Romantic Hero

One

Twenty-Four Hours Earlier

The key to being a great romance writer, I've always believed, is to possess a true and unshakeable belief in the concepts you're writing about; from game-changing first kisses to hard-won happily ever afters, slow burns so agonizingly tense they make you squeal, to the notion that every human heart has a corresponding match. A good romance novelist has to genuinely believe that despite-let's face it-a shit-ton of evidence to the contrary, love actually is all you need. Even on the dark days. Even when life gets a little crusty around the edges. Even then, you've got to be certain that spending the days of your life magicking up fictional people to fall in love with other fictional people is absolutely worth that time. You have to stand firm in the conviction that your stories have meaning, bring joy, make readers feel better, more hopeful than they did before they experienced what you wrote for them. Romance writing has no time for cynics. To be good at this job, you have to be all the way, no doubt about it, totally in love with love. A true believer.

And I, Gertie Bickerstaff, was a true believer. The truest. Totally in love with love.

I was good at it too. Three and a half years into a relationship with charming, handsome, certified grown-up Henry Irving. Four published romance novels under my belt. His-and-hers sinks in a minuscule but dreamy Bloomsbury attic flat. Would some say I was killing it at love? Yes. Was I maybe a teensy bit smug about killing it at love? Also yes. Was I surprised when Henry suddenly declared the need for a break because he'd been feeling "emotionally apathetic" about our relationship? Oh yes. When he said the words aloud, I dropped the slice of chocolate cake I'd been gobbling and yelled "Whaaaaaat? Noooo!" like someone in a sitcom.

Emotionally apathetic. Brutal.

Serves me right for being so smug.

Now, four weeks later, my status as a true believer in love has been seriously shaken. I sit at my kitchen table, staring at my laptop, trying and failing to write anything at all. My hands hover in mid-air, anxious to thump down onto the bank of keys; to press letters into words into sentences into chapters into the final book of my Bedlam Creek romance series, due to land on my publisher's desk in exactly seventeen days.

"Come on, guys," I mutter, willing my characters to say or do or feel or think anything at all, wishing for even the tiniest bit of inspiration to strike. "I'm on a deadline here!"

But my protagonist, Cassidy Oakley, and her romantic hero, Ethan Calhoun, refuse to do anything-they just stand like statues in the final scene of the last Bedlam Creek book I wrote.

The image in my head that's usually so intense when I write has faded to a static greyscale. My beloved Cassidy is utterly silent, completely still. The movie in my mind is stuck on pause, and as a result, the words simply will not come.

I slump over to the counter to make a cup of tea, catching sight of my reflection in the shiny chrome kettle. My now permanently tear-damp face is morose and splotchy, long dark blond hair an unbrushed shredded-wheat tangle, eyebrows verging on eyebrow singular.

I blow the air out of my cheeks. God, I'm like a wet weekend these days, shuffling about the flat, a trail of tear-soaked tissues marking my path. And then, of course, there's the rush of shame that inevitably follows the shuffling and the crying; a cooler, bolder, more independent woman would use this heartbreak as a catalyst for better things, an opportunity for growth, a fresh start. I want to be that woman. I wish I were that woman. God knows, I've tried to be that woman, but I can't seem to manage it because of, well, my entire personality.

I take a deep breath and try to muster up a little fight in my belly. Some sense of hope or oomph, anything but this pitiful, maudlin inertia I've been wading around in for an entire month.

"Get a grip, Gert," I scold my distorted reflection in the kettle. "Be stronger! What would a plucky heroine do in this situation? What would Florence Pugh do?"

In response, a fresh round of tears squeeze their way out of my eyes, this time accompanied by a disgusting little bubble of snot at my nostril.

Yep. The leading lady I most definitely am not.

Two

Being unexpectedly single is tricky to navigate when being one of a pair is all I've ever known. Spending my entire life as my big sister Josie's devoted sidekick taught me that navigating life as part of two was better in every possible way. Josie's bravery made up for my reticence. My steadiness (mostly) kept her out of trouble. My natural inclination for the background was supported by Josie's desire for the spotlight. She loved to cook, I loved to eat; I was the See, she was the Saw, it just made sense. Life with Josie meant joy felt twice as joyful, and pain, half as painful. To me that just seemed like good maths. Two is clearly better than one. So when Josie died and I met handsome, confident Henry ten days later, it seemed natural and comforting and perfectly distracting to slip into being his devoted sidekick instead of hers. But now he's gone too. And for a human being whose soul is made complete by being one half of a whole, the sudden absence of a corresponding half means I have ceased to function effectively. I am fifty per cent less than I was. I have become, well, a little bit insane.

For example, here are three little bit insane things I have been doing since Henry moved out last month:

Wearing my prescription sunglasses indoors all day because summer is the most romantic of all the seasons and this unrelenting August sunshine
feels obnoxious, taunting, unbearable, given the circumstances. Every time I put the sunglasses on, I sing "Hello darkness, my old friend," which makes me feel slightly better for a couple of seconds.

Drinking no less than four very strong homemade cocktails every night (making my way through the Stanley Tucci lockdown recipes canon), ordering some sort of meat-based takeaway, putting on my headphones and listening to "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men. Then I languish around the apartment, intermittently huffing with sadness and eating my meat.

Keeping it a secret from my literary agent, Bridget, that I'm having serious trouble writing a single
word of the final Bedlam Creek book. Which is nonnegotiably due in less than two weeks. And which I have already been paid for.

It doesn't help matters that my flat is also my place of work and every single corner of it reminds me of lovely Henry. That wonky kitchen table, where he would sit each morning, scribbling into a leather-bound notepad, plotting out the novel that would go on to be a Booker Prize long-listee. There's the bed on which he hand-plucked and scattered hundreds of fresh pink rose petals for a Valentine's Day surprise. That olive-green velvet armchair is where he would pull me onto his lap, bury his face in my neck, and tell me that I was his favourite smell in the world, even better than freshly burnt matches (his previous all-time top-ranking smell). There on the fridge is our invitation to his best friend Jim's fortieth birthday weekend, which I was especially looking forward to because I love the romance of a swanky hotel.

And there, by that bay window, is where he cried and told me that I was no longer enough. That I didn't challenge him. That our constant cocooning had made his brain feel lethargic. That I had started to revolve around him so completely, it sometimes felt like an obligation to love me simply because of how much I loved him. Then there was the whole horrible declaration about needing to split up for a little while. Ugh.

Right here, by the big framed Moonstruck poster on the wall is where I begged him to stay. Where I stood and watched, horrified, as he rolled the suitcase he had pre-packed out the
door.

Of course, I've tried leaving the flat to go and write in a local café or the London Library or a park bench or once to Winchester Cathedral because that's where Jane Austen is buried and I thought it might give me some inspiration. But none of it worked. I got no words written and I ended up spending money I didn't have on drinks, Tube fares, and Jane Austen merch from the Winchester Cathedral gift shop.

I would have tried taking my laptop to different parts of the house, but I live in a studio apartment, which means that from every spot in the flat, I can see the rest of the flat. So I remain surrounded by memories. Reminders of lost love that lead me menacingly towards the Boyz II Men/languishing/meat cycle I know deep down is harming me in ways I cannot yet fathom.

My phone screen lights up as my agent, Bridget, calls for her weekly check-in. I should answer. I need to answer.

I press end on the call.

A few moments later an email pops up.

Just ever so gently checking in! No pressure, but also . . . are you okay, Gertie? You've gone quiet and I was expecting more pages from you. By the way, I asked Rockford Press about re-contracting us for a new series, but Eleanor wants to see how the final Bedlam Creek book does first. Especially as sales of the last one dipped more than we would have hoped. So this one really needs to knock it out of the park! No pressure, though!

I stare at the floor for a good minute before typing out a reply.

Hey Bridget! I'm at the London Library scribbling away so can't speak on fear of Death by Librarian, but all good! Will be in touch v soon. xx

Then I wander over to the kitchen, take a mug off the shelf, and open the dresser cupboard where I keep the booze.

Gimme what you got, Tucci.

Three

The next morning I'm awoken from slumber by the sound of my next-door neighbour, Mrs. Casablancas, hammering on my door. I know it's her because no one else in this day and age knocks on people's doors completely unannounced, and also because Mrs. Casablancas is calling through the keyhole, "Gertie, honey! It's me, Mrs. Casablancas! Open up your door to me!" Her bellowing is accompanied by a single determined bark from Squish, the rambunctious Chihuahua-pug cross that Mrs. Casablancas secretly regrets adopting a few weeks ago.

With a groan, I roll out of my bed, the extra cocktail I had last night making its presence known in the throb of my head.

"Just a second, Mrs. Casablancas!" I croak.

Prying open my sticky eyes, I shove on my prescription sunglasses, slip on my robe, and shuffle two metres to the front door. I open it to reveal Mrs. Casablancas wearing a long, flowy purple dress covered in hand-stitched pink roses and carrying a huge Tupperware box. Squish dashes past her, heading straight for my stone plant pot, where he lifts his back leg, leans sharply to the left, and empties his bladder.

"Squish, no!" Mrs. Casablancas chides in the weary voice of a woman who has said the same thing many times to no avail. "Gertie, I'm very sorry!"

"Does he do it in your house too?" I grimace, grabbing some paper towels to clean up the mess.

"No! He chews my slippers, he steals my Reuben sandwiches, and as you know, he likes to bark along whenever he hears the Gilmore Girls theme song, but he never ever pees indoors. It must be the scent of the soil in your fig plant. It makes him think he's in the open air."

"It's a fake plant."

"Is it really? Wow. Looks real to me. Must look real to him too."

It occurs to me to ask Mrs. Casablancas to put Squish on a lead when she brings him over, but since Henry left and my characters have stopped talking to me, Mrs. Casablancas's company has been my only balm. I don't want to do anything that means she stops popping over-then I really would be completely alone. I scoop Squish's chubby little body into my arms. He licks my nose and nuzzles his cheek against mine.

"Well, now I immediately forgive you," I mutter, enjoying the feel of his fuzzy warmth on my face. As soon as I reveal my affection, Squish wants out, scrambling frantically back onto the floor and running away from me to sniff around the perimeter of my flat.

"You are a soft touch." Mrs. Casablancas rolls her eyes. "Just like me. No wonder he is so naughty." She plonks the box she's holding down onto the kitchen table and puts her hands on her hips.

Mrs. Casablancas looks like if someone drew a stack of circles on top of one another and put a smiling face on the highest one. Everything about her is completely, pleasingly spherical; head, breasts, eyes, stomach, curly silver hair, ankles, even her hands, covered in too-tight gold rings, which make little muffin tops of her knuckles. Mrs. Casablancas used to be a professor of chemical engineering at Imperial College London but, since her retirement two years ago, has been exploring more creative endeavours.

"Which cocktails did you try last night?" she asks, taking in the state of me. "All of them?"

"Just the Tequilatini." I grimace, pressing a hand to my forehead. "So strong. So delicious."

"Like I said, he knows what he's doing, does old Mr. Tooch."

I glance at my phone while Mrs. Casablancas busies herself pulling open the lid of the Tupperware. One missed call from Bridget. Nothing from Henry. Nothing from Henry. Nothing from Henry.

I switch off my phone, swap my sunglasses for my regular glasses, and gasp, as I always do, when Mrs. Casablancas reveals the most recent hats she has made. The hats are usually themed depending on what season it is, or what Mrs. Casablancas has been contemplating that week. They are often adorned with sequins or rhinestones or jewels she's liberated from charity shop brooches. I would describe the hats as unique, though I have heard others describe them as "quite unsettling" and, once, "ugly as fuck."

"Wow!" I say, taking in the various options she presents me with-a fedora made out of pink toweling, a baseball cap covered in miniature baseball caps, a beanie with a border of red-and-orange felt flames. I pick out a red beret with a big pipe-cleaner spider perched on the side. The spider's eyes are made of tiny little emeralds. This one is actually not bad. For the first time since I've been buying these hats, I actually quite like it.