Page 120 of Confessions of a Smutty Romance Author

So, I dialed the people from home that Icouldcall. Henrietta and Birdie, the loves of my life.

Henrietta answered first, a big smile on her face. “How’s my favorite writer doing?”

“Missing you guys. Tell me about home,” I said.

She sat down on a couch, getting comfortable. “Still busy at work, getting ready for the construction crews to come in. Taking my grandma for her weekly pedicure. You know, the usual.”

Birdie answered the call, her face appearing on the screen. “My favorite people! I miss you, Mara.”

I smiled. “I miss you too. How’s everyone doing there?” I asked, not quite wanting to bring up Jonas's name. But from the quiet on the other end of the phone, they could tell what information I was hoping for.

Birdie’s face was serious as she said, “Honey, I have some news.”

My stomach dropped. Had Tess and Derek split up? What about the baby? God, if anything happened to that baby... “What kind of news?” I finally asked.

“Jonas is seeing someone,” she said.

It felt like a piece of my heart had been hollowed out. Like whatever small candle of hope I’d been holding on to had dimmed.

“Mara?” she said. “Did you freeze?”

“I’m still here,” I said, trying not to show how much it hurt that Jonas had already moved on. I hadn’t been able to come close. A few people had asked me out, including Bradley Mason himself, and I’d always said no. Being with anyone else felt... wrong.

“Who is it?” I asked, closing my eyes against the answer I already knew.

“Tracey,” Birdie confirmed.

I nodded. Of course it was her. The girl with a thin waist and perfect hair. The girl who always looked adorable and put-together. The girl he deserved.

“Is it serious?” I asked, only torturing myself more. The thought of her living in the house with him, sitting on the furniture we’d picked out together... It fucking gutted me. But maybe that pain was what I needed to move on. To commit to my new life.

Birdie frowned. “I've seen her around a few times at the bar and things like that.”

Another punch to the gut. “Good for him,” I said, I lied. “Hey, I think there's someone at the door. I've got to go.”

“Mara—” Henrietta began, but I hung up. I didn’t want my friends to see me cry. I didn’t want them to hear how much I missed Jonas and how much I just wished we could be together again.

But he was living his new life with Tracey, and that's what he wanted before I ever came along. She’d be the perfect girl for him—one who wouldn’t push him away or take away the possibility of children. One who could be his forever happily ever after.

59

Jonas

I couldn't believe Tess and Derek's rehearsal dinner was here or that I was going with Tracey instead of Mara. We were all in a nice restaurant near Tess’s boutique, surrounded by Tess and Derek's closest friends and family.

The two families sat on opposite sides of the table, not intermingling. Things were awkward between Derek's family and our own, and I suspected they still wished that he would have sued my sister.

But the two of them... they were perfect together. Even from several seats away I could feel the love and happiness between them that they had found their person.

Part of me wondered if this could be Tracey and me in a few years. We'd been going out a few times a week since our first date, and there had yet to be a fight, yet to be anything other than amicable conversation. We hadn't slept together, but things were easy, and that's probably where it was going. Maybe even after the wedding.

She wasn't Mara, but then again, no one was, and I had to let it go. I had to let her go. As far as I'd heard from Cohen and Birdie, Mara was having a great time and fitting right in with her colleagues. Making waves in the writers’ room and making Atlanta a good temporary home.

The show she was working on was supposed to air a year from now, and I knew when it came time, I would watch it. Even keep it on during all the credits, just to see her name. She was a part of my past, part of my heart, but not a part of my future.

Tracey, the girl next to me, could be that future. Even if I wasn’t excited about it yet.

Toward the end of the dinner, Tess stood up, held her nearly empty champagne glass that had been filled with orange juice, and tapped her knife against it.

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