Chapter 1 Now #2
He’s only a few years older than me, but it feels like Ross has lived so much more life than I ever have.
I guess a decade of dating in New York City will do that to you.
I love his advice—blunt, snarky, borderline mean, but always, always right—but my favorite thing about him is his style.
Absolutely no one comes close. Picture high fashion crashing into chic streetwear in a kaleidoscope of colors and bold prints, always styled with a funky pair of glasses.
He dresses not just for the day but for the role of the most interesting person in any room.
I’d love to be able to pull off his outfits, but sticking to basics is more my speed.
Tonight, I’m pushing my limits with a kelly green blazer that compliments the colorful cover of my book, but next to Ross, I still feel underdressed beside his short-sleeve cardigan, patterned trousers, and bold cherry-red loafers that look like they walked straight off a runway at Fashion Week.
“I’ll take another peek,” Mila jumps in, cutting off my train of thought. “Our FaceTime practice run clocked in right around thirty minutes, which gives us a good amount of breathing room and time for audience Q and A.”
“Yeah, one last look can’t hurt,” I agree.
Before I can get even halfway through the questions, my phone buzzes—my mom’s calling. Mila and Ross tell me to take the call, then leave so I have the room to myself.
I answer. “Hey, Mom, we’re about to start. Everything okay?”
“It’s Dad and me. Just wanted to say good luck! We’re so proud of you and can’t wait to hear all about it. My book club has been counting down the days until your Richmond signing!”
I feel my cheeks heat. Not just because the idea of my mom’s friends reading the spicier scenes is horrifying but because I know exactly how far her book club will go.
There’s nothing a middle-aged lady loves more than gossip, especially when it involves someone she “sort of” knows.
And now they’ve all read the love story I wrote before my actual one imploded.
“Tell them hi for me, and maybe warn them to skip chapter nineteen,” I say with a laugh that comes out faker than I intended it to.
There’s a pause.
“You’ve got this, honey. We just wanted to check in,” she says gently. “Call us after?”
Before I can answer, from the background, I hear my dad shout, “Love you, peanut!”
“Love you too.”
They’ve been doing that a lot lately—calling more, checking in, reminding me that I’m loved. And I appreciate it. I really do. But there’s something about their concern that makes me feel like if I’m not careful, I’ll fall apart.
My parents have always been my biggest cheerleaders.
They were the first, after Cole, to call me an author, even before I believed it myself.
I grew up in a traditional home—Dad the breadwinner, Mom a kindergarten teacher.
She’s the reason I majored in education and became an English teacher after college, even though writing was always the thing that lit me up most. See, when you’re eighteen and you tell people you want to be a writer, they look at you like you’ve said you want to join a cult.
“Sure…” they’d say, and I could hear the laughter once I turned away.
Teacher was a much easier path for folks to understand, me included, at least at first.
Now, I think about my parents reading this book, proudly telling everyone they know that their daughter writes love stories for a living, and I wonder if they’ll be able to tell I’m not so sure I believe in them anymore.
While my phone is in my hand, I click on Instagram to post a quick video to my story.
By no means am I an influencer, just an author with a few thousand followers trying to promote her latest release.
But still, I get a rush out of the interaction—the tiny bursts of validation, the readers in my DMs telling me how my words changed them.
It feels performative and personal all at once.
I tell myself it’s work, part of the job, but there’s no denying the thrill of people watching, liking, responding.
Pub day for authors is our most anticipated social media moment of the year (or years, depending on how often you publish).
It’s our Super Bowl. So I need to keep the momentum going if I want to sell more books than I did with my debut.
As soon as I hit Post, I let my shoulders drop and take a deep breath, pretending that’s the end of it and that my worth isn’t tied to waiting for the view count to climb.
I tap through the first few stories on my feed and then freeze when I see Cole’s profile picture lit up with that pinkish-orange ring.
He never posts. Of course he chooses to now.
There’s this unspoken breakup playbook—one we all pretend not to follow but do anyway.
First, you mute your ex so you don’t have to see their casual I’m newly single selfies.
Then, suddenly you’re posting like it’s your job: curated candids, gym mirror pictures, a photo of a drink with a vague caption like can’t help but cheers or happiest hour.
All of it designed to say, I’m obviously doing so much better without you.
But then comes the unraveling. You swipe up on your own story, pretending not to care but obsessively checking the views until you’ve confirmed they’ve seen it.
And even though you’ve muted them, you still check their profile religiously in hopes that they’re doing so much worse than you.
I’ve seen it a hundred times in my twenties.
I just didn’t expect it from Cole—the guy who used to call social media performative and refused to download TikTok.
My thumb hovers over his profile picture, heart pounding in the cramped room. I know better than to tap. I know now isn’t the time to look.
But I click it anyway.
It’s a video of his best friend, Tucker, about to make a serve in pickleball.
The camera pans to show the whole court, full of the familiar faces from what used to be my friend group.
Savannah and Grace in matching tennis skorts, laughing as they miss an easy return.
Tucker and Drew are on the other side of the net, taking the game way too seriously, as if they thought the girls would be any good.
My stomach knots so tightly it feels like it might cave in on itself.
I watch the video again, and then a third time before finally clicking out of it.
It’s like I’m peering into a parallel universe where I don’t exist anymore.
Everyone’s going on with their life as normal, as if they’ve erased me, and what’s worse is that they’re having a great time doing it.
It’s like they don’t even miss me at all.
“Ready?” Ross asks, popping his head into the doorway.
“I guess so,” I reply, standing up. I straighten my blazer with a quick tug, smoothing down the fabric, hoping that I look much more composed than I feel.
I follow Ross back to the main area of the store, the sound of our footsteps echoing in the otherwise quiet space. As we wait for Mila to wave me over, I peek around the corner and spot my best friend, Lucas, in the front row. A rush of relief floods through me.
We met at a mandatory dorm meeting on the first day of college.
We bonded over cheap beer, the air conditioner sputtering as we crammed ourselves onto a tiny uncomfortable futon.
For the entirety of first semester, our roommates “sexiled” us once a week, usually on random weeknights when we both had eight a.m. classes the next morning.
I spent those nights in his roommate’s bed—his mattress pad was an inch thicker than mine, which I’d grown to appreciate—while Lucas was in his.
We’d eat snacks and watch bad movies, and eventually I became closer to him than my own roommate.
I was still clinging to a long-distance relationship with my high school boyfriend back then, the kind you try to make work just because it’s familiar.
Lucas was the one who talked me through the breakup when it finally fell apart.
Somewhere along the way, he started dating his girlfriend, Margo, so there was never that awkward should we try this?
romantic negotiation between us. He’s been the calm in all my chaos and the one who always shows up no matter what.
He catches my eye almost instantly. His tan skin is warm under the lights, his brown curls a little messier than usual.
I spot the familiar pa’lante tattoo on his forearm.
He got it for his mom as a reminder to keep going, no matter what.
When he sees me, his whole face lights up.
He throws me a thumbs-up, and just like that, the nerves start to ease.
Mila settles in, crossing her legs and picking up the small microphone resting on the table between our chairs. She smiles at the audience, her tone inviting and enthusiastic as she begins.
“Ainsley Green has quickly become a new voice in romance. You might know her from her debut novel, Where Do We Go Now?, but tonight we’re here to celebrate her latest release, The Lucky Ones. Please join me in welcoming Ainsley!”
The crowd claps as I walk out to join her. My heart swells, and for a moment, I forget about the breakup, the bob, and Cole’s Instagram story. I give a shy wave and take my seat beside Mila, who seems like she’s done this hundreds of times.
“Love your haircut!” a voice calls out from the back.
So much for forgetting about the bob, I guess.
“Thank you for saying that.” I manage a small laugh. “I’m not kidding when I say I’ve actually been having an identity crisis over it. So you have no idea what that means to me. And all of you being here, of course. It’s surreal, and I’m so excited that we get to spend the night together.”
Mila dives right into the questions. “The Lucky Ones is such a beautiful story about two nineteen-year-olds who meet and instantly fall in love. What inspired you to write this?”