“Fireworks?” Emery squeaked.
“Too much?” Jax asked, then shrugged. “Fine. We'll scale back on the pyrotechnics.”
“I, uh,” Ollie began, raising his hand hesitantly. “I have the van? For deliveries and stuff?” He looked so earnest that Emery couldn't help smiling.
“That's perfect, Ollie,” she said. “We'll definitely need transportation.” She turned to Abe, who had remained quiet throughout the exchange. “And you, Abe, don't need to do anything except give me advice and maybe lend me one of your poetry books.”
Abe's eyes crinkled at the corners. “I'll do no such thing,” he said, his voice firm despite his frailty. “I’m not dead yet. I intend to participate fully in this romantic conspiracy.” He tapped his cane against the hardwood floor for emphasis. “Though I think I'll keep my contribution a secret from you as well. Every good story needs an element of surprise, after all.”
Emery felt a lump form in her throat. “I don't deserve any of you.”
“Probably not,” agreed Domi.
“Nonsense,” Zara said. “You two are basically a walking rom-com. Who wouldn't want to help with the third act grand gesture?”
“Alright then,” Emery said, squaring her shoulders. “If you’re all truly in, then here's the plan…”
For the next hour, they plotted and schemed, each person taking notes and suggesting refinements. By the time they finished, Emery felt a flutter of something she hadn't experienced in weeks: hope. This could work. It had to work.
Because a life without Eveline wasn't a life she wanted to contemplate anymore.
???
Eveline crumpled another piece of paper and tossed it toward the already overflowing wastebasket beside her desk. It missed, joining a dozen other rejected attempts on her office floor.
Writing, as it turned out, was significantly more difficult than she had imagined. Particularly when what you were trying to write was a letter asking for a second chance from someone whose career was literally built on writing beautifully about love and longing. Who’d have thought that writing all those ridiculous romance novels would actually be difficult?
“Putain,” she muttered to herself, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper.
She'd read Emery's letter, finally, just that morning, pulling it from the drawer where she'd hidden it away. The honesty in those pages had sliced through the last of her defenses. Emery had explained everything: her initial panic at meeting a bookshop owner who hated romance, her growing feelings that made the truth harder and harder to confess, her genuine remorse at the deception. She'd written about falling in love with Eveline, with the shop, with the sense of belonging she'd found there.
Reading it had been like having her heart cracked open and then tenderly pieced back together.
Not that Emery had justified her lying. But she had explained. And it helped. Not only did it help, it just cemented in Eveline the idea that Emery had to belong here, had to be a part of what she’d so painstakingly built. That Emery had a place in her world, in her life, in her heart.
And now, Eveline wanted, needed, to respond. But the right words eluded her.
She stared at the blank page, pen hovering uselessly above it.
Dear Emery,she wrote, then immediately crossed it out.
Too formal.
Emery,she tried again.
Better, but what came next?I've been thinking about what you wrote?Too understated.I miss you desperately and have been a stubborn fool?Too dramatic. Though also true.
“How do those romance novelists do this?” she groaned, dropping her head into her hands.
Then again, if writing about love was easy, perhaps it wouldn't be worth doing. Perhaps this struggle was part of the process, forcing her to really examine what she wanted to say, what she truly felt. And maybe this was punishment for years of dismissing romance novelists. Perhaps she deserved this.
She picked up her pen once more.
Emery,
I read your letter. Finally. I should have read it weeks ago, but I was afraid. Afraid that your words would convince me, afraid that they might not. Afraid of what it would mean to forgive, to trust, to love again.
But I am more afraid of a life without you in it.
