Page 2 of Summer Ever After
“If Holland wantsSecret Crushas our June book, let her have it. But no more romance books after that.” Cat’s lips tip downward. “We’ve read a romance book every month sincethis book club started. Let’s choose something different in July.”
“Pft,” Deedee scoffs. “I’m on the verge of death. Do you honestly think I’d waste my time reading anything other than romance? I want passion and heat!” She waves the cowboy book in front of us. “If you’re not going to deliver, then I’m removing myself from this G-rated club.”
“Same!” Virginia huffs, which is ironic since she begged to be a part of the book club. She doesn’t even live at the retirement centeryet.I had to pick her up and drive her over here tonight.
“I’m here for the romance books too.” Tala’s lips morph into a guilty smile. “So if this book club turns into self-help or mystery, I might as well be home with Heath and the kids.” Tala is the only member with a family she has to think about. But it didn’t take a lot of convincing to get her to join my retirement center book club. She was eager for a night out. Plus, she misses her sister Capri since she moved away almost as much as I do. Hanging out with me is a close second to hanging out with Capri.
Cat shifts her eyes around the group. “Yeah, but don’t you hate how fake the romance is in these books?”
“Well, itisfiction.” Tala shrugs.
“That’s the problem,” Cat says. “It’s fiction, not real. Real men in real life don’t sweep women off their feet. They don’t profess love the way the books make it seem. They don’t flex their hand after touching a woman. It gives us a false standard of love and sets us up for failure.”
I feel personally attacked.
It’s as if someone has defamed my religion.
Stomped on my flag.
Turned their back during my national anthem.
Cat has trash-talked the very foundation upon which I’vebuilt my life’s hopes and dreams. I would understand her false sentiments about what real love is—and could probably let them slide—if she were an elderly woman beaten down by the disappointments of life and relationships. But Cat’s just like me—lived on Sunset Harbor Island her whole life, in her late twenties, and single.
Very, verysingle.
Okay, the doubleverysare about my singlehood, not Cat’s.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I straighten, ready to defend love’s honor. “Romance books may be fiction, but they arenotfake. The tropes we see in romance books happen in real life too.”
“No, they don’t. They’re just plot devices to carry the story.”
“How can you say that, Cat? Take the one-bed trope, for example. My parents were on tour together as friends, but their relationship shifted one night when they had to share the only bed on the tour bus. My dad said he fell in love with my mom the morning he woke up with her in his arms.”
“Yeah, but your parents are Tucker Hayes and Loretta Lee,” Holland says.
“So?”
“So they aren’t real life either. They’re famous country music singers. They’re like one level shy of fiction.”
It’s true. My parents have a storybook kind of love.
Seriously.
You can Google it.
Tucker Hayes and Loretta Lee are known as country music's cutest couple. It’s been that way ever since they got together thirty years ago. The love songs they’ve written and sung together have topped the Billboard charts. I’ve literally grown up watching a fairy tale unfold, and now that’s what I want for myself.
What I’llhave.
I just need to find the right guy.
But in the back of my mind, there’s a ticking bomb saying I’m running out of time, stressing me out with thoughts that if it doesn’t happen soon, it will never happen, and I’ll never have what my parents have.
Those thoughts live rent-free in my head.
Super helpful.
“Okay, forget about my parents’ love story, then.” I look at Deedee. “Didn’t you and your husband start dating after you were trapped in an elevator together?”
