Page 1 of Bro Amazing

Chapter One

The flyer is vague beyond belief, but I'm desperate. I can't keep chasing my dream of being a full-time writer while at the same time affording rent. Prices are too high, even for a studio apartment. I'm at the stage where I need to either admit defeat and apply for full-time jobs, or any of my current books need to suddenly jump onto the bestseller lists. Really, though, even if that happened today, I'd still be in this exact position since it takes two months to get paid in this world.

I'm on my last bit of savings, so my options are: get a job that pays straight away and give up writing—at least for now—or find some way to live for free. Which is a ridiculous notion in a city this size. Living cheap is silly enough.

But then I saw the flyer on the lamppost.Wanted: Live-in girlfriend, includes free room and board.

It's probably a scam, or the guy is creepy. I mean, why would someone advertise for a girlfriend? What's wrong with them? And to go so far as to pay said girlfriend via room and board? There has to be a serious catch. It almost doesn't sound like they want a girlfriend so much as a …

No. I shut that thought down real quick. Not going there. I don't have any other options that will allow me to continue topursue my dream though, so I need to at least check it out. I can always leave if the interview gets too creepy or if I feel unsafe.

I can picture the headline now:Romance Author Clarissa Clarke Missing; No Potential Suspects.

I should at least let someone know where I am so that if I go missing, they can tell the police where to start looking for my body. I pull out my phone to text my friend Sasha.

I'm going to a roommate interview. Wish me luck, I type, along with the address. No need to tell her that the interview is not only for being a roommate, but a girlfriend as well.

Good luck!Sasha texts me back almost immediately.I'm in the middle of packing up a ton of books today since my direct sales have been crazy.

Yay! Get it girl!I add in some celebration emojis, but I don't feel any of it. I mean, I'm happy for her because she works super hard and deserves every bit of this success, but I've worked hard too and have barely gotten any page reads.

This is yet another reason why I don't want to get a job and give up my dream of being a full-time author. I've already put so much into this career and if I give up, it'll feel like all of my compromises have been a waste. I'm a good writer, I know it. I just need to work harder.

And maybe stop comparing myself to my friends who are having more success than me because we don't write in the same subgenre.

Sasha writes high-heat romantasy, while I've been focused on clean or fade-to-black small-town romances. And while hers fly off the shelves, mine have been collecting dust.

Maybe I should try writing in Sasha's line of romance.

The only problem with that idea is that I don't really have any experience in the bedroom. I had a boyfriend for a while, but when I got serious about being a writer, that fell to the waysidebecause he didn't understand what it's like to have a passion and follow a dream.

Stopping outside the address on the flyer, I look up at a front door with slightly peeling paint and one of the numbers a little crooked, almost like it's barely clinging to the door. Even the little bit of front yard that exists is covered in weeds, giving the whole place a slight air of dejection.

This house looks exactly like how I feel lately. But it also looks like whoever lives here could murder me and dump my body in the nearest ravine. I'm already conjuring an image of an older man with a beer belly in a sweaty white tank top, sharpening the blade of his machete as he prepares to chop me up into little pieces.

I really should leave. Give up my dream and continue to live my life, at least.

A group walks past on the sidewalk and one of their shoulders hits my back, shoving me toward the steps.

"Watch where you're going," says the man gruffly as he hurries on down the sidewalk.

I frown after him. I was literally standing there minding my own business. He's the one who ran into me. I swear, people in this town are getting worse.

Now that I'm standing on the little front walk, made of cracks and half-covered with grass, I suppose I should take the next step up to the door. The passing stranger was rude, but it was probably my sign that I should at least try every avenue to succeed before I give up. This is only an interview, and I can always leave.

I tuck my long, pin-straight, brown hair hair behind my ears and smooth my hands over my best pair of jeans, straighten my shoulders, and climb the steps up to the front door.

There's no bell or knocker on the door so I use my knuckles and wait, when a new thought occurs to me.

What if the flyer and the job is real, but the guy already found a live-in girlfriend and just hasn't gotten around to taking down the flyers yet?

Oh man, this is so embarrassing. Maybe I should leave. Thousands of other people have given up on their dreams and survived. I could too. It'd be sad, but it'd be an existence.

Or I could come back to a career as a writer later when I'm retired and don't need to worry about income so much.

I'm halfway down the steps to the sidewalk when the front door opens to reveal a tall man in black sweatpants and a graphic tee. The shirt has some sort of cartoon character on it I don't recognize, and his deep red hair is kind of sticking up from his head as if he just woke up.

"Fuck, we almost didn't get the door, you knocked so quiet. We had a debate about if it was the wind or a ghost or something before we decided to check," says the guy, rubbing his face as if it's too bright out here. "You here about the position?"

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