Page 63 of A Novel Love Story

Anders checked his watch. “A storm this early?” he muttered, and made a soothing sound as he scratched his cat behind the ears.

A thunderstorm instead of a rain shower. A change in Eloraton.

His minty gaze settled on me, and I quickly swallowed down the nauseated feeling rising up from my stomach. And it wasn’t from the hangover this time.

“It must be a change in the season,” I said to Anders, my voice wobbling despite myself, and we both knew well it was the middle of June. My hands shook, but I curled my fingers into fists to keep them steady. Anders mistook my trembling for the cold, and produced a towel from under the counter.

“Here,” he said, offering it to me.

“Th-thanks,” I muttered, taking it to dry my hair. My brain was buzzing, fast and frantic.

Ruby and Jake broke up, it repeated, the phrase turning over and over onto itself. It morphed intoRuby broke up with Jake.

And then.

I broke up Ruby and Jake—

My words. She used my words—

“You really need to stop getting caught in the rain without an umbrella,” he said. His voice was admonishing, but in a playful way. It made me feel worse, because the one thing he warned me about, the one thing he’d asked me to do—

Shit.

The rainstorms were coming and going at weird times. I’d kissed the hero of the unfinished last novel. And now I’d broken up one of the main pairings in Quixotic Falls. Anders had warned me aboutripplesbut I hadn’t thought—I didn’t think that I could—

I wasn’t important enough to change a story, and yet …

I needed to fix this. Repair Ruby and Jake and get out of the way of Anders’s actual romantic love interest—whoever it might be—and back away slowly. Which also meant I probably shouldn’t make out with him again.Ever. So when I found his heroine, he would fall forher.

Not that hewouldfall for me but—

I couldn’t chance it. I didn’t want to mess up my favorite romance story, even though I might have already. “Excuse me.” I quickly disappeared down an aisle. I had to collect myself before I faced him, and it wasn’t like I could justnottell him, right? He’d find out sooner rather than later that Eloraton’s heartbreak couple had, well, ended inheartbreak.

I went down one aisle, and then turned and went down another, going deeper into the bookstore than I’d ever been, but I’d read about this place so many times, the labyrinthine maze of shelves was tattooed on the back of my eyelids. There was a little alcove by the fireplace that was quiet, with a small fainting couch that was soft and smelled of dusty books and smokey cigars. I sank down onto it, grabbed one of the red velvet pillows with golden tassels, and buried my face in it.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

“Eileen?” Anders stepped into the alcove timidly, rapping his knuckles on the side of a bookcase like he would a door. I gave a start, whirling around to him. Rainwater still dripped down my face, and I quickly tried to wipe it away. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Tell him, I thought, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to hate me again.

He’d just begun to like me, too.

He tilted his head, waiting for my answer. I didn’t want to tell him. But he was infuriatingly patient, and he crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned against the edge of one of the bookcases.A sign that readMYSTERYhung above him. “Eileen, as long as no one’s dead, it can’t be all that bad. I’m sure Frank can fix your car.”

Mycar? He thought I was upset about my car? I swallowed the truth with the rest of my mounting panic, and tried to think.

I could work with this.

I could fix Ruby and Jake.

I had a master’s in English, was halfway to my PhD—whenever I could afford night classes—and I’d taken courses from some of the preeminent scholars of romantic literature. I’d devoured enough paperback romances to stock a small library. Happily ever afters couldn’t be that hard to make, right?

They couldn’t be.

I just had to get them there.

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