Chapter 27 #2
She’d been looking up popular sports movies and that one had looked good. The title about summed up her foolish infatuation
with Parker. She’d been blind but now her eyes were opened.
“Or a date night,” Parker suggested. Alice said nothing, so he rushed in to fill the dead air and began talking about the
new sports movie set to come out in the summer.
She spent the last hour of the show wishing it was over. She longed to be back in the bookstore where her world was safe and
well-ordered. Where the men she met in books behaved predictably, always doing what was right and proving their love.
At last Parker ended the torture. “That’s it. Next week we’ll be broadcasting from Peoria. Meanwhile, keep your head in the
game.”
The minute they were off the air, she removed her headphones and started for the door. “Have fun on your trip,” she said over
her shoulder. Politely.
“Alice, wait.” He hurried after her and caught her arm. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t. I think I know what you needed to tell me. I heard about the book deal.”
“Wait. How?”
“My mother told me.”
He held out both hands, a supplicant looking for understanding. “Alice, you know how it is with books. I wrote that long before I met you.”
“And it will come out after . . . last night.” She opened the door and there stood Jay, all smiles, ready to congratulate
them on a good show.
Parker shut the door and turned Alice to face him. “Okay, I still believe a lot of what I wrote. You can’t hold it against
me that I think things need to change. It has nothing to do with us, with where I am now. I’ve changed.”
“You’re right, I can’t,” she said. “But I can hold it against you turning me, and HEA, and all our friends into nothing but
a publicity stunt for your show. And I can hold it against you that you never told me about the book. How was I going to find
out about it? Was I supposed to see the deal in Publishers Weekly? Are you going to go back in and add something to your book about my bookstore now?”
“It’s not like that,” he protested. If only he’d stopped there, but he didn’t. “And you got a lot of publicity out of this,
too. Free advertising for your store here and on Jenny and Willis’s afternoon show for a whole month. She’s even starting
a book club.”
As if Alice had done any of this for publicity. That hurt and she didn’t even know what she could say to explain why it did.
“I wish you all the best, Parker. With everything,” she said. “Now, please let go of my arm.”
He dropped his hand. “Alice, this is just a misunderstanding.”
Misunderstandings happened a lot in romance novels. The couple went through the whole book, fuming and fussing when all they’d
needed was a conversation to clear things up. This wasn’t that. There had been plenty of conversations, but in the end, Parker
wasn’t the romantic hero Alice was looking for. It was just that simple.
“I’m sorry, Parker, I think we’ll always see life too differently.” She lowered her voice. “I’ll never forget your kisses though. Good luck,” she added. Then she opened the door, wished Jay good luck also, and hurried off down the hall.
Out of Parker Black’s life. Where she didn’t belong. Never had and never would.
She wanted to cry over how silly she’d been and how silly she wanted to keep being but commanded herself not to. This was
one moment in her life, one quick brush with attraction, one taste of romance IRL. Now everything would go back to normal.
No harm, no foul as Parker would probably say.
Who cared what Parker had to say?
“What was that all about?” Jay asked.
“She found out about the book.”
“Hey, it’s just a book,” said Jay.
Not to Alice, it wasn’t. “She hates my guts now.”
“So, what else is new?”
“We were . . . connecting.”
Jay’s eyebrows shot up. “Alice connecting with you? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“There goes your image,” Jay said with a mournful shake of the head.
“I don’t care about my image.”
“Well, you should. Come on, you know that wasn’t gonna work out. Take an aspirin and get over it.”
“I don’t want to get over it,” Parker snapped.
“Well, what are you gonna do? You can’t unsell your book,” Jay pointed out.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it,” Parker said.
Jay shook his head and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Okay. Guess I’ll call our Uber.”
He let Parker stew all the way to the airport, keeping busy on his phone, let him continue to stew as they crawled along through security, and as they went to their gate.
“Look on the bright side,” he finally said as they found a couple of seats. “You sold your book, man. Our ratings are great.
You’re on top of the world.”
Parker should have been happy. Only a month ago he would have been. Now look at him. He was on top of the world and miserable.
All because of the way Alice had looked at him back at the studio, those pretty eyes filled with disappointment.
Parker revisited the moment she’d come after him on the couch. It had been so out of character, so cute. So awesome.
“I need chips,” he announced.
“Get me some Doritos,” said Jay, and began scrolling on his phone.
Parker marched over to Hudson News, frowning all the way. This was not how his life was supposed to be playing out. He was
supposed to be happy. He was a success.
He was snagging two bags of chips when a twenty-something guy came up to him. “Parker Black, hey, I listen to you all the
time. Me and my men are on our way to spring training. Missed our flight so we’re gonna miss the game tonight. But we’re coming
to your bash tomorrow.”
Parker donned his radio personality smile. “Good. Sucks missing the game, though, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. We thought you’d already be down there, doing your show.”
“Kind of had to wrap some things up here,” Parker said.
Had to sit next to Alice one last time. He’d envisioned it being the first of lots more times sitting side by side. At dinner
with his mom and Uncle Jerome, at her mom’s house at Christmas, on her couch, watching movies. He’d envisioned eventually
moving on to doing more than sitting side by side.
“Oh, yeah, with that bookstore stuff,” the guy guessed. “I gotta say, Alice was kind of fun to listen to. I’m one of the guys who suggested a movie to her. Are you gonna show her Field of Dreams?”
“Maybe,” Parker said. Never. He moved to the register. “See you down there.”
He made his escape back to the gate, tossed Jay his chips, then pulled out his laptop, a shield to keep his chatty fans at
bay and tune out his producer who’d gotten him into this mess.
No, that wasn’t fair. Yeah, Jay had done a good job of stirring the pot, but it was Parker who’d filled it full of ugly to
begin with, Parker who’d been a man on a mission, Parker who’d written a book. He didn’t want to be on a mission to save men
anymore. He wanted to save what he’d started with Alice.
There was the file for his book, waving at him from the screen. He opened it and began to read, determined to convince himself
that it was good stuff. That he was good stuff.
It wasn’t and he wasn’t. It was mostly snarky ranting and anecdotes with a tiny seasoning of statistics thrown in for good
measure. And lots of advice for the reader on how to live happily ever after without that troublesome chick in his life.
Some of his points were valid though. Modern men did struggle with depression, with identity and role confusion. Women made
the perfect scapegoat. After all, it was them guys fought for, worked for, earned money for.
Women turned men inside out.
He frowned at his laptop screen. He was the king of sweeping generalizations, a man with no helpful solutions other than if it ain’t workin’ ditch her.
Well, Alice had beaten him to that. Luna all over again.
Except she wasn’t Luna.
He left his seat and moved away to call his mom. “Did you listen to the show?”
“I did. You and Alice sounded good together. It’s too bad about that one call,” she said diplomatically.
“You mean too bad I let things get out of hand in the first place,” he corrected.
“The strike was a bad idea.”
“Jay’s bad idea.” More corrections.
“But inspired by you. The curse of having influence.”
“More like blame,” he said irritably.
“You’ll get plenty of that once your book comes out.”
“I don’t want to look like a jerk.”
Thankfully, she didn’t say, “I’m sure you will.” Instead, she said nothing, just waited for him to puke up more of his guts.
“I like the Willoughbys. I like Alice.” Like was too lukewarm. He wanted Alice, wanted her in his life. “But now she’s heard about the deal, and she’s got people like
that caller telling her she’s just a publicity stunt. That’s not how it is.”
“Are you falling for this girl?”
“Yes. What should I do?”
“Undo what you’ve done?”
“Thanks, Mom,” he said testily. “How am I supposed to do that? You’re the romance writer. You should have all kinds of ideas.
Pretend I’m one of your book heroes. How would you write me?”
“I’d write you doing some serious soul-searching,” she said. “I’d have you letting go of all your justifications and maybe
even some of your ambitions. Check your trajectory, Parker. Where are you headed? Is it where you want to be?”
With a published book.
And an empty life. “No.”
“Lives and books have something important in common. They’re both works in progress and if you don’t like where your story is going you can always rewrite.
Maybe you need to start rewriting. That’s the best advice I can give you.
Now, I need to get back to work. I have to turn in this manuscript before I go on tour.
I love you.” And with that she was gone.
How was he supposed to rewrite anything at this point? He’d already sold the book.
His next call was to his uncle. He got right to the point. “Alice dumped me.”
“I didn’t know Alice had you to begin with,” said Uncle Jerome.
“We were starting something.”
“And now it’s finished?”
“Yeah. She wants a hero.”
His uncle laughed. “There aren’t many of those around.”