Page 35 of The Best Book Boyfriend
“Welcome to RomComrades, where today we’ve learned that the latest figures that show sales of romance novels increased 47% last year, so Laney and I are asking, why is that?”
“Because we’re all dirty bitches?” Laney chimes in and I laugh in agreement. “But on a serious note, my biggest guess is that we’re seeing more readers turn to the genre seeking to disassociate from the chaos and conflict of their current lives.” I comically gasp out loud. This feels like a personal attack.
“Say more,” Jessie says.
“We’ve said before that the common critique is that these books are anti-feminist and portray outdated stereotypes, but when you look at everything women are facing at the moment; pandemic fatigue, burnout, harassment in the workplace and the streets, social media addiction, hustle culture, comparison, transphobia, ageism, invisible labour, emotional labour, diet culture, and all the rest. Tell me Jessie, who amongst us wouldn’t want to spend an evening disassociating with a 300-500 page novel in which the romantic hero would save the world, take a bullet, upend their entire life for the love of us?”
Everything she says makes perfect sense to me, and I find myself nodding along.
“The protagonist often has a difficult or even traumatic past they’re coping, or not coping, with. Childhood trauma, absent parents, maybe they’re grieving, they had to give up on a dream, or their dream turns out to be a nightmare, they’re victims of late stage capitalism and no matter how hard they try to put a positive spin on it, things are just not OK.”
Jessie agrees. “I think you’re spot on! And then these romance heroes, oh my God. These are the folks who will come in and say look, I’m here, I want you, I’m not going anywhere. They will take all your worries away, they listen, they somehow know exactly what you need before you even knew it, and they always make you come first. I mean, sign me up for a good old disassociating. I’m first in line.”
Just listening to this makes me feel shaky. I push away from my desk, and rest my head between my knees while I take a few deep breaths. The wordstraumatic pastring in my ears as I think about how much changed for me when Adam left. I had a whole life planned out in my head and it was just taken from me overnight. I know I’ve thrown myself into romance novels to avoid dwelling on the breakup too much, but‘disassociating’? Is that what I’ve been doing? I’ve definitely been avoiding my reality. I spent months deluding myself that he’d come back to me one day.
Then along came Luke. A potential real life romance hero. We’ve only hung out a few times, but all my sadness disappears when I’m around him. He listens, he encourages me, he makes me laugh. And based on our little sofa game last night, I get the impression that he’d be a very attentive lover.
It’s just bloody typical to swear off men and the first chance I reconsider, I get the hots for a grieving man who can’t imagine himself being in a relationship ever again. And what did I do with that information? Took off my clothes and wanked in front of him. And then the crying? I will never live it down. I can’t even explain my reaction, I just hope he never mentions it again.
If I’m really honest about it, I’m terrified of dating. I don’t think I could open my heart to someone and risk having it broken like that again. I told Luke I don’t have the confidence to be like a main character, but it’s not like I had bags of it before Adam took it all away. As much as I enjoyed last night, being friends with Luke is the safest option. If it became something more, I’d always worry about it ending. This way, nobody gets hurt.
Trying to refocus on my work for the new book club, I’m feeling stuck with the next step. When I realise why, it makes me groan. I pick up my phone to text Luke.
Kara:We still didn’t choose a book
Luke:Hostess chooses. You have great taste
Kara:I’ll have a think. And is it OK if we call it Sunshine Book Club?
Luke:Of course
Luke:By the way, I’m falling in love with Matthew Braverman too. What a babe x
Chapter 14
Luke
IcanseewhyLove To Loathe Youis Kara’s favourite book. Matthew and Briony have fantastic chemistry even though they pretend to hate each other, but for anyone with eyes, their taunting and goading is clearly sexual tension.
When Briony gets stood up on a date, Matthew saves the day and they start a whole Enemies With Benefits thing that is as sexy as it is hilarious. I don’t know why Briony screaming“I hate you!”and slapping Matthew while he makes her come for the third time is so hot, but I’ve barely put the book down or left the sofa since Kara went home this morning.
And of course I can’t stop thinking about last night and what happened, or nearly happened, between us. Can’t ignore the fact that I’m feeling pretty guilty too, but I think that was always going to be the case the first time something happened with someone new.
My whole life I’ve only ever been with one woman, and I don’t really remember what it felt like to fall for her. Heather grew up a few doors down from my Granny Annie’s house, so she’d just always been in my life. She was as much a part of it as my own family, the house, the meadow, the trees. When we’d learned about the concept of fate, we’d both agreed that was what had happened to us.
I’ve never had that moment of being swept off your feet. The sudden realisation, tunnel vision, heart thumping out of your chest,have I forgotten to breathekind of falling in love. The kind I read about in Kara’s books. Where the girl walks into the office on her first day at a new company and the guy sees her across a meeting room and thinks “You’re it for me.”
At least, I hadn’t felt those sorts of feelings until now.
When I first met Kara, I liked her straight away. Cute, charming, clearly dedicated to her work and passionate about her books. Then, from the moment she arrived for dinner, it was like she’d set off a grenade in my chest. She looked gorgeous, her hair straighter than usual, full lips painted a delicate pink. I wanted to kiss her so much it made my head spin.
And she was so comfortable here in my house, sharing a meal, curling up on the sofa. There were no awkward silences, I forgot my nerves entirely while we spoke. She does this thing where she looks down when she smiles, I can tell she’s a little unsure of herself. Mostly, it was nice to get to know her a bit better than the quick chats or texts we’ve shared so far.
I can’t even explain what happened on the sofa. Sure, we’d both had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, but in a million years I couldn’t have dreamed of how our evening played out.
I got totally caught up in the moment, in her. That all came crashing down when she started crying, but until that point, I felt something. Now I’m worried I took the wholegetting to know each othergame too far, but then when I remember the things she asked me, I think she must have felt as into it as I did.
This morning when she said she hoped we could still be friends, what else could I do but agree? How can it be that I’ve seen her come but haven’t even kissed her? And now I’ll probably never get the chance.
