Page 27 of Red Flag, Green Light

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: RE: Project pitch

Industry standard, I’m pretty sure. The big insane guy and the petite, needs-protection girl is basic genre expectation.

Today, 7:46 p.m.

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: RE: Project pitch

I’m against this.

I move back to our chat thread.

Sara: It doesn’t matter if you’re against it. It’s what the girlies want.

Rouge: The girlies must want more than kidnappings and shoulders.

Sara: They do not.

Rouge: I will pay you fifty thousand dollars if you help me write a bestseller about a guy with perfectly adequate and attainable shoulders and a woman who is, shockingly, not five-foot-two.

My eyes widen, and I blink. I don’t know what’s more outrageous. Her suggesting that such a feat is possible, or the fact she’ll pay me that much money to attempt it with her.

Sara: How tall is she?

Rouge: How tall are you?

A perfectly reasonable height.

Sara: Five-nine.

Rouge: Perfect.

Sara: Not perfect. How tall is he?

Rouge: Six-one.

Sara: Short.

Rouge: I’ve never been so insulted in my life.

Sara: Six-one with no shoulders is a pathetic male lead, Rouge. What are you trying to prove here?

Rouge: Excuse you. I never said he didn’thaveshoulders. He’s not an amputee. He’s got shoulders. Great shoulders. They’re just not disproportionately large for his acceptable frame.

Sara: “acceptable frame”

Rouge: Why do you hate me?

I snort and shake my head. I surely don’t hate her at all. It’s just, last I checked, her genre was not romcom.

Sara: You still haven’t told me what you’re trying to prove.

Rouge: Can’t I, after making millions selling books, want a meager challenge? Is it so wrong to hope I can create a bestseller that breaks genre standards and embraces representation for the tall girls who never get to see themselves kidnapped?

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