Page 38 of The Perfect Rom-Com

She seems to recall exactly where she is and sits up again.

Jack slides her a drink and motions for one of the women to begin.

“Soooo,” Susanna begins in a singsong voice, the least offensive one among them. Her smile is frozen on her heart-shaped face and her cheeks hold a rosy glow. She swipes at her phone. “Shall I start us off?”

Amelia’s phone dings and then rings. “I’m listening. I have to do some work while you talk, but I’m here.” Amelia does not even so much as look Susanna in the eye as she swipes her phone. “Yeah.” She pulls the phone to her ear, all while pointing at Penny.

Penny snaps her pen on her paper and begins scribbling.

“Of course,” Susanna says sheepishly. “Terrrrific.”

I drag my sweet tea toward me and plunge my straw in.

“Everything,” Susanna says, “I should say to begin, is great. It’s great. We have been thrilled overall with this system over the past two years and how your partnership has turned out. Your books—”

“My books,” Amelia interjects, cocking her head with her phone glued to her ear.

“Yes,” Susanna says with a smile at the reminder Amelia has given, yet again, that I have no ownership. “The second person, single you,” she continues, and I stifle a smile at this oh-so-tiny bookish comment and Susanna’s oh-so-tiny pinched eyes. “And the Brooks Publishing team in general cannot be more excited to see what’s in store for us over the course of this next year. We have no doubt Babies over Bayou and the next two releases will be even bigger blockbuster events.”

“Two?” I cast a look (i.e., glare) at Jack.

He grabs my balled-up fist beneath the table. Gives a little shake of his head as if to say, “No, they’ve definitely got that wrong, but it’s of such little significance let’s not bring it up now.”

I dig my nails into his palm, just enough to see him wince.

“But?” I say. Might as well get to the massively bad news before the pie comes. Don’t want the taste of massively bad news to ruin the one highlight of tonight.

“But.” Susanna pulls a little oh dear face. “At the event last night—and that really was a wonderful event. Nice job as always, Amelia”—she flashes a huge smile at the top of Amelia’s head just in case she decides to look up—“but there was that one teeny tiny, uh . . . episode . . . during the Q&A that set us all thinking about our upcoming book launch.”

Susanna pauses. Takes a breath.

So this swing’s going to come Amelia’s way then. This is a free show for me.

I lean forward, taking a suck of my tea.

“Episode?” Amelia’s head snaps up.

“Not episode.” Mona jumps in with her low, efficient tone. “More like a moment of truth. We just realized something after the Q&A that let us know we need to redirect the ship here. All to keep it running smoothly.”

Amelia’s eyes squint so much that those extremely long false lashes she wears for events overlap each other, looking ready to get tangled and blindfold her. It must be a big event tonight at the conference center, because the bigger the event, the longer the lashes are. And tonight they’re long enough to block her from reaching her wineglass with her lips. She blinks a few times until they let go of one another.

“Which is?” Amelia prompts suspiciously, dropping the phone from her ear and giving Susanna and Mona her direct attention. Just daring them to criticize her “rigorous art of entertainment.”

“Bottles over Books went off with a bang. We had such a line out the door the police got involved. They thought it was a rage party.”

“The event was extremely productive,” Mona reaffirms.

Susanna clutches her wine and commences to take tiny, sheepish sips.

“You were great,” Mona continues, when Amelia doesn’t show any sign of calming down. “You have a very specific”—she pauses, finding the word—“warmth that draws people to you at these gatherings. We’re always using footage of you at your events to show our other authors, demonstrating how to perfectly capture your audience.”

Amelia sniffs. Looks to Jack.

“You do have a gift,” Jack says.

Amelia bypasses me and looks to Susanna, who is nodding on repeat silently.

“But,” Mona continues, when several seconds have passed and it has been made sufficiently clear that everyone (minus me) at the table has properly stroked her ego, “when you referred to a character as ‘my sweet spot, Sam’—”