Page 95 of The Perfect Rom-Com

The jitters nearly take me over as I stand in front of The Terrace and spot Florence’s back against the glass.

I turn to Gloria.

“Don’t be getting nervous on me now, Bryn.” Gloria gives my back a little push.

“I know.” I inhale a breath. It’s crazy to get the jitters to this degree now, but I can’t help it. Seeing her—it just cements that what’s happening is real. The truth is, as best as I can see, this quite literally is my last chance. For The Bridge. But also, more than likely, for me. A chance like this won’t come again.

This interview hidden beneath a thin veil of croissants and sandwiches is truly at its core an interview. And quite frankly, it’s all I have from my years of service to Amelia Benedict (et al.). I don’t have more contacts I can lean on. I don’t have more emails I can send. I don’t have more information I can give.

It’s reminiscent of that first pitch session with Jack and a reminder that all of what I do, this entire life of a writer, is insanity.

If the road to publication means going back to square one and doing all that I did at that pitch table, then writing feverishly for two more years, to get to this moment . . . I’ll just give up. I’ll quit.

Choose a path more sane.

More feasible.

Maybe law school.

Med school.

Aerodynamics.

My fingernails claw into my palms as I ball them up at my sides.

This is it.

And I feel myself on the brink of an all-out panic.

Florence is going to see me like this.

She’s going to see me panicking and then everything really will be lost.

I hear Gloria behind me.

“All right, Bryony. It’s your big interview and I know this is the one. So buck up. Pull yourself up by those bootstraps. Slap that proposal—more or less—on the table. And get back on that horse because you are going to have a rootin’ tootin’ good day, ya hear? This is it. I can feel it in my bones. If the creek don’t rise, I reckon you’re fixin’ to be in high cotton any moment now, and whatever anyone else says about that don’t make a hill of beans a difference.”

I turn around. Gloria has her phone out now. And with a grin, she’s reading off some old iPhone note from two years ago. Despite myself, I feel the ice breaking, the anxiety cracking within me as I let out a jittery chuckle of disbelief.

Turns out she did it again.

She nudges me toward the doors. “Now go on,” she says in her exaggerated Southern voice. “You did it once. You became that 1 percent. All on your own. And you can do it again.”

Chapter 20

“Ms. Peters?”

I move around Florence Peters’s chair (no matter how casually she types her name, she will always be known as the formidable, amazing Florence Peters in my head) and peer at her as if very casually wondering if it’s her. Of course it’s her.

I’ve been staring at the back of her head for five minutes.

I pretty much have her head memorized from all my stalking social media research.

“Bryony, hello again!” Florence moves to stand and, before I know it, is leaning forward and extending her limbs in one of two things. A hug or a handshake. It’s impossible to know which. And, of course, I’m immediately crippled with indecision while being forced to make one.

An unwanted hug when she meant to give a professional handshake makes me creepy and is immediately undesirable.

But an unwanted handshake when she was moving forward to give a friendly hug makes me pointy and sharp edged and is immediately undesirable.