Page 18 of Book Boyfriends
I rub at my temples. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t real.”
“Did Pretty Boy and Lord Fancy Trousers convince you?” Lars asks.
“I beg your pardon,” Lord James scoffs.
“Aw, thanks for calling me pretty, man,” Owen says.
“You can’t smell it on me?” A disturbed laugh accompanies my words. Am I really sitting on my floor talking to fictional men? As authors, we talk about our characters speaking to us, but this…Does writer’s block cause delusions?
“You told me not to smell you anymore,” he grunts. “IF you’d like?—”
“Don’t smell me!” I shout, causing Wentworth to jump off the bed and lumber toward me. Closing my eyes, I lean my head against the door. “Why are you here? What do you want with me?”
“To help you,” Owen says, his sweet smile audible in his voice.
“With what?”
“To find your happy ending.”
“And ours, my lady,” Lord James adds.
I blink. “But you already had your happy endings. Lady Cecily. Selena. Ivy.”
Like any good romance, my books came with a happy ending but included a cherry on top in the epilogue. Lord James and Lady Cecily welcome their first child. Ivy proposes to Lars after a demon hunt. Owen opens a second bakery with his now wife Selena, who’d left her corporate job to live in Sugarville.God, that really was a terrible book.
“Selena went back to the big city,” Owen says, befuddlement punctuates his statement.
Big city? Did I write that?I cringe, remembering the very clichéd Hallmarky plot points of that book.
“Lady Cecily is engaged to the Marquis,” Lord James adds.
My eyes widen. “And Ivy?”
“She’s halfway back to the vampire territory,” Lars says dismissively.
I shake my head. Somehow, each man is here just after their third act breakup. Before the twist that unites them with their lady love. Lord James’s realization that his vendetta against her father isn’t as great as his love for Lady Cecily. Lars giving up his role as pact leader to join Ivy and the human/supernatural alliance to fight rogue demons. Selena quitting her job for a simpler life with Owen.
Seriously, who let me write that book? Clearly, I was working out some inner misogyny there.I close my eyes.
The clichéd and un-feminist small-town romance aside, the certainty that this isn’t real is reduced to a mere wisp. Each stroke of truth paints a picture that may appear surreal, but its reality seeps through me. Not wanting to believe something doesn’t make it not real. I know that better than anyone. Didn’t I sit on this very floor among packed boxes, wishing my breakup with Will wasn’t true? Only to lie in my bed a month later, tearfully begging that the reason he’d ended things wasn’t real?
Opening my eyes, I meet Wentworth’s curious stare. Not a trace of hesitation or fear is evident in his dark pupils.
None of this makes sense. I may lose myself in a story from time-to-time, but not like this. Not where the pages of a book blur with the reality of my life.
Wentworth moves closer, his wet nose meeting mine. I inhale his oatmeal perfume and stroke my fingers along his silken coat. He’s real. He’s here. That means…
Nodding, I suck in a breath. “Okay, boy.” After counting to three, I stand up and turn. My hand grasps the doorknob, but I stop. “Just in case,” I whisper. I spin and pull Justice’s Arm out from beneath the bed.
Fingers gripped tightly around the bat, I inch the door open and come face-to-face with my three book boyfriends. Bewilderment twists their handsome features.
“What do you mean you’re here to help me get my happy ending?”
CHAPTER FIVE
WE’RE YOUR HAPPY ENDING
My expression tight, I step fully into the room. Wentworth rushes past me to sit before Owen, who bends and scratches his floppy ears. Despite my defensive stance with the bat, my dog is undisturbed by the three strange men standing in the middle of my living room.
