Page 52 of Accidentally Yours
“Nothing is working,” Paige added, closing her eyes and focusing on the clicking of Alice’s needles. The sound usually soothed her. Not today. “I’m just flat stuck. My brain has decided not to create words anymore.”
“Maybe there’s something you need to get off your chest?” Alice suggested casually.
Paige opened an eye. “Such as?”
“Why you’re distracted.” Alice raised a brow, her fingers smoothly directing the yarn and needles. “Start spilling. Let’s get to the bottom of it. Is it Ethan? Cause you’ve been spiraling since he went quiet. I haven’t mentioned it ’cause I know you need time to come to your own conclusions, but I think you need a little nudging now.”
Paige pursed her lips and opened both eyes. How did Alice always know? “He’s distracting me,” she admitted, defeated. “But it’s not just Ethan.”
“What else?” Alice prompted, stitching another row on what appeared to be a strawberry hat. She’d started it when the movie began. Now it was almost done. Paige wished she could churn out words the way Alice churned out fruit-shaped headwear.
“The attention. The looming deadline. The pressure.” Paige sighed, splaying her arms out on the couch like a starfish. “That half the internet is picking me apart for not being good enough for Ethan, while the other half wants to find the necklace before we do.”
“The internet is bonkers. You know that,” Alice added, staring at Paige over her fruit hat. “They don’t know you. Those trolls don’t know how awesome and wonderful you are. And, if you want me to get in the weeds of any comment section and defend your honor, I absolutely will.”
Paige smiled, her heart warming at the suggestion. “I’d never ask you to do that.”
“You just say the word.” Alice raised a brow like she was ready for a fight. “I’ll absolutely destroy those trolls.”
Paige settled deeper into the couch and gave a soft chuckle. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” Alice replied, before giving her a long, thoughtful look. “Anything else? Let it out.”
Paige stared down at her hands, thinking over the last few days. “I was starting to like him. Like, for real.” She paused, picking a cat hair from her yoga pants. “And he must’ve decided he needed space. Time. Whatever. We had a good thing going. I don’t understand. He just went cold. He pulled away. Just like Derek did.” Ethan had lost interest. He’d gotten to know the real Paige, and something about her wasn’t good enough.
“You can’t compare the two.”
“I know,” Paige said. “It’s stupid.”
“Your feelings are not stupid.” Alice gave her a motherly look. “Maybe he’s dealing with something that has nothing to do with you.”
“Hmm,” Paige hummed, wondering what that could be and then realizing she was mostly frustrated with herself. “I swore I’d never let a man mess with my head like this again. Yet here I am, stuck in a spiral with a deadline to hit. And my brain has short-circuited.” She ran a finger over the edge of her laptop. “I should’ve said no to co-authoring the book. I should’ve written it on my own.”
Paige itched to open her computer, to write a line that wasn’t laced in doubt. But her brain still felt tangled. Her heart too. She’d let herself believe in something, and now she couldn’t separate fact from fiction. She couldn’t write a love story when her own felt like it had ended before it had really begun.
“You can do it. You’ll get out of this writer’s block and back into a rhythm in no time. I just know it,” Alice said with a reassuring smile. “I believe in you. I think you just need some more girl time. That will loosen up your brain, for sure.”
Paige smiled at her friend, genuinely, and gave a sigh. “You’re probably right.”
“Maybe a little knitting therapy too?” Alice suggested, nodding to Paige’s abandoned knitting needles on the coffee table that sat next to a bundle of colorful yarn.
Paige scrunched up her face. She mostly used her needles as margarita stir sticks.
“I’ll help you get a coffee cup cozy started?” Alice continued. “And we can put onSleepless in Seattle?”
Paige grinned and gave a soft sigh, knowing she wouldn’t complete more than a few stitches, but working on a project with Alice calmed her down. “Okay. A little Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan never hurt anything.”
Alice smiled and set down her needles, just as the apartment door swung open. Gigi bound through, holding a pan covered in tinfoil. “Who’s ready for manicotti?”
“Oh! We are!” Alice chimed. Tux leapt down from the recliner, greeting Gigi with a chirp.
“Sign me up,” Paige added, setting her laptop aside. What she needed right now wasn’t a perfect plot twist or a poetic line of prose. What she needed was comfort, carbs, and her two best friends, who never let her spiral alone. Her friends were the solution to any problem.
Later that night, Paige stepped into her apartment, full of manicotti and even fuller from the laughter that had carried through dinner, ice cream, and exactly one-and-a-half Meg Ryan movies. She hadn’t known how much she’d needed her friends. Just the three of them. Food, friendship, and the kind of conversation that let her feel everything and say anything without judgement.
She felt lighter. Her heart was steadier.
By the time she stepped into her apartment, it was after midnight. Her place was its usual haven of cozy chaos—books stacked in uneven towers, a candle half burned on the windowsill, and a bowl of stale popcorn on the counter from last night’s dinner.
