Page 16 of Guys Can't Write Romance
“Hey, coach,” she said. “Wanna go for a ride?”
Chad slid into the passenger seat, noticing how clean her car was compared to his mess of fast food wrappers and empty energy drink cans. “Where are we going?”
“Does it matter?” Vicky said, raising an eyebrow as she put the car in gear.
“Nope.”
She laughed and pulled out of the alley, the engine purring beneath them. Within a few minutes, they were accelerating down the Pacific Coast Highway, the wind whipping through their hair and moonlight sparkling across the ocean to their left. Vicky turned up the radio, and Chad settled back in his seat without a care in the world. Except, just maybe, the thought of being stuck with Daisy Fields during their first writing session tomorrow night.
Chapter four
The Post-It Wars
Chad thought he had an idea of what to expect as he knocked on Daisy’s door that evening for their first writing session. Judging by the way she organized her workspace at their writers’ group meetings, he was prepared to see a monument to hyper-organized excess. Maybe an alphabetized spice cabinet, or color-coded calendar entries to remind her when to eat and sleep. As it turned out, he wasn’t that far off.
They had texted that afternoon, trying to decide on a place to meet for these Mags’ enforced joint writing sessions. Of course, they couldn’t agree on a spot, because… well, it was Chad and Daisy. They finally decided to keep trying different spots until they found one that worked for both of them. For reasons Daisy would later blame on temporary insanity, she said they could use her apartment that night. It would prove to be… interesting.
When the door opened, a barefoot girl stood there. She was about Chad’s age, in a paint-splattered apron, with blue hair wrapped in a kerchief.
Chad blinked. Not Daisy.
“Hey,” he said, hitching the straps on the backpack he had loaded with a ‘writer’s survival kit’ of energy drinks and snacks. “Does Daisy Fields live here?”
“You’re Chad,” the girl said, eyeing him with an amused look.
“Yeah. And you’re…?”
“Chloe. Resident roommate. Professional troublemaker. I was expecting to see horns.”
“Horns?”
“Yeah. You know, on your head, demon style.”
Chad grinned. “Oh. So Daisy told you about me.”
“Warned, actually. Let’s see… chaos-loving, horror movie guy with poor personal hygiene and probably a glove box of unpaid parking tickets.”
Chad smirked. “I had to take them out to get it to close. Did she say anything about me being a world-class writer with tons of potential and a charming sense of humor?”
“It was more like, ‘If I go missing, please call 911 immediately.’” Chloe snickered, stepping aside to motion him in. “Honestly, this should be fun. Welcome to the madness, Chad. Buckle your seatbelt.”
The first sign that Chloe wasn’t exaggerating came as they reached the opening to the kitchen and stepped in. Chloe waved her arm around the room. “The first stop on our Daisy Fields House of Organizational Nuttiness Tour, Extreme Edition, is the kitchen exhibit.” She walked over to a cabinet above the counter and opened the door.
Inside the cabinet were perfectly aligned rows of spices, standing like soldiers in formation. Chad leaned in for a closer look.
“Holy crap,” Chad muttered. “Are they alphabetized?”
“Obsessively,” Chloe quipped. “It’s her Zen.”
“Does she scold them if they step out of formation?”
“They know better than to try. Then, there’s this.”
She stepped to the next cabinet and opened the door. Inside it were cups and glasses with labels stuck to them, marking ‘Daisy’s cups’ and ‘Chloe’s cups.’
“She has a label maker?” Chad said.
“Yup. In the drawer behind you. I’ve tried hiding it several times, but she always finds it. It’s spooky, actually.”
