Page 3 of The Love Interest
What are you so afraid of?
Another broken heart?
Pffft.
How are you even capable of writing a badass manly character like me, you fucking pussy?
Nut up.
Get. Out. There.
If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me.
Do it for my fans.
Okay, fine—do it for your fans.
Do it for your astonishing million-dollar advance and Ryan Gosling and the potential third installment of our film series.
Do it for your dick, because the only things in this place that have gotten any real action for the past three weeks are the food delivery app and your keyboard—and you haven’t even given me one decent first page yet.
Come back when you’re inspired and worthy of being the author of the international best-selling Jack Irons series, you thirty-five-year-old dried-up husk of a former man—and bring me a woman. Bring me a woman who will dazzle and confound me and bring me to my fucking knees. You hear me, Emmett Ford? Don’t bother typing another word until you’ve found her.
Go on.
Get the fuck out of here.
3
EMMETT
Fuck you, Jack.
He’s not the boss of me.
I’m out because I’m hungry. For food. I’m out because I need to move around and breathe in the summer night air and the city of Manhattan—because I want to. It’s a beautiful late-summer night. Surprisingly, it’s not too humid. Little Italy is quiet this time of night—quiet for Manhattan, anyway.
I walk up to Houston Street, toward the 24-hour diner. I won’t dine in. I’ll get takeout. It’s not about the diner, it’s about the walk. It’s about clearing my head and being out and about, among the living.
If I happen to see a woman who might inspire me to write one for Jack, then great. But that’s all it would be. That’s all it ever could be.
Not you, redhead in the rubber dress. Jack would never go for a lady in a rubber dress. Keep moving.
Not you either, appallingly young group of women. What are you even doing eye fucking an old guy like me? What are you—seventeen? Go home. Read a book. Jack would only fall for a woman he could have interesting conversations with. Someone with at least a little life experience.
Okay, maybe a little less life experience than you’ve had, leopard-print-coat lady with the wig on backward. Jesus. You would eat Jack Irons alive.
Christ. I should get out of the city. I could go to my cabin for a writing retreat, but maybe I need an even bigger change. How is it possible that there are over 1.6 million people living within twenty-three square miles of me—nearly four million in Manhattan on weekdays—and I’ve never fallen in love with one of them? Not even close.
In leaving Connecticut and all the memories it holds—of Sophie and love and death—I chose to disappear into a sea of people, only to drown myself in writing. I could do this anywhere. Maybe I should move somewhere else. Maybe I didn’t go far enough.
Still, I remember the promise of starting over when I’d first arrived here. I remember the anticipation and the hesitant yearning and the way the city welcomed me. My first night here, I walked into the restaurant that was across the street from my tiny apartment on the Lower East Side. While I was waiting for a table, a middle-aged man who was waiting for his wife started up a conversation with me. When I told him I’d just moved here, he immediately called out to the bartender and ordered me an Irish whiskey. He said, “Welcome to New York, son.”
My father prefers Scotch, so as a form of rebellion, I drink bourbon. That first sip of Irish whiskey was clean and smooth and profound. It tasted like a new beginning, aged in wood, flavored with something warm and familiar.
“There’s always something unexpected and remarkable happening here,” the man continued. “Every single thing that happens in this city is important. Everyone’s a hero. Now you’re a part of it. Congratulations. Don’t fuck it up.”
That was it. His wife came out of the ladies’ room, he paid for my drink, wished me luck, and left. I finished the glass, savored the burning sensation in my throat like a badass, and got seated at a table next to Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker. I had been christened a New Yorker and had not thought of my dead fiancée for ten whole minutes. That signature blend of optimism, gratitude, and guilt would stay with me for my entire first year here, and I vowed to welcome every new resident who crossed my path in the same way.
