They signed off a few minutes later, and Jenna reached for the book she’d been reading, a sapphic romance by an author who was new toher. She made it her business to read as much romance as possible, and she read it all—sapphic, gay, straight, and anything in or around those, traditional, historical, fantasy, sci-fi. She wanted to make sure she could help any customer who walked through the doors of BookLove looking for something in particular. But she had to admit that, unsurprisingly, the sapphic stories were her favorites.
She thought about Sawyer’s words, that romance novels were unrealistic. It was such a common complaint, along with it being formulaic, and it didn’t really have any legs to stand on. Mystery was formulaic, too. The setting, a dead body, the detective or busybody or whoever was there to solve it, the clues, the bad guy revealed. That was absolutely a formula, but she never heard anybody complaining that mysteries were formulaic.
Of course, that was because of the misogyny that came with romance—a genre written overwhelmingly by women and for women—and she didn’t want her brain to go down that road while she was trying to relax before bed. Giving her head a literal shake, she then opened the book, laid her hand on Arnold, and read until her eyelids became heavy and the words on the pages blurred.
That night, she dreamt of soft, blue eyes and waves of dark hair and rainbows.
Sawyer’s mind was not on work, and she hated that.
Being unable to concentrate on what needed to be done was the worst. She sighed and deleted the paragraph that had taken her the better part of half an hour to write. Trying to refocus on the details in her notes, she gave it another shot.
“Okay, that’s about the thirty-fifth time you’ve sighed in the past hour.” Colton Reeves spun in his chair so he faced her in the oversized cubicle they shared. “What’s going on?”
She dropped her head back and groaned softly. “Can’t concentrate.”
“Why not?”
Her cheeks puffed out as she blew a breath, then turned to face him. He was a few years older than she was, thin and always very well dressed. Colton was the first person she’d connected with when she started this job, and despite the TV showModern Familyclaiminglesbians and gay men have nothing in common, they somehow forged a solid friendship. Aside from her sister Courtney, the person who knew her best was Colton.
Which was exactly why he could interpret her sighing as something more than just fatigue. It was also why she knew better than to try and tell him nothing was bothering her. He’d see right through her. A blessing and a curse, that.
She glanced around to see who was close enough to hear their conversation, then lowered her voice to just above a whisper and told Colton everything that had happened. She started with popping into BookLove on a whim and ended with the conversation with Jenna that had taken place a few days ago on the front porch of her new home.
“And now you have an enemy who lives next door.” Colton sighed and shook his head.
“What? Why are you shaking your head at me?”
“Blogs are tricky business,” he said with a shrug. “I told you that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with doing reviews.”
“Of course not. But you didn’t do a review. You trashed somebody’s livelihood. Totally different thing.”
Sawyer swallowed, not wanting Colton to be right but knowing he kind of was.
“What were you thinking?”
Sawyer frowned as she recalled that day. “I’d left Wyman’s after a meeting that was sort of stressful. I wanted to walk it off for a bit, and then Amanda called.”
Colton groaned and rolled his eyes. “Of course she did.”
“I was already frustrated, and she just added to it. When I hung up from her, I was near a bookshop and thought that would cheer me up.”
“And it ended up being her romance-only bookstore.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought you should write about that and how much you hate it.” Colton was clearly smothering a grin.
“Shut up.”
“Hey, I’m just calling ’em like I see ’em.”
Sawyer sighed, again, and covered her face with her hands. “Fucking Amanda. She ruins everything.”
“That’s true. That bitch is like black mold. She’s deadly and she spreads everywhere.”
Sawyer grinned sadly because he wasn’t wrong. But also, that was a person she’d loved once. Sometimes, she worried that she still did.
