Page 65 of Words of Love

It pissed him off that he was having such trouble with a subplot thousands of other authors had successfully written before him. Hell, there were romances in Greco-Roman literature. In mythology, medieval manuscripts, Shakespeare. Writing Kane and Patricia’s romance shouldn’t be like reinventing the damned wheel.

He ran harder, faster. His muscles worked. His breath burned his lungs.

He hated failure. He’d spent too much of his childhood and teen yearsfailing.

But he’d never failed with his own romance. He’d never had one. Not the kind that Brooke believed in so hard. The kind she said wastruthand that he knew was a lie.

“Maybe that’s a big part of your problem right there. You’ve never been in love. You can’t write what you don’t know.”

Her voice tangled in his head. Images of her flashed in front of him—Brooke hugging her unicorn pillow, biting down on her pen, folding her legs into the lotus position.

She couldn’t hide her feelings if she tried—she was too open, too transparent. He saw her joy when she talked about her family, and her sadness and regret over the New York part of her life. He saw her disappointment when she realized he didn’t believe in love.

Sam veered away from the beach and into an older neighborhood on the south side of town. He ran on the sidewalks in front of modest ranch houses and duplexes until he came to a rundown, four-unit apartment building. A faint light burned in the second-story windows facing the street.

He came to a halt in front of the glass-paned door. Chest heaving, he pressed the buzzer beside the nameCastle. After a minute, a door at the top of the stairs opened, and Brooke appeared. His heart jackhammered.

Squinting beneath a mass of disheveled hair, she came down the stairs. She stared at him through the window before unlocking the door and pulling it open.

“Sam?” Her eyes widened. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“I’m…I…” He couldn’t grab hold of the right word. His brain was spinning. “I need—”

“Come in.” She reached for his hand and urged him into the foyer.

Swiping his arm over his sweaty forehead, he followed her upstairs. The other day, she’d refused his help unpacking when they’d gotten back from the mountains, so he hadn’t seen the inside of her apartment. Now, as he stepped into the warm, inviting space, he took a deep breath.

“Were you at the gym?” Brooke closed the door behind him.

He shook his head. “Out for a run.”

“Ah.” She sniffed the air around him. “Windy and salty.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I like it.” She slipped her gaze over his sweaty T-shirt, a puzzled crease appearing between her eyes. “Why did you end up here?”

He shook his head to try and think straight, but all he could do was stare at her. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in messy waves, and she was wearing a wrinkled pink T-shirt printed with a cartoon of a pug dog and the phraseSnug as a Pug in a Rug.

“You were sleeping.” He ran a hand down his face. “I thought…I saw the light on.”

“I keep a nightlight on in the living room, just in case I need to get up.” She nudged him toward the purple sofa. “Sit. I’ll get you some water.”

He sank onto the sofa. The overstuffed chairs and sofa were covered with multi-colored pillows in various shapes and sizes. Plants in macramé holders hung from the ceiling, and the walls were decorated with prints of Impressionist artwork. It was an apartment-sized version of the blanket fort.

His heartbeat began to slow. Brooke returned from the kitchen with a glass of cold water. He downed half the glass in two gulps and wiped his mouth with his arm. “I’m sorry, I…I wasn’t out to…I mean, I didn’t plan to come here at first, but—”

“Sam.” She sat on the sofa beside him and rested her hand on his knee. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize or explain.”

But he did.

He took another swallow of water and set the glass down. For a guy who made his living withwords, he was doing a shitty job of figuring out how to string them together in a sentence.

“I do need your help,” he finally said. “I don’t know how to write the romance. You’re right…all that stuff about feelings and why they love each other. I’ve got nothing.”

“You don’t have nothing.” She tightened her hand on his knee. “You’re an incredible writer, and you know it. And it’s not as if you can’t write relationships…the struggle between John and his grandfather is one of the most poignant father-son story arcs I’ve ever read.”

She paused, her voice softening. “Honestly, Sam, you really just need to open yourself up to the idea of romance. Both its building blocks and nuances. You need to acknowledge that even if you don’t believe in love, most people think of it as life’s greatest joy. We believe in it. We want it. Can you understand that?”

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