Page 54 of Suddenly Dating
“Lola, I’d like to introduce you to Birta Hoffman,” Mallory said, suddenly quite formal.
Birta smiled kindly. “Hallo, Lola.”
“It is... it’ssucha pleasure to meet you,” Lola said, her voice almost shaking with anxiety. She extended her hand; Birta slipped her very limp one into it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’ve been a huge fan of your work since forever.”
“Have you?” Birta asked, with only a hint of an accent. “Which book did you like?”
“TheUnforgivenseries, of course,” Lola said, trying not to gush at the seminal works that had put Birta on the literary map. “I adored theTobias Chronicle. And I think I might have been first in line to buyInconsequential.”
“My, you’ve read quite a lot of them,” Birta said, chuckling. “Did you enjoy my newest?”
“Of course!” Lola said, beaming. In truth, she hadn’t liked it as well as she had the others, but she loved Birta so much she would overlook one less-than-stellar book out of ten.
Birta pulled her hand free of Lola’s, because apparently, Lola was still holding it. She turned her sultry smile to Harry.
“I’m so sorry!” Mallory said. “This is Lola’s boyfriend, Harry Westbrook.”
“Well hallo, Harry,” Birta said.
“Ms.Hoffman, it’s a pleasure,” he said.
“But I have to say that my favorite isIncomplete,” Lola added, suddenly remembering. “It was so masterful. The complexity of your plot just blew me away, and all that emotion—”
“Doyouread, Harry?” Birta asked, cutting Lola off.
“Sports Illustrated,”he said.
Lola gasped with horror—how could he say such a thing? But Birta was not offended. She laughed, clearly amused.
“Actually, I love anything Lola writes,” Harry said. “She’s writing a book, too.”
“Oh?” Birta shifted her gaze to Lola. “What’s it about?”
Here it was, her big moment. Lola’s tongue felt thick in her head, and all the words, the carefully rehearsed words, had deserted her. “Ah...”
“Don’t be shy. Tell her about it, baby,” Harry said, and put his arm around her waist, pulling her close to him.
Birta stood, waiting expectantly, her gaze razor sharp.
“Ummm...” Lola couldn’t remember what she was writing. It seemed impossible, but in that moment, she could not find her book in her muddled thoughts.
Harry laughed warmly. “She’s so shy,” he said and pulled her tighter, even pinching her waist a little to shake her head out of the clouds. That was hardly necessary—it wasn’t as if Lola wasn’t painfully aware she was panicking and forgetting everything. “You know how writers are,” Harry said. “Such introverts.”
“We are, that’s true,” Birta said, her gaze on Harry again, the smile returned to her face.
“So I’ll tell you,” Harry said. “Because it’s great. It’s about this woman who is a psychopath. If a guy doesn’t respond to her texts, she kills him.”
Yes! Yes, yes, that was it!
Birta’s eyes widened with surprise, and she looked at Lola.“Really.”
“Yep,” Harry continued. “It’sAmerican PsychomeetsThe Wedding Planner—”
“Actually, it’sAmerican PsychomeetsGone Girl, meetsBridget Jones’s Diary,” Lola heard herself say.
