Page 133 of Guys Can't Write Romance
He nodded. “Yup. We did.”
“Does that mean I can have the living room back now?” came Rhino’s voice from the kitchen.
Chad and Daisy turned and saw him watching them from over the kitchen counter.
“How long have you been standing there?” Chad asked.
“Long enough to see the two of you acting like a couple saps. Now move it.”
“We’ve moving it,” Daisy said, as she and Chad packed away their laptops.
“Wanna grab some drinks to celebrate?” Chad asked, helping Daisy to her feet.
“Oh, yeah,” she said with a big nod. “Lots of them. And maybe some calamari to go with it.”
“See what a good influence I am?”
“My arteries said you’re a dead man.”
Chad laughed. He turned to Rhino as they passed him on the way out. “Make sure you put my movie back when you’re finished.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rhino said, plopping down on the couch.
“Sure you don’t,” Chad said, not buying it for a second.
“Oh, and tell Chloe I’ll be home late,” Daisy called back over her shoulder as they headed out the door.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about either,” Rhino said.
The weeks following their submissions passed agonizingly slow, each one stretching longer than the last as Daisy and Chad awaited the contest results. By the third week, her email checking had become compulsive. And Chad wasn’t much better.
“You’re checking again, aren’t you?” Chad said without looking up from his laptop. He and Daisy were curled up on opposite ends of her couch, laptops balanced on their laps as they worked on a new novel they were writing together.
“No,” she lied. “Okay. Maybe. Yes.”
“Isn’t that twelve times you’ve checked today?” he said.
“Fifteen,” she sighed, setting her phone on the coffee table like an addict flushing her stash down the toilet. “Not that I’m counting or anything.”
Chad looked up from his laptop and watched her with amusement. “You gonna be okay, Daze? Need me to check you into a treatment center?”
She grabbed the throw pillow from behind her and playfully smacked him with it.
Later that week, Chad and Daisy were shooting a game of pool at The Salty Siren. Just as Chad lined up his shot, Daisy’s phone buzzed on a nearby table with a new email. She practically doveacross the bar to get it, then frowned as she quickly read the email and set her phone back on the table.
“Let me guess — someone wants to extend your car’s warranty?” he asked.
“Nope. Some Nigerian prince wants to send me a million bucks,” she said, walking back to the table.
The next morning, Chad woke to a series of texts from Daisy:
‘Did you check yet?’
‘Nothing in my inbox.’
‘Maybe it went to spam?’
‘Checking spam now.’
