Page 32 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
But the truth?
That story kicked ass.
I found myself laughing out loud more than once.
Yeah, I know… laughing at your own jokes is basically a crime punishable by wine confiscation at any dinner party. But that wasn’t the point. The point was—I was having fun.
I was writing, and I liked it. Not just the result. The act itself.
I’d found my spark again.
That rare, precious thing that, once lost, can slide under a couch and stay there for years.
Then, like a pebble cracking a windshield, one not-so-minor detail slammed back into my brain:
Next month, no more money from Mom and Dad.
How was I supposed to pay rent?
Utilities?
Buy food?
I looked around. Considered selling the rug for a second.
Three weeks.
That’s all I had.
And right now, in Vivienne Blaze’s messy little saga—the literary alter ego of Tess Martini—I was still knee-deep in Act One.
But if I kept writing each night with the same frantic fire I’d had yesterday… if Tess kept diving into her romantic delusions with that same dramatic flair…
If the universe cut me just a little slack—both financially and creatively…
I could do it.
I’d print that manuscript. I’d get a meeting with Mr. Bronson. I’d walk back into that office, this time with my head held high, and slam it on his desk like a pie to the face.
“See if this pops off the page, you pompous twit.”
I realized, with some alarm, that I was starting to sound like Tess. That same unhinged tone, full of fate and signs from the universe and the holy power of one’s own ideas.
I’d become a hopeless dreamer.
Only I didn’t have the sex appeal. I had… publishing. And publishing, spoiler alert, has never seduced a soul.
Besides, Bronson didn’t even rep romance novels.
But mine wasn’t just any romance, dammit! Itwasn’tSalted Caramel Hearts, orTwo Roommates and a Cabin, orLove on Holiday(seriously, who comes up with these titles?).
No. Mine was another planet.
A rom-com that made you laugh, sure—but then hit you with that gut punch. The kind that makes you laugh while realizing there’s actually nothing funny at all.
Forget the Great American Novel.
This was the story of a girl clinging to her dignity by her fingernails. Who wanted a place in the world, even if she wasn’t sure where it was.
