“Okay,” I reluctantly agreed. “I guess my first book wasokay.”
Lina huffed. “It wasn’t just okay, Rosie. It was laced with crack, I told you. The small albeit enthusiastic part of my family that speaks Englishadoredit.” I heard some ruffling noise in the back, as if she’d just opened a chocolate bar or a snack bag. Both possible options with her. “And on top of all that, you had the balls to quit a job that no longer fulfilled you and pursue a career that did. In writing. Because you’re good at it, Rosie.”
The balls.
That reminded me of Lucas when he’d called me ballsy. Ballsy.Me.
My heart resumed the funny flip-flop business it performed every time I thought of him.
“Am I ballsy, though?” I heard myself ask out loud.
“Yes!” Lina confirmed right away. “This whole thing about you being stuck is your fear talking. You’re terrified to fail, Rosie. I know you. But you need to get out of your head, stop whining about not being able to fix the problem, and start believing that you can.”
“Ouch,” I muttered.
“I’m saying it because I love you.” I could picture her waving a finger at me. “Don’t let the pressure you’re putting on yourself paralyze you. You are the only person limiting yourself, Rosie.”
Her words cut a little deeper than they should have. Not thewhining part, but the one aboutmebeing the problem. Because I was starting to believe that I was.
“Writer’s block is common,” Lina added. “So, we’ll unblock you.”
“Unblock me?”
“We’ll pop you right open.”
My hands dropped to my sides, my palms resting on the soft fabric of the cushions. “I don’t know, Lina. I don’t… even know what’s wrong with me. I’m just…”
There was a beat of silence. “You’re what?”
“I’m…” I trailed off. “It’s as if there were a hundred million things stopping me from writing and I just flatline when I try.” I shook my head. “I’ve tried everything, even acupuncture, because I read on some blog that it helped releasing endorphins that aided inspiration. It didn’t work.”
The line was silent, then a tentative, “There might be something you could try.”
“And that is…?”
Lina didn’t answer right away, which told me enough about whatever was coming. “Your second book is in the same universe, isn’t it? You told me you wanted to give his best friend his happily ever after.”
“Yes.”
“You mentioned that this time around the story would be a little more… lighthearted. That it would be about him battling modern life and adjusting to how things have changed in the wilderness that is dating nowadays.”
“Yes, I suppose I said that.”
“So,” Lina said very slowly, so much that the two-letter word dragged for a few seconds. “You could do the same. You could get back out there.”
I frowned. “Outwhere?”
“Dating,” she answered with confidence. “You’ve been holed up for… how long?” she asked, but I wasn’t given the chance to answer. “Too long. Maybe that’s the problem. You’re a romance writer. Trying to write about a man from the 1900s dating in present day.Maybe you should just… do that. If you think about it, you two are not so different. You haven’t dated anyone for at least two years.” A chuckle left her. “You and your hero are two beautiful and old-fashioned fish dumped in the twenty-first-century dating pond.”
A strange sound left my throat. I opened my mouth to tell her all the many and different ways her idea could go sideways, but I stopped myself. Because maybe, just maybe…
“It could work,” Lina said as if she’d just read my mind. “Listen, my first idea had been sex. Orgasms. I was going to suggest you get a new vibrator when you mentioned the endorphins, but I think you need the real thing this time around.”
I blinked, trying to process everything.
“You know I’m not good with hookups and one-night stands,” I replied.
“Exactly,” she answered quickly. “You need to be romanced before getting to the hanky-panky.”