactly how you expect it to but he’s out there.”

Ali nodded. “Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places.”

Mae set her plate aside. “Exactly.”

“But how?” Ali murmured.

The two of them stared into the middle distance for what felt like an eternity. Then Mae snapped her fingers. “We should take over her love life.”

“Of course.” With a gasp, Ali jumped to her feet. “We could be matchmakers.”

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