Page 33 of The Perfect Rom-Com

On the way back out he pauses, just as his face is inches from mine.

He turns by degrees toward me.

There’s a slight, almost roguish twinkle in his eyes. “Sorry. Opening the trunk.”

“Sure,” I say, a little more breathlessly than I meant.

This is nothing.

This means nothing.

It’s mere chemistry. When two people get this close in proximity and have this much of a natural, practical life connection, this is the result. Mere. Chemistry.

My eyes drift to his lips, then quickly rise back to his eyes. I force an easy grin. “How’s Claire?”

“Fine,” he says promptly, scanning my eyes. “How’s Parker?”

“Fine.”

We are all. Just. Fine.

Jack drops me off at my apartment thirty minutes later, and then I do as I do most nights: slip into bed and open my laptop.

Stare at the blinking line on the white screen, waiting for my “masterfully woven” written words. Words that are supposed to be written by “one of the wittiest and most brilliant minds of the twenty-first century,” and precisely not one who still feels a little sick from too much chiftele cu piure and ice cream.

I’m in a tricky spot in my new draft. Twenty thousand words in and currently having a hard time seeing where the characters are going to go. Currently they lack depth, and a thousand questions hover around me over the computer, begging to be answered so I can move on—what exactly is Beau’s backstory, and why exactly does she care so much about holding on to the house in Beaufort? What makes her feel alive about it? What essential value does it add to her life? How does it make her who she is today? Basically, why exactly does it matter to her so much that the guy—what’s his name again?—is trying to swoop in and take it out from under her? The son, isn’t it?

And more important, how can I make the manuscript funnier? Funnier.

Lighter.

Brighter.

In the words of Jack, “Fewer ashes of death and more sparkles.” Because as Jack again said, “Nobody wants to put doom and gloom in their beach bag.”

It’s my unique challenge, keeping my books light as a feather while still conveying a meaningful message and not, now to quote Amelia, “all the super-boring stuff” that weighs people down.

Rom-com, unlike my Water Under the Bridge, is unique in that sense.

Laugh and fall in love and resolve some of your existential crisis while you go.

Spend a few hours with your eyes skating over pages of happiness, all while the more serious bits of your life get to rest their legs. Take a break.

Laugh your heart to healing, I like to say. Now there’s a tagline.

Because laughter is a part of life too, isn’t it? Something not to be dismissed as it stands side by side with more serious matters of growth and grief. I’ll never forget the first time I laughed after Mother passed, the brief inhale of air before being plunged underwater again. Laughter is life. To laugh is to live.

And when done right—and isn’t this the challenge, to do it right?—I do find a specific joy in melting together both magic and message.

Not that Amelia appreciates it.

Or the publisher even, at least those above Susanna’s head.

Push. Push. Push.

The goal is to get it out there faster instead of better, and that, despite myself, I cannot give in to.

Which is just great because you know what that means? It means that here I go again, stressing myself to the max to meet a deadline to keep others happy while refusing to lessen the quality I demand of myself. For an end product nobody will really care about quality-wise but me. I’m punishing myself here, and not even for my own name. Just . . . super.