11
CHAPTER-WORTHY
Omg, team Mitch all the way.
She’s got so many excuses—the charges need to be dealt with already.
Oh shit, love that prenup. Hope Brielle walks with nothing.
Burn, baby, burn.
Eliana stared at the jeans in her hands, trying to remember which closet they belonged in. Abby’s style was more moderately fashionable, following trends as they rose and fell in popularity, whereas Zoey’s tastes swung wildly between absolute minimalism and elaborate vintage themes—completely disregarding, if not outright defying, societal expectations. Some weeks she stayed in worn-out casual-wear, and some weeks she wore nothing but poodle skirts to school. There was no middle-ground.
So when it came to a standard, nondescript pair of faded blue jeans, Eliana simply couldn’t remember. She tossed them to the side to deal with later and picked up her phone when it chimed. Her brows rose at the unexpected text from Milo, inviting her to lunch.
The days that followed their conversation in the backyard had been quiet. She’d known that he would need some time to process, so she’d simply been lying low, focusing on her job applications. But she figuredthismeant he was finally ready to get the ball rolling, and she accepted the offer with a smirk, excited at the prospect.
She checked the time; it was only half past nine, and she should have plenty of time before her interview at one-thirty for an office admin role at the local dentistry clinic. But once she laid the phone down, her eyes strayed to the laptop on her bedside table. She wondered what her readers would think of her meeting up with Milo—orMitch, as they knew him?
Shortly after she’d published the chapter about discovering the flowers and Bea’s part in the affair, her story quickly gained traction, spreading swiftly across popular reader groups and hitting leaderboards in a matter of days. Eliana was grateful she’d always operated in that world under a fake name, because the sudden attention was overwhelming. She’d started writing as an outlet, thinking only the friends she’d made in her favorite chat group would read it, giving her the objective insight she so desperately needed back when she had no one else to talk to.
But now, she had thousands of individuals, all over the world, sharing their thoughts and asking for updates. Trading theories on what would happen next, Eliana scoffed, turning away from the laptop and dumping the next basket of laundry on her bed.As if she knew what would happen next. It was hard to provide timely updates whenshe was waiting, just like everyone else, for the next chapter-worthy event to occur. She didn’t imagine they cared to read about the spaghetti she made for dinner, the toilets she scrubbed, or the countless, mundane conversations she had about schedules and karate tournaments and school. By and large, despite her newfound knowledge and her quiet schemes, life continued much the same as it always had.
However, even though some readers seemed to love the story, especially the last, mattress-burning chapter, some of the comments had begun getting a bit . . . wild, somewhere along the way. Some of them were funny. Others made her feel proud and vindicated. But then, sometimes—some of them had the power to poke holes through her bruised heart, calling out truths and pointing out failings that she didn’t want to see. Comments about how weak and stupid she’d been, as if she didn’t already know. Comments about how she should’ve already noticed what was happening, long before she’d reached this point. Endless judgements about her plans and opinions, pointing out every flaw in her thinking.
Her movements were jerky as she worked, slamming the folded pieces of clothing into haphazard piles. She wanted to rage back, to point out that it wasn’t exactly an easy feat to find one’s footing after a decade of ignorant complacency. That this wasn’t some story she was making up—where she could just flip back a page and rewrite a chapter if the reasons she had yesterday didn’t make sense to somebody with more experience. To point out that starting over, from scratch, at thirty-fucking-two, with two innocent pre-teens to take into account, felt like she’d been droppedat the base of Everest and simply instructed to climb.
However, Eliana knew that none of it was targeted ather. She’d been a part of this community for so long that she knew many of the commenters by name—knew that they were genuine and kind. She’d been on the other side of that chat wall hundreds of times, throwing out her own judgments for whatever ridiculous decision a character was making. Screaming into the ether for them to justseewhat she could see.
She slowed her pace, sorting the semi-folded laundry into baskets as she considered the options. She’d first thought about pulling the story down, now that she had a path forward and better support . . . but she’d begun feeling a certain responsibility to finish what she’d started. Not only to provide the readers with a satisfying ending, but to force herself to keep fighting through this horrible process, to hold strong and keep smiling when Jesse FaceTimed or Bea waved. So that when she wrote out her ending—the ending she was determined to achieve—it would betrue.
And she found that along the way, she was learning from her readers. They offered ideas and fresh perspectives. They brought light to the darker moments. They made her consider things she’d never thought of before.
Even though she knew it would only serve to spawn more crazy comments, asking if Milo would become her newhero, Eliana rolled her eyes, she couldn’t help but wonder if this impromptu lunch would become the newest chapter in her story.
So when she walked through the doors of the little diner a few hours later and met Milo’s eyes, a soft smile playing at his lips, she couldn’t help but smile in response.
And when he settled back into his seat,after pulling out her chair, and said, in that whiskey-smooth voice, “So, Eliana . . . I’ve got a job proposition for you,” she was forced to acknowledge that he would make one hell of a hero in a romance novel.
Definitelychapter-worthy.
12
JOB PROPOSITION
Milo
The sound of the vacuum roared back to life for the second time that morning, and Milo snorted as he finished buttoning up his white dress shirt. Ever since Eliana’s impromptu burn pit, Bea had been in a state of sheer panic over the idea of bugs in their house.
“How would they even get over here? It’s not like you spend the night with Eliana,” Milo bluntly asked that first evening, his eyes watchful as she trashed her third can of Lysol and dragged the shampoo vac to the edge of the couch.
“Of course not,” Bea snapped, ripping the covers off their throw pillows. “But I’ve been in their house and sat on their couch. And besides, there’s like ten feet between our houses, I’m sure bugs can crossten feet,” she finished on a wail.
Milo marveled at how simple the omission was for her. Even mid-panic attack, the lie was so easy . . . so quick off the tongue. It made Milo wonder howoften she’d lied in the past, and how many times he’d taken her at her word to his own detriment.
Their relationship had been a struggle from the very start, a constant, exhausting, upward battle. It burned like acid in his chest to know he’d cared so deeply for someone who did not feel the same. To know that he’d been working so hard to get through their issues while she’d been out, making a fool of him. He desperately wanted to be where Eliana was—ready to accept and move on—but he simply wasn’t. So he leaned into the anger, letting it mask his expression as he finished getting ready. He passed through the bedroom, fighting not to roll his eyes at the sight of Bea steam cleaning their mattress for the second time, and headed to work without a backward glance.
Milo specialized in turning around failing businesses, and one of his current clients was a newer, moderate-sized manufacturer with margins so slim that they could barely manage to cover their overhead, much less turn a profit. He’d been conducting interviews and shadowing processes for two weeks, and though it seemed improbable at first, he was now convinced that the issue wasn’t the supplier costs or software inefficiencies as the COO believed, but rather a complete disregard for common-day lean methodologies.
