More tears fill me up then spill out, slip-sliding down my cheeks. “Why do you have to be so freaking right?”

  She laughs gently. “Because I did the same thing. It took me a while to undo it. But I did. Stop telling yourself that you’re no good at this romance thing. Besides, there’s no requirement that a romance writer has to be in love. Don’t put that on yourself. It has to be a heavy weight to carry.”

  My shoulders do feel leaden. My heart feels like concrete. Maybe she is right. I’ve spent so much time judging myself. Feeling like a fraud. Wanting to please the world.

  But that’s only part of it. There’s another reason I don’t want to be hard on myself anymore. “I don’t want to be a romance fuck-up because…” My throat hitches. “Because there’s this guy, and I fell in love with him. And I don’t know what to do.”

  Before I can give her any details, she asks, “Is he a good man?”

  I’m surprised she doesn’t ask if he’s in love with me. She doesn’t even ask what’s happened.

  Perhaps the only point is how I feel about the choice of him.

  Deep in my heart, I know that Axel is good for me. I know, too, we’re great together.

  And right now, I know something else. I’ve been hard on myself about Ten Park Avenue. About the rigid way I expect us to write it—without acting on these feelings for each other when I want to act on them, and I’m pretty sure he does too.

  If I don’t have to judge every choice I make, maybe I don’t have to judge the act of falling in love with my writing partner. And maybe I don’t have to erect boundaries around that romance either.

  What if we can have it all, try it all, do it all?

  For the first time in ages, I see possibilities rather than roadblocks. Wide open paths rather than rigid rules.

  My mother is right. Every chance is a new one. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn. Every day we can change.

  And every story is a new beginning. Axel and I can start over in every way. We can rewrite the way we work. We can recreate our own world. We don’t have to ruin our partnership. We can forge a new one. We aren’t the first co-creators to fall in love. We won’t be the last.

  That is, if he’s in love with me.

  I hope he is.

  Because I’m so in love with him.

  At last, I answer my mother with a simple, “Yes, he’s a good man.”

  We talk a little more, then I let her get back to closing up the store, and I stare out the window, feeling lonelier than I have in a week.

  But I also feel like I understand myself a little bit more than I did when I walked into this room.

  And like maybe, just maybe, I can see my future.

  37

  THAT LUCKY GUY

  Axel

  This is fun.

  Not.

  The last thing I wanted to do tonight was to wander the streets of Copenhagen all alone. But you don’t always get what you want and c’est la fucking vie.

  I pass a sidewalk café full of tall men and women drinking beers, enjoying each other’s company.

  I jerk my gaze away.

  Maybe I’ll stay out all night long. I couldn’t get an earlier flight out of this godforsaken city, so I’ll just turn it into a work night. I’ll spend the next several hours wandering Copenhagen till dawn.

  What else am I going to do? Not like I can ruin my fountain wish now by spewing up love professions to Hazel. She’s au revoired.

  As I stalk through the city, I record the surroundings, taking pictures with my phone, writing notes on an app. I’ll return to all of this later when Brooks will have to escape from a villain in this city.

  Maybe he’ll even do it over there. Yup. Across the street by the harbor.

  I wait at the red light at the corner, then bound toward the canals that wrap around the city. I stop at the edge of a bridge, staring at the boats docked for the night—the ones that are used for boat tours past palaces and opera houses and all the sights I want to see with Hazel.

  Why the fuck did I have to stop here?

  That’s it. I’m nixing boat tours from my next book. Especially boat tours where the hero kisses the woman he’s been in love with for so long it messes with his whole head, his heart, his sense of the universe.

  Instead, Brooks will come here, and he’ll have no other way to evade the villain than to jump off the bridge and land in a motorboat right below, then take off.

  Sort of like I did this afternoon, jumping away from Hazel before she could leave me.

  Introspective much?

  I shake my head, annoyed at the intrusive thoughts brought on by doubt. I do my damnedest to ignore any and every emotion as I write more notes under a starlit sky when a smooth, deep voice interrupts my thoughts.

  “Let me guess. You’re pondering.”

  I jerk around. It’s Bettencourt. What is up with him? The dude really does appear out of thin air. Billionaire superpowers.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, like it’s a cross-examination.

  “I just finished dinner nearby.” Oh. Okay, so he doesn’t really materialize. It’s just a coincidence. He waves toward the starlit river. “And I saw you staring at the water, contemplating the meaning of life, love, and a woman you can’t stop thinking of.”

  Get out of my fucking head. “Why would I be doing that?”

  “Occupational hazard of being an utter romantic,” he says. It’s not even a question. It’s just a statement.

  I snort. “I’m not a romantic.”

  He smiles, like okay, have it your way. “Then perhaps it just seemed familiar. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. Did it in Paris last night. Sorted out some things.”

  The character bio I wrote for him was all wrong too. Billionaires aren’t supposed to figure shit out in one night. “You did?”

  “Yes. Like what I want most out of life.” His gaze strays to the restaurant as if he’s hunting for someone, hope in his eyes.

  “I’m just researching tonight. That’s all,” I say, firm and decisive since I don’t want to admit more. I don’t want to crack open my heart to somebody who is hitting way too close to home.

  “Research is good too. Nothing wrong with that,” he says, generously.

  Giving me an out.

  Right now, I hate him on principle. Because I see myself in him. Or maybe I see who I wish I could be when, seconds later, Amy’s striding over to his side. He turns away from me, eyes only for her. When she joins him, he kisses her. Quick. Declarative. She’s his. Then he turns back to me, keeping an arm wrapped tightly around her. “Good luck with your research, Axel. I hope it leads you to an answer. And thank you.”

  “For what?” Is he talking about the exchange we just had?

  “For the books you write. For what they led to. They led to this tour. It led to your publisher hiring this amazing woman for the tour. It led to her entering my life. It led to me pondering but not for long.”

  Amy laughs then squeezes his hand. “Thank god you didn’t ponder for long, Jay.”

  “If you and Hazel weren’t on this tour, I might not ever have met my Amy,” he says.

  Then he says goodnight and walks off with a woman he’s fallen in love with after only a few days on a train.

  That lucky guy.

  He makes it look so easy.

  38

  STUBBORN FOOL

  Hazel

  My mother’s words stay with me the next morning as I brush my teeth.

  Or attack them.

  I am hard on myself.

  I do beat myself up, judging and berating all the time.

  So today, I choose differently. I don’t have to be as hard on my heart as I am on my teeth. I ease up on the brushing, and perhaps I can learn to relent too, on the way I beat myself up over my past.

  I finish, then get dressed to head out for the afternoon. I convinced Rachel to meet me for lunch. Once my blouse is buttoned and my hair dried, I quickly Google nearby brasseries.

  When I find one named after the French word for eat, I burst into laughter. That name is so similar stylistically to the restaurant where I ran into Axel again in New York the other month—Menu. I want to tell him that I found another minimalist-named restaurant. Just like I wanted to tell him about the sweet raccoon wine. And how I want to tell him about how miserable last night in bed was without him, wrapped around a duvet with no one to steal it from and no one to talk about beets or pistachios or chief foragers with in the morning.

  What I remember most about the night at Menu is how I felt when he left. I hated to see him go. I’ve always hated to see him go.

  I couldn’t stand it yesterday either.

  But soon, I plan to do something about it. To choose differently. I can have a whole new track record with Axel Huxley. A new one that I make with him.

  As I trek to Le Marais to meet my friend who’s starting over too, the Parisian summer sun warming my shoulders, I feel like I do when I begin a new story.

  There’s a blank page waiting for me to write on it.

  I call my sister as I walk the bustling streets of the trendy neighborhood, past boutiques and cool cafés. The second she answers, I say with so much enthusiasm and excitement, “You were right about Axel.”

  It’s such a relief and a joy to say those words.

  Veronica gasps. “How you wanted to bang him?”

  “That and pretty much everything else,” I say, laughing.

  I can’t see her, but I know her jaw is dropping. “You and Axel Huxley? That is kind of wild that you fell for him.” She sounds astonished, but also delighted.

  There’s no judgment from her either. She doesn’t ask how I made peace with the fact that I used to hate him. She just trusts my decision. Just like I need to trust my own heart.

  “I did,” I say.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “That’s the question,” I say, but I’m starting to find the answer.

  Over olives and cheese, I tell Rachel my revelation. “I think it’s time to leave the past behind,” I say, a little nervous but excited too.

  She shudders. “Sounds terrifying.”

  “I know.”

  “Especially when it’s your own past. Your own issues. Your own hurt.”

  I nod. “Exactly. Because I realized I’ve moved past our split. I moved past it days ago. That’s not what I have to let go of. I have to let go of all these old beliefs about myself. But I’m ready, finally. And I think when I see him in New York, I’m going to tell him in the only way I know how.”

  “Which way is that?”

  I take a breath, meet her friendly gaze. “I’m going to write him a story. And the next time I see him, I’m going to show it to him.”

  She smiles, the warm supportive smile of a friend. “Look at you.”

  Look at me indeed. One trip through Europe and I’m ready to move past…well, myself.

  39

  OF COURSE A FOUNTAIN

  Axel

  Eight more hours and I can leave.

  “You’d think it’d be easier to get out of town and change your flight,” I grumble to Carter on the phone as I nurse a coffee, heading toward the fountain that we passed on the bike tour yesterday.

  “You’d think it’d be easy because you want to run away,” Carter says, all nonchalant as he works out, the sound of pump-me-up music in the background of our call.

  “Fuck you,” I say, because damn, my brother figures me out too easily.

  “Fuck you too. Also, I know that your fuck you loosely translates to my little brother is right.”

  I snort, all defiant. But also damn curious. I take the bait. “How do you figure I want to run away?”

  “You like to jump ship when you’ve had enough,” he says in a simple, damning assessment. I slow my pace at the street corner, the fountain one block away.

  I want to deny it, but dammit. I can’t. “You dick.”

  He laughs. “So, are you running away from Hazel?”

  “No,” I bite out quickly then sigh, giving in. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Why is the question of the hour, of the week, of the whole year. It’s the question of my life. “Because we work together, because I made a promise to myself, because I made a wish on a fountain.” But that barely scratches the surface. “Because I don’t want to disappoint our readers. Because I don’t want to have tricked everyone.” There it is. The core of the painful truth.

  I don’t want to fool others, but I also don’t want to fool myself.

  I don’t want to be a mark or to make others a mark.

  Which means…I’m trapped.

  “And?” Carter asks.

  I’ve told him the whole damn story of the trip. Of Hazel and me. What else is there to say? “And what? I just gave you the answer.”

  “Good. That’s an excellent step. But take another one.”

  I knit my brow as I reach the huge Gefion Fountain, where stone oxen pull a plow, driven by a Norse goddess. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere for my life. “There is no next step,” I say.

  Or maybe there’s no metaphor. Maybe I should just stop pulling a pointless plow.

  He scoffs, huffing as he climbs endless stairs at the gym. “You came this close and you’re going to stop?” He sounds shocked—disappointed too. “Do you just stop writing before the climax?”

  “No. Obviously.”

  “So finish the job, Axel. Tell her. Stop running away. Just stop stopping,” he says, and I bristle.

  “This isn’t law school,” I counter, but with each assessment he levels at me, another layer of my defenses slips away.

  “I didn’t say it was,” he says, and he’s firm. He’s not bending. “All I’m saying is you’ve been crazy for her for a long time, and you’re this close and you just shut down.”

  “How do you know I shut down?”

  “Because I know you. Because you’ve conned yourself most of all—into thinking you need to shut her out to protect yourself.”

  I swallow, feeling naked and embarrassed. Unable to counter him. I have no move to make because he’s right, once again. Maybe the long con of my wish on a fountain is that I’m my own mark. I grumble, then mutter, “It’s so irritating when you know exactly what I’ve done.”

  He laughs, deep and satisfied. “Tell her how you feel. Just finish the story.”

  I drag a hand through my hair, as if I can undo everything I’ve messed up. But I don’t have to undo it. Hazel’s already forgiven me. We’ve already moved on. We’ve already started over. But then I did what I’ve done before—I stopped.

  She might be the one who left yesterday, but with my cold, dismissive goodbye, I’m the one who walked away.

  I have to stop leaving. And I have to start walking toward her, no matter the risk. I can’t keep this wish secret any longer. “I’ll tell her I love her when I return to New York,” I say, and Carter slow-claps from across the ocean.

  A throat clears behind me. I spin around.

  Jackie is here. The blonde booklover smiles like she has a secret. “You could tell her sooner.”

  Alecia and Maria are with her too. I end the call quickly, then ask, a little amazed, “How did you find me?”

  Alecia rolls her eyes and points to the water dancing across the stone, then all the coins sparkling under it. “We thought you might be here. You’ve got a thing for fountains.” Then she smiles and says, “And for Hazel.”

  Does everyone see through me? Maybe I haven’t conned anyone at all. Good. That’s good. That’s damn good.

  “I do,” I admit. I’m over fighting my feelings. “I’m in love with her.”

  Jackie squeals. “That’s soooo great.”

  “You don’t care about what it might do to—”

  Jackie shakes her head and pats the stone edge of the fountain. “Sit, and let’s come up with a plan.”

  And that’s that. They’re not worried about a book. And honestly, I’m not either.

  So I sit on the edge of a fountain, and I let them help me come up with a plan. It’s nice that I don’t have to plot alone.

  40

  THE HERO

  Hazel

  “There is no way we are ever going to share a thing in this flat. Not a meal, not a bed, not even a single moment together. Mark my words,” I say, reading from the opening chapter of The I Do Redo.

  I don’t even have to look down at the page. I know these lines by heart.

  But still, I shut the paperback dramatically and smile at the crowd from the front of the event room in the store. An Open Book is packed. It’s standing room only at the bookstore in the heart of Paris.

  “I guess we’ll see if they share anything,” I say with a coy smile, then stage whisper, “Like a kiss.”

  A few attendees laugh, then the bookstore manager opens the event to the audience. “Just go ahead and line up. My assistant manager will bring a mic and take your questions.”

  Even though I wanted to stay in Copenhagen, I’m so glad I’m here. I’m grateful for all these people who showed up for a last-minute event. Sure, I might not have been able to spend another night with Axel, but life has a way of giving you second chances. You just have to spot them and take them. I plan to take mine. Maybe even tomorrow night when I land in New York. I’ll stop by his place and read what I wrote for him this afternoon.

  For now, I shake the thoughts of a possible us away, and I answer questions about the book I’ll be signing tonight, about what I’m working on, about my favorite moment from The I Do Redo, and then a question that doesn’t surprise me at all.