Page 130 of Guys Can't Write Romance
“Good. I like loud Chad better,” she said, her eyes sparkling in the overhead track lights. She reached over and took his hand. “Want to know what else scares me?”
“What?”
“This.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. It was soft and sweet and everything a first kiss should be.
When she pulled back, her eyes met his. “Are you still scared?”
For a brief moment, he could only stare dumbly, the suddenness of the kiss short-circuiting his brain. But he was smiling.
“It’s okay, Chad. I’m scared too,” she said, lightly tracing patterns on his palm with her thumb. “But I’m glad I get to be scared with the boy I’m in love with.”
Chad didn’t hesitate in his next move. He pulled her in and kissed her, gently cupping her face in his hands as she melted into him.
When they finally broke apart, a smile lit up her face that he could have drowned in.
“Let’s go finish our books,” she said softly, “and give everyone their happy ending.”
Chapter thirty-four
All Nighters and the Submit Button
The coming days were a blur of all-nighters, energy drinks, and junk food, as Chad and Daisy raced to finish their manuscripts in time for the submission deadline.
Thursday night found them on the couch in Chad’s living room, with empty pizza boxes and energy drink cans scattered across the floor. Across the room, a Hallmark movie played on TV, providing just enough white noise and ambiance for their writing. From the bits and pieces Chad caught, the story was something about a big-city lawyer finding love in a small-town bakery.
“The cookies are burning!” the heroine whimpered on screen.
“That’s what oven timers are for, dummy!” Rhino’s outraged voice blurted out from the kitchen. “How can you own a bakery when you don’t even know that?”
Chad and Daisy looked over and saw Rhino watching from across the open counter, his eyes glued to the TV. Chad and Daisy exchanged amused grins and returned to their laptops.
Several minutes later, Rhino was back scolding the characters on TV. “Would you just kiss him already? Sheesh. The guy fixed your entire electrical system for free.”
Chad snickered and looked at Daisy, who was ready to burst out laughing.
“Want us to work in my room so you can have the couch and watch it?” Chad asked Rhino.
Rhino shot him a look like he’d just been asked to wear a ballerina tutu. “Watch a Hallmark movie?” he said, as if his eyes weren’t already glued to it. “Get serious, bro. It’s bad enough we’ve got one sissy living here.”
“Just checking,” Chad said. He and Daisy exchanged a grin before turning back to their laptops.
The peace lasted about four minutes, before...
“Why is the guy getting on a plane?” came Rhino’s outraged voice from the kitchen. “He’s got the hot bakery chick standing right there.”
Chad and Daisy exchanged looks. “Coffee shop?” he said.
“Definitely,” Daisy said, closing her laptop and packing it in her bag.
The next night, what Chad and Daisy had planned as an evening writing session in his apartment, followed by dinner, ended up going late into the night. By the time eleven rolled around, the two of them were loopy from an overdose of junk food and energy drinks. Chad had stacked the empty cans in a pyramid on the table in front of them, and it stood there as a monument to excess sugar and caffeine.
With a yawn, Daisy rose from the couch and headed into the kitchen to splash water on her face. As she bent over the sink, a clatter of aluminum cans came from the living room. She walkedback in to find Chad face-planted on a box of powdered donuts, knocking over the pyramid of cans as he fell forward.
She started to wake him up, then changed her mind. Instead, she snapped a photo with her phone of his face covered in white powder from the donuts.
Saturday evening, Chad and Daisy arrived at his apartment, armed with cartons of Chinese takeout and more energy drinks. As they passed the kitchen, they heard the unmistakably cheery sounds of a Hallmark movie in the adjoining living room.
Chad turned to Daisy and held his finger to his lips to motion for silence. She nodded her understanding while a mischievous grin spread across her face. They eased down to the floor, then crawled to the corner of the kitchen and peeked around it into the living room.
