“You’re going to hate it. It’s a romance, and you obviously don’t know how to woo a woman, so you’ll find this really boring.”
Paddy started laughing.
His face reddened. “Try me.”
She rose, hands trembling slightly, and took the stage. The papers rustled as she adjusted the mic.
“I’m Aisling O’Byrne, and I’d like to read the first few pages of something I’ve been working on. It’s… well, it’s romance.”
Some chuckles. A few encouraging nods.
She began.
The story followed a woman discovering her fiancé cheating—fiction, technically, but thinly veiled. The crowd gasped, laughed, and hissed in all the right places.
She hesitated for a beat, unsure if she should finish the scene.
“Don’t stop!” someone yelled.
“Oh, please,” Ronan groaned. “We know how it ends. She walks out.”
Anger flared. When she got to the part about locking the engagement ring around his… prized possession, the room erupted. She continued anyway, pushing past the lump in her throat to read the final lines, the elevator doors closing behind her heroine.
Silence. Then:
“More!” someone cried.
“Encore!”
“She’s got fire!”
Aisling stepped off the stage to applause, faces beaming at her. One by one, people came up to tell her about her grandmother, offer drinks, or demand the next chapter.
When she finally reached the bar again, Ronan was waiting.
“Romance,” he said like the word tasted sour. “More like porn.”
“Porn? Wow. That’s a reach.”
“You mentioned his private part.”
“So? You don’t have one?”
His brows rose and Paddy snorted behind the bar. “Oh, yes, she’s Irish and she’s an O’Byrne.”
“It was tasteless,” Ronan finally said.
“Yours was like watching fog think,” she shot back. “Beautiful, lyrical fog. But nothing happened.”
“I’m published,” he muttered, defensive.
“And I’m an editor. You’ve got skill but no story. You could put a rock to sleep.”
His jaw ticked. “My publisher likes it.”
“Your publisher needs an editor who’s awake.”
He slammed his glass down. “I need another.”
