Page 123 of Guys Can't Write Romance
“Ouch.”
“It gets better. A week later, she’s dating Manning. And now, you can’t walk through a checkout line without seeing her face on a tabloid.”
“Double ouch. That had to suck.”
“It burned him pretty bad.”
“What does that have to do with Daisy?”
“Nothing. He’s just afraid of getting burned again.”
Behind them, Marcus tried whistling to get their attention, but only managed a wheezy breath.
“So, he torpedoes relationships just as they’re starting to take off,” Chloe said.
“He usually punches out way before they get this far. Flirting feels safe for him. If the girl bails, he can just shrug it off like it’s no big deal. But he’s fallen hard for Daisy, and it scares him. He knows he’s not the richest guy on the block, and all of Daisy’s talk about Ethan providing security and stability is reminding him of how Ashley bailed for a rich guy.”
“So, it doesn’t matter that Daisy’s totally fallen for him?”
“He thought Ashley had too, right up till the breakup.”
Behind them, Marcus managed to push the bar a couple inches off his chest before it dropped back down with an ‘ooof’.
“We’ve got a couple of dummies for roommates,” Chloe said. “Because you’re not wrong about Daisy. She’s not a gold-digger, but ever since her mom almost lost her house after her father died, security’s high on her priorities list.”
“Which she hammers home with the male leads in her books.”
Chloe nodded, while behind them, Marcus’s arms trembled as he tried to push the bar off his chest, making small squeaking sounds.
“But Chad made her realize that there’s more to life than just security,” Chloe said. “He makes her laugh harder than I’ve ever seen her do. And she even changed her male lead. He’s now basically Chad in clean clothes. Flaws and all.”
“And his female lead is now a hyper-organized neat freak,” Rhino said. “Sound like anyone we know? Between me and you, I think what substitutes for his brain was ready to take a chance with Daisy, but then her friend Ava torpedoed the whole thing with her pep talk.”
Behind them, Marcus managed to get one arm free and began frantically waving to get someone’s attention.
Chloe’s jaw nearly dropped. “Woah. Wait. Back up. Ava talked to Chad?”
“Yeah. Just yesterday. She stopped by his school and basically unloaded on him.”
“What’d she say?”
“Let’s see... I think it started with how Chad wrecked Daisy’s life... how he was a low life surf bum who would never amount to anything... how he didn’t deserve Daisy, and how she would wake up one day and realize this... pretty much confirmed every insecurity he had.”
Behind them, two guys rushed over to Marcus, each grabbing an end of the bar and lifting it off of him. Marcus rolled off the bench and onto the floor.
Chloe just stared for a moment, as an idea brewed in her pink-haired head. “I have an idea on how to un-mess this,” she finally said.
“You do?”
“Yep. But first, I need to go read your dummy roommate the riot act. Feel free to ogle my butt as I walk out.”
As she turned to go, she spotted Marcus on the floor, gasping for breath. “You might want to call an ambulance for your skinny client.”
And with that, Hurricane Chloe hurried off.
“Huh?” Rhino muttered, turning around to see Marcus frowning at him from the floor.
The crack of a bat connecting with a baseball echoed across the field, but Chad barely registered it. Usually, the sound of a solid hit energized him, but today, it only snapped him momentarily from his thoughts.
