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But she didn’t. She just lifted her e-reader and tapped on the black-and-white screen.
Taking my phone out, I navigated to the Kindle app and tried to focus on the words. But they kept blurring together, and I found myself having to re-read the same paragraph more than once before I could move on to the next one.
It had a lot to do with my pops. I knew that. But it might also be related to the distracting noises coming from the other side of the table. Lyndi kept making these quiet little grunts. More likeharrumphs,actually.
Just when I was about to put the phone down and ask her what was going on, she surprised me by tossing her Kindle into the grass with a flick of her wrist.
“Um…” I stared at the black rectangle with wide eyes before looking at her, my hand slowly lifting to point at it. “What was that?”
“Thatwas my reaction to a crappy ending.”
“Okay. And… it was so bad youthrewyour Kindle?”
She shrugged. “You’re saying you’ve never thrown a book?”
“Uh, no. I’ve never thrown a book.”
With a light chuckle, she got up and retrieved her Kindle, dropping it on the table. “I’ve been through a lot with this beast. It’s indestructible.”
The quirk of her lips had me mesmerized for a second, then I shook my head to clear it. “What got you so worked up?”
“I think the author was trying to avoid predictability, or make some kind of statement, but she went too far. There’s a pattern to romance… a formula. She totally messed it up at the end.”
My own book completely forgotten, I turned off the screen and slipped my phone into my pocket again. Then I turned toward her and braced my forearms on the table between us. “Hang on, so you’re saying youwantyour books to be predictable?”
“No. I’m saying there are ways to stay within the pattern and still make it interesting. It’s like… she didn’t play by the rules. She set me up to think I was reading a romance and then threw in a curveball. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good curveball. But not when it breaks genre conventions. It’s jarring.”
I watched the fire dance in her eyes as she spoke, her passion for the subject as clear as the sky above us. “I read thrillers, not romance, so curveballs are kind of my thing.”
“Goodones, yeah. But I guarantee you’d hate a book if it threw you a bad one at the end, even if you couldn’t put your finger on why it bothered you.”
“Maybe I only read good books, then.”
She lifted a shoulder, unconcerned. “Maybe so. Either way, I’m on the hunt for a new book.”
I cleared my throat, unwilling to be left alone with my thoughts again. Even though I had no intention of allowing myself to be distracted by romantic notions—no matter what my pops made me promise—chatting with Lyndi loosened the vice grip around my heart, and I needed to keep doing it.
“First, you have to tell me what happened. I’m invested now.”
Her eyes narrowed into slits as she looked me over. Then she mirrored my pose with her arms on the table and leaned toward me. “They didn’t end up together. That’s not romance. That’s…life.”
I cringed, knowing all too well how true that was. Then I quickly slipped on a neutral expression. This wasn’t about me and what I’d lost. This was about her and what she clearly deemed as fact, when in my opinion, it didn’t have to be true forher. “It’s not always that way. You’re a wedding photographer. You can’t tell me happily ever afters don’t exist.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course they exist.”
“Okay, so why did you say ‘that’s life,’ like they don’t?”
Heaving out a sigh, she leaned back in her chair and looked out over the grounds. “I read romance because it’s an escape. I love the way everything works out in the end, even when that isn’t always the case in real life. I’m not denying that itcan, I’m just saying it doesn’t happen for everyone.”
“You’re saying you don’t think it’ll happen for you.” I didn’t ask it like a question. The answer was scrawled on her face and dripping from her words. It was in the downward set of her mouth and the way her voice had gotten lower toward the end like she was speaking from experience.
Lyndi’s breath caught, and her eyes darted to mine. “What makes you say that?”
“Because you read it to escape.”
A small crease appeared between her brows and her lips parted, then she closed them and picked up her Kindle again.
I waited while she scrolled through it, hoping she’d put it down and return to the conversation. I had no idea why it mattered to me what she thought about happy endings, but it did.
