Romantic Friction

Resting Bitch Face

This. Is. Bullshit.

Sorry. Bull. (If I want to maintain my crossover readers, I can only have twelve curse words per book. And yes, they count

them.)

Hartley West has been talking for—I subtly check my watch—eight and a half minutes. Eight and a half. Without a single opening

to step in.

I can’t make one of my spontaneous (painstakingly concocted) quips.

I can’t launch into my inspiration for Jocelyn (which is, well, me).

I can’t explain to doe-eyed young writers (with full truth despite my proclivity for lying) how writing my first book was

the equivalent of a personal MFA that ultimately led me here. (“You have to write it wrong to learn how to write it right.” Trademark pending.)

I can’t subtly gloat over being given headliner status ( for the first time ) at the annual Romance US convention in Chicago, where I’ll hold my first-ever ticketed launch party. Followed by a fifteen-city tour, my biggest one yet.

I can’t because Hartley West hit rock bottom. And then she found my books.

“Tucana made me smile,” Hartley says, returning to when she first read my constellation-superhero series. “So sweet, with

that beak that she always thought was too big.” Hartley briefly rubs her pointy nose with the back of her hand. “But then

she used it to slice a car in half and free a troop of Girl Scouts trapped under the ice by the evil Hydrus, and well, Tucana

knew she was special. She knew she was needed. No one could do what she did. And then, when Tucana and Delphinus began to

fall in love, despite one being a bird and the other a dolphin...”

(I know what you’re thinking, and it reads much better on the page. Besides, I was in an experimental stage.)

“Let’s just say,” Hartley continues, her voice stronger than it was when she first began, “it changed me. If they could find

purpose, if they could find each other, then I thought, maybe I could too. Maybe I was worthy.”

Someone in the back says, “You are, dear, we all are.”

The folding chairs birth murmurs of assent and affirmation and I nod. My smile could be drawn on by a caricature artist because

that’s how very much I need to force back my resting bitch face right now.

It’s not that I don’t empathize with Hartley. And if not empathize, sympathize, then, or at the very least, conceptualize

how hard life can be. But putting this all on me here, now, at an event for my book, an event for which she was supposed to be little more than Vanna White, is inappropriate.

Social media did this. BookTok, Bookstagram, BookTwitter, and Book-Things I’m too close to living in a crypt to even know about. They started a hashtag: #TheNextSofieWilde. That hashtag “went viral,” which I honestly don’t understand because five people can’t even agree on the toppings for pizza let alone pick a movie while scrolling through Netflix, so how do thousands, tens of thousands, more, agree on anything? #TheNextSofieWilde. Seriously?

Once the clamoring bubbled up on Lacey’s radar, she took off with it like a getaway car.

(And no, Swifties, she didn’t invent that phrase.)

I’m only active online because of Lacey. I don’t directly engage, don’t have open DMs, don’t click that little heart icon

on photos of my books with my followers’ fluffy dogs (look who else loves this read!) or pumpkin spice lattes (first of the

season!) or flickering penis candles (you can’t make this stuff up).

Don’t get me wrong—readers voluntarily giving up their free time to spread book love are my definition of saints. I wouldn’t

be here without them. It’s just that I’ve always preferred to meet my fans in person. Lacey claimed that responding to my

online fans would make me seem relatable. As if a forty-nine-year-old woman living alone (no plants, no pets) in a four-thousand-square-foot

house with a view of the ocean that she bought by torturing imaginary people could ever be relatable.

Lacey pushed to invite Hartley, saying we should meet (and document it for Insta) since we only live an hour apart. An hour

and another world, if I had to bet.

So now I’m here, begging my resting bitch face to stand down, trying to come up with some polite encouragement for Hartley

West when all I want to do is scream, “Vance dies!”

A stillness shrouds the room, and I almost wonder if I did just that. All eyes are on me. I was lost in my own head, an essential skill for authoring but less so for promoting. I don’t know if someone has asked me a question or Hartley has said something profound or if we’re having a moment of silence out of respect for little Vance.

I lower my head, staring into my lap, in case it’s that last one. A couple of throat clearings and the shuffling of sneakers

against the wide pine floors let me know it’s not. I should have done what Lacey demanded and let her listen in on my phone.

At least then she could be sending me a text right now, telling me what the hell to do.

My palms begin to sweat. This used to happen all the time in the early days, but I haven’t been nervous in front of a crowd

in years. It’s a feeling I despise. And so, by extension, I despise this woman next to me for putting me in this position.

“Is that truly the correct question, though?” a deep voice says.

With the force of an unforeseen squall, the energy in the room shifts. A man in the standard preppy coastal uniform of jeans,

checkered button-down, and puffer vest awkwardly stuffs his hands into his pockets.

The tush of the occasional male has been known to occupy a seat before me, lavishly lauded for accompanying his female partner

or daughter. That male tush belonging to an actual reader (or one willing to admit as such) is as rare as a snowy owl sighting

on our local beach in January. (A fact I now happen to know. Thank you, middle age.)

I’m wondering which category this man fits into when he begins to sway. Could it be? An actual reader? I feel guilty for hoping

he is, and that he might pass out from nerves. At least the ensuing chaos would take the focus off me.

Hartley eases her forearms off the table. She slides deeper into her chair, but the end of her skirt is still caught beneath the leg. The tugging reveals more of her red underwear. Instinctually, my arm darts out. I set my hand on her shoulder to stop her from shifting farther before subtly yanking the hem free. A collective “aww” circles the room.

My heart sputters, but I go with it, pressing my hand more deeply into Hartley’s shoulder, causing the bangles I favor to

clank together. A middle-aged woman in a “Team Torrence” tee pulls a tissue from her purse. She dabs at the corners of her

eyes. An older woman beside her places a hand on “Team Torrence’s” forearm and pats twice.

“An inspiration for us all,” the older woman says, and a rolling wave of applause builds to a crescendo.

Hartley still hasn’t looked at me. My fingers continue to sink into the fabric. (Corduroy? Seriously?) Whatever question I

was asked before Puffer Vest interrupted, this gesture was resoundingly the correct response and one I damn well never would

have consciously chosen.

Hartley’s pale blue eyes, shades lighter than Jocelyn’s but with the same undertone of gray, finally seize mine. She says,

“Thank you, Sofie.”

I nod to Hartley, not letting go of the confidence I learned to exude no matter what when in front of a crowd, partly thanks

to those bassoon-voiced men. “Of course.” I begin to lift my palm, but she swings around and clamps her hand on top of mine.

Cell phones lift, capturing this moment.

She removes her hand, and I carefully and casually retract my own. In unison, we resume our original positioning and face

the sea of folding chairs. The energy in the room has shifted. Something has changed. And I have no idea what it is.

The remainder of the event plays out like they all do. Author inspiration, check. Fancasting, check. Hardest to write: first or last page, check. And everyone’s favorite: call out a number, and read from that page of the book, me knowing well enough to leave out spoilers—something Hartley had to learn the hard way tonight after revealing that her main character had to shoot her beloved pet pig when it attacked her newborn baby girl after turning rabid (do pigs turn rabid?).

I’d smiled along, assuring karma that, post-event, I’d offer Hartley a tip or two on how to more deftly handle an event reading.

It’s only now, as my signing line forms, that I realize how eerily reminiscent that scene was of the one in my third book,

the one that inspired the stuffed version of Goldie given out as swag exclusively by Harbor Books. I’m told that coveted launch

party plush bird now sells for hundreds on eBay.

Jocelyn had nurtured its likeness, a yellow wingless passerfly (like an American sparrow, that same long thin tail and dark

smudge in the center of its chest, and honestly why do I know this?). She’d cared for it ever since she found its cracked

shell on the sill outside her bedroom window. She had just learned Callum was dead (though he was simply kidnapped and remained

very much alive that first time, and the second). She’d thought he’d sent it to her, a way to remain together even in death.

She fed it, carried it with her in a sling, taught it to hop across great distances, watched it learn to hunt for itself.

It was her child until Vance came along. But then poor Goldie ate poisoned berries that ravaged its mind. It went after Vance.

Jocelyn had to break its neck. It was the first time she understood the sacrifices of being a mother.

Same as the character in Hartley’s book. Addie, was that her name? A coincidence, purely a coincidence. Motherhood is universal.

Even when you are only a daughter. I steal a glance at Hartley, wondering if she has children. I didn’t read her bio. I didn’t

look her up online. I most certainly didn’t read her book. Why would I read “the next Sofie Wilde” when I am Sofie Wilde?

Hartley fiddles with a pom-pom at the end of her sweater. Her line has yet to form. Readers are given sticky notes to write their names on, so we don’t have to try to carry on brilliantly entertaining small talk and absorb how to spell their names at the same time. Which is a skill with all these “Cindees” with two e s and “Izobelles” with a z and a double l .

Those hoping for my Sharpie swirl of an “SW” will have blue sticky notes. Those awaiting Hartley will have yellow. The room

is awash in an ocean of blue.

It could be worse. Like arriving at a signing to have the throng of people turn out to be waiting not for you but for the

fifty-five-year-old dude in a banana costume making balloon fruits. Or sitting with a mile-high stack of your books beside

the bookstore entrance, desperate to deliver your pitch, buoyed when someone finally makes eye contact, humiliated when they

ask directions to the toilet. Or the ultimate mortification: the single reader. No one showing up to an event cancels it outright.

But a single person? No one—not the reader, the author, or the embarrassed-for-you bookstore employees—have any idea what

to do. Fortunately, I learned a trick early on from my one-sided nemesis Rosie Gardens—a bestselling author in my genre. When

we first met a lifetime ago, she offered what turned out to be sage advice: when only one or two people show up to an event,

ditch the store and take everyone for drinks at the closest bar. Me and my maxed-out credit cards gave many of my early fans

such a night.

As my signing line coils through the store, Roxanne sets my special Harbor Books swag on a stand beside me: a replica of the

scarf I’m wearing. Lacey’s pissed she didn’t do scarves for every tour stop. Next time. Though next time will be without Jocelyn

and Callum and Torrence.

It’s taken months of convincing, but I’ve finally succeeded in enlisting Lacey’s help. We have to make a good case that switching genres won’t tank my career. My readers will follow me. My fans want “Sofie Wilde,” whether it’s “romantasy” or “romance” or maybe even, one day, historical fiction or (cue hot flash!) a murder mystery. Tonight’s celebration, the reader convention, the fifteen cities—it’s a goodbye and a hello tour. I intend to subtly plant the seed with my fans. With Lacey’s help, all those book prefixes on social media

will build and spread buzz, proving fan interest in an expansion of the Sofie Wilde brand. Maybe we’ll even start our own

hashtag.

While I’ve floated the notion to Blaire, she doesn’t yet know how serious I am. She wanted to come tonight, but I asked her

to hold off, to wait to celebrate all together at my final tour stop in New York City. If Lacey and I do what we’re planning,

and it works, we’ll have much to discuss. Blaire will support me; she always supports me. But she’s going to need all the

help she can get in making the case to my editor and publisher. Me staying on brand is currently what’s making us all money.

As children, we find comfort in the familiar. We read the same book or watch the same movie ad nauseam, relishing what we

know, the lack of surprises, the safety inherent in it. Adults may not read the same particular book multiple times, but they

too gravitate toward the familiar. They “auto-buy” books by authors they love, craving and expecting an echo of the story

they remember with slight deviations in characters and premise and cover but underneath, an ever-flowing river of the same.

But I think readers are underestimated. And publishers need to take the risk.

I’d rather not change editors and publishers in order to do something new, but I will. I’ll even take a smaller advance, with

a bonus on the back end. I’ve earned the right to bet on my fans—and myself.

Jocelyn and Torrence and Callum gave me that right. They helped me land Blaire twelve years ago. She negotiated a meager deal for the first two books that wouldn’t buy me a new love seat. And yet to me, it was like a leprechaun had delivered a bucket of gold. Still, there were no two-martini lunches with the publisher, no campaign-strategy meetings with the marketing team, no publicist to ensure I had three ultra-fine-tip Sharpies and a place to use them. But I had my scorpion-loving peasant and my constellation superheroes behind me.

I am a hustler. I am perhaps a better hustler than I am a writer. Even before the ink on my first publishing contract was

dry (oh, how I curse you, DocuSign, stealer of that fabled signing mystique), I was already working. I compiled spreadsheets

of bookstores and libraries and sent handwritten, professionally printed book-release postcards to every single one. I put

together my own media kit. I sought blurbs from my favorite (and less favorite) authors. I applied to every festival from

Ellsworth, Maine, to Dundee, Oregon, and paid my own way to the handful who took a chance on me. I was deferentially humble.

I networked and pleaded and tweeted my way to a second book deal.

Then came little Vance and a write-up in People magazine that I sold my soul and my flat-screen to get. Quickly followed by a photo of that fetus from that CW show holding

my books that I sold my grandmother’s engagement ring to pay for. And that second book deal became a third and a fourth, and

I bought my grandmother’s engagement ring back and a house and a car and another house and here I am.

In this bookstore filled with fans eager to experience the end of my best era (to date), I pick up my ultra-fine-tip Sharpie. My heart thrums with excitement. I’m about to signal to Roxanne to unleash the fans when that same guy in the puffer vest approaches our table. A yellow sticky dangles from his left index finger.

It reads: Brad.

I would have pegged him for an Oliver or a Noah. Maybe it’s the tattoo. The small compass rose on his wrist doesn’t scream

“Brad.”

An actual “Brad” is a little nondescript. Plain Jane. A “Brad’s” defining feature would be a tuft of dark chest hair poking

out the top of a tucked-in golf shirt with some tech company’s logo across the pocket. A true “Brad” doesn’t have Puffer Vest’s

chiseled cheekbones and those thick brown curls that would make McDreamy jealous. (RIP, another plot point spoiled courtesy

of Roxanne—that woman needs a three-second delay.) This guy is more of a Noah. Maybe even Hunter. Either way, a missed opportunity

by his parents some forty-odd years ago. He steps forward without Roxanne giving the go-ahead, and Hartley immediately snags

a copy of her book from the pile beside her.

She digs into the open canvas bag at her feet. The cheaply made bookmarks are starting to bend at the corners, crammed as

they are among tattoos (glitter and reflective), a book on marketing and publicity, a bag of potato chips, three protein bars, and a large yellow box that reads

EpiPen. She finds a blue Sharpie with such a blunt tip that it makes everyone’s writing look like a two-year-old’s scribble.

“Should I make it out to you?” she asks, a tremble in her voice. “Brad? And hi. I’m Hartley.”

“Brad” gives a small amused smile and presses the sticky with his name on the table before Hartley. “I know. I’m a fan.”

“You are?” she says.

“There’s not a Sofie Wilde fan alive who wouldn’t also be. You truly are uncanny.”

A prickle up my spine.

“Oh, well, I don’t know about that,” Hartley says. “I mean, it’s Sofie Wilde .” She whispers the second half of that sentence.

Brad nods toward me. “An honor.” Like me, he lacks that throaty, drop-the- r South Shore accent—a sign he’s a rare non-native too. People are born here, people live here, and people die here. Everyone

knows everyone. It takes three generations to no longer be an interloper. It’s the perfect spot for a transplant who prizes

her alone time. He adds, “I’m not quite Kathy Bates–level fan, but close.”

Readers think this is cute. Comparing themselves to the actress famous for playing the deranged Stephen King character who

held her favorite author hostage. She demanded he right the wrong of killing off a beloved character, hobbling him for incentive.

With Vance’s impending demise, the reference is even more unnerving. And so I thank Brad but can’t help adding, “The close is the key there though, isn’t it?”

He’s taken aback, though recovers quickly, adding, “Touché.” He turns to Hartley, who’s frantically penning a diatribe of

appreciation in his book. “Addelyn is beguiling,” he says to her.

Addelyn? Addie is an Addelyn?

Like Jocelyn? Another coincidence?

Roxanne begins to wave my first fan forward, but I hold up a hand to stop her. I perch myself on the edge of my chair and

reach across the table for one of Hartley’s books. Flipping to the first page, I skim.

“Eyes like the ocean on a cloudy day.”

“Hair the color of wheat.”

“Curves of hip and lip and an invitation to stare.”

“That’s not...”

My description of Jocelyn from the first book:

“Eyes like the sea when a storm rages.”

“Hair the color of fallen leaves.”

“A swell of breasts, a rounding of lips, a body of perpetual curve that causes one to linger longer than they should.”

“What the actual fuck?” slips out.

Roxanne sucks in a breath, but Brad offers that same jaunty smile. “Uncanny, like I said.”

I murmur assent, heat rising in my cheeks, actual steam spewing from my nostrils not out of the question. Closing the front

cover, I slide the book back toward Hartley without a word.

“How did you do it?” Brad asks, accepting his signed copy from a flustered Hartley.

She manages a slight shrug. “I worked hard, sat in the chair every day. Butt in seat and all that.”

Brad nods along as if this is heart-stopping news. “Sure, sure. But how’d you do it ? Sound so much like Sofie? Was it just a lot of reading and rereading or did you write fan fiction or—”

“Excuse me,” Roxanne says, coming to the table. “We have a large group to accommodate and I’m afraid we must impose time limits

per guest.”

Brad offers a simple, “Course, course” but stays his ground.

Roxanne’s brows knit together, not wanting to make a scene with so many eyes of the world in people’s pockets.

With a hang of his head and resulting undulation of those chestnut-colored waves, Brad retreats. An exhale worthy of the maligned

author trope of “releasing a breath she didn’t know she was holding” comes from the “author” beside me.

What I read isn’t plagiarism, not exactly, but it’s something. I endure the rolling boil beneath my skin and plaster on a

smile for my first reader.

“Maddisyn” hands over her blue sticky and trills a request for a photo just as Brad’s voice resounds through the bookstore.

“It’s just, it’s so similar,” he says. “Even the cadence. Especially the cadence. Wait . . . is this for real?” He wags a finger back and forth between the two of us. “This isn’t a collaboration? Some stunt to help promote book ten?”

I’m at a loss for words, quite unusually.

“Sir,” Roxanne says. “Let’s get you on your way. Amy’s waiting at the register right over there.”

That same “Course, course.” That same standing his ground. “Sorry, I just can’t help... I mean, I’ve been reading Sofie

Wilde from before she was Sofie Wilde . Tucana? Sure, I was all in even then. The arachnids? I’ve got the original Staples copies on my shelf.” He holds up his

phone. “Look, I can show you.”

This has veered into creepy territory, and my line of readers is starting to get anxious. I rise to my feet. “Brad, as always,

I appreciate my long-term fans, and I’d be happy to speak with you after the event, but right now...” I scribble in the

air with my Sharpie.

He nods. “Much appreciated, Ms. Wilde, but I’m still waiting for an answer from Ms. West.”

“An answer to what, exactly?” I say, veering not just into resting bitch face but active bitch face.

“How Ms. West was able to write with so much resemblance to you. Don’t you want to know?”

I don’t actually. And wouldn’t ever have had to wonder if Lacey hadn’t insisted on this ridiculous pairing. This is ruining

my night and making my carpal tunnel flare. “Craft for all of us begins by studying authors we admire. It’s perfectly natural

that a resemblance can be seen in our first works—”

“It’s more than a resemblance.”

“An echo, then.”

“More than an echo.”

“A likeness.” I pause as Hartley’s head drops into her hands. With a stern look at Brad, I continue, “A similarity. A common sentimentality. Fine, yes, that can happen. I’m sure if the books have a homogeneous quality, that it’s simply a coincidence.” I widen my lips into a smile. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, isn’t that right?”

“Is it, Ms. West?” Brad presses, and I can’t believe this night is going to end in a call to the police. “Ms. West?”

I move closer to Hartley because it feels like this guy is starting to bully her. “You don’t have to answer him. He’s probably

from some hater blog or trolling Goodreads account or—”

“Your biggest fan,” Brad says. “Which is how I know she’s a fraud.”

Hartley’s head lifts, her cheeks are wet, her eyes already tinged with red.

Remembering the audience’s earlier reaction, I gently lower my hand to her shoulder. This time, she winces.

“No.” She pulls back, shaking me off. “No, no, no, no. I can’t do this. I can’t...” She peers up at me, a pleading in those

blue-gray eyes.

She’s flustered. She’s nervous. She’s scared. I remember feeling the same. I hated feeling the same. So I ensured I wouldn’t.

At the start of my career, I forced myself to stand before a mirror, reciting my pitch, rehearsing the answers to questions,

memorizing “off-the-cuff” amusing stories. Preparation was my key. And the door it unlocked was the door to all of this.

I pass her one of my glasses of water and stand beside her, side-eyeing Brad as she gulps the entire thing and covers a burp.

Lacey is in for an earful.

“Listen, why don’t we take a break.” I nod toward the back of the store. “Roxanne? Maybe in the meantime, do the giveaway?”

I start to pull Hartley’s chair back, but she’s bigger than me and I have no leverage. I lean in and whisper, “Hartley, it’s

okay. There will be other events.” I purposely don’t say with me .

“That’s not—” she shakes her head “—important. Or what’s most important. You don’t know, you can’t know, but—” Her chest rises and falls and sweat dots her upper lip. “I admire you, so much. I can barely breathe with you beside me. Sofie, you saved me. Saved . I was so lonely, and I’d lost Artie—”

“Artie?” I ask.

“My cat, this molten brown stray who loved bananas of all things.”

“Awws” from the room. Then, everyone goes quiet, intrigued by the start of Hartley’s response to Brad’s question.

“I was at my lowest...” Her head bobs. “Then I found your books. I devoured them, and yes, I read and reread and reread

again. So many books, but I needed more of them. They weren’t enough. I needed something more than just reading your words.

I needed your words to be mine.”

A foreboding radiates like a spider web. “I’m not sure I’m following.”

“She copied you,” Brad says in his bassoon voice. “Can’t you see it?”

I swivel, fixing a stern gaze on Brad. It’s so silent you can hear seaweed growing in the harbor across the street. I lean

against the edge of the table facing Hartley, my back to what I don’t need to see to know are phones filming this moment.

I breathe deeply, ensuring my tone is calm and soothing, my muscles loose, my body language welcoming. “If there’s something

you need to tell me, you can. I’ll understand. I’ve been exactly where you are, Hartley.”

“You haven’t. I’m sure you haven’t.”

“Try me.” I angle myself toward her but also so my profile is more fully in view to the crowd. (Seizing every opportunity for self-promotion is ingrained.) “See this?” I point to the short white crease under my left brow. “Fan-fiction hazard, though they didn’t call it that when I was in high school. Word to the wise: creative rush and light saber pencils don’t mix. For me, it was Back to the Future . I sent Marty to rescue his newly married parents from a virulent moss from outer space. With every mow of the lawn, Marty’s

dad got greener.” I sigh. “I learned a lot. We all do. Writing in the style of an artist we admire is how we all begin. I’m

honored.” (I’m not.)

Hartley stares at my scar, unable to look me in the eye. “You are so kind.” (And a very good liar.)

She presses her hands into the table. “But you don’t know what I’ve done. He’s right—Brad. I didn’t write in your style. The

computer did.”

I give a light chuckle. “See, you’re a writer! Careful about word choice. Sure, we use a machine, but—”

“No but .” She grabs one of the paperbacks with her name in tiny letters beneath a stock photo of a woman in a whispery white gown

stroking a chocolate-colored horse. “This was written by AI.”