Page 1 of Unromance

CHAPTER ONE

THE MEET-CUTE– The love interests meet. It’s cute. It upends their entire lives.

Hold the door!”

Sawyer shot her arm out automatically, shoving her hand between the nearly closed elevator doors. She was going to lose a limb one day, but she believed all these little acts of kindness would pay off for her eventually.

Hell, maybe today was that day.

The elevator doors parted to reveal one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen. Black curls peeked out beneath a navy beanie, his dark brown eyes bright from his mad dash for the elevator. Snow still clung to the broad shoulders of his peacoat and the tops of his boots, like he hadn’t had time to shake it off.

“Thank you,” the guy panted, slipping through the doors. He reached out to push the button for his floor only to find it already lit. “I’m so late,” he confessed.

“I’ll let you get off first, then.” She cleared her throat. “Getoutfirst,” she corrected herself, repressing a laugh.

She could feel his eyes boring into the side of her face. She caved, her gaze drifting back to his, his eyes crinkled at the corners in amusement. His lips pressed together, rolling inward, as if to rein in the quick quip on the tip of his tongue. While Sawyer didn’tnormally enjoy innuendo from strangers, she found herself holding her breath, the promise of a good banter in the quirk of his mouth. Then, as if remembering himself, his face slid into a demure mask. “Thank you.”

Ducking her head, she smirked at her reflection in the mirrored walls. He might not have taken the bait, but she was already looking forward to watching him walk away, to see if his back was as swoon-worthy as his front. Sawyer fell in love about twenty times a day. She didn’tactually—for years she had made a point of avoiding falling in love—but it was a by-product of being a romance author. She could make a meet-cute out of anything. Well, she used to be able to.

She shoved the thought—and everything that came with it—from her mind. She came out tonight tonotthink about that.

“That is a lot of books,” he commented, eyeing the lumpy tote cradled in her arms. For how heavy it was, it was a feat she’d forgotten about it, but her arm had gone numb long ago. Shifting the sack around to her front, she cradled the bottom of the eco-friendly bag to relieve the ache in her shoulder.

Back at her tiny apartment, Sawyer’s bookshelves were immaculately arranged in bookstagram-ready rainbow order. Out of frame of her carefully curated Zoom background, however, werethe piles—“to be read,” “to be blurbed,” and “to be donated.” She was no Marie Kondo, but the attempt to purge was an honest one, at least. So, every month, Sawyer schlepped her donations here, and every month, she forgot to find a less backaching way to transport the books.

“The bartender and I have an agreement,” she said mysteriously, the alluring effect she was going for no doubt neutralized by her Gollum-esque posture.

He raised an eyebrow at her. One eyebrow. How dare he be able to do that when she could not?

“He’s a nurse. I have way too many books. I funnel him books for the nursing home library, and he lets me drink for free.”

Whatever he had been about to say was cut short as the elevator shook violently, an earsplitting screech filling the air. The lights flickered, and the elevator stopped, the orchestral holiday music cutting off with an ominous diminuendo.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered. He pushed a few buttons, but nothing lit up.

Sawyer laughed.

“You think this is funny?” he asked, as if concerned for her sanity.

“No,” she said, the giggle bubbling past her lips contradicting her. She cleared her throat. “No,” she managed more seriously. “It’s just—I read a lot of romance—” She gestured to her bag of books. “Two people getting stuck in an elevator? It’s a classic meet-cute, but I didn’t think it actuallyhappened.”

His brows knit together, definitely questioning her sanity. “I don’t get it. What about this is cute?” He wrapped his arms around his chest, as if trying to hold himself together.

Sawyer sobered up. “You don’t like elevators, do you?”

“No,” he said around a strained inhale, running a hand over his ridiculously attractive face. “Keep talking, please. Tell me more about this meet-cute.”

She shrugged. Telling escapist stories was her livelihood, but she was suddenly coming up blank. An apt metaphor for the current state of her career, unfortunately. Panic began to rise in her throat, but she shoved it down. “Uh, I don’t know. Two people get stuck in an elevator—usually two people unlikely to fall in love, but y’know, trapped together—”

His fist was now covering his mouth in the universal signal of someone trying not to be sick. “More on the cute part, please, less on the ‘trapped’ and ‘stuck’—”

“Right, sorry,” she mumbled. “Uh, so, in my favorite one, after getting”—she mouthed the wordstuckto spare him—“in an elevator together and sharing her purse cheese, the two strangers agree to start fake dating to make the guy’s ex jealous—”

“I don’t want to make my ex jealous,” he said matter-of-factly.

She fixed him with a look. “I wasn’t offering.”

A strangled laugh escaped him as her words sank in.

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