Page 82 of The Hopelessly Bromantic Duet
Instead, I’m still in a funk. Partly because someone is staring at me at this coffee shop in Chelsea, and it’s not my friend Hazel across the table. The gawker stands next to the counter, a college-age guy with electric-blue hair, a nose ring, and an OMG expression. Lifting his phone, he whispers to a girl next to him in goth gear, whose jaw then drops to the floor.
Turns out, I’m actually the circus sideshow.
I wave. “Yup. It’s me. I’m the one you’re thinking of.Trish’s Morning News Show,” I say, and if I could hunker down and write at home, I would. But I’m a coffee shop writer, as Flynn so thoughtfully pointed out, so I’m here.
The guy’s smile ripens, like he can’t believe his luck. Stepping closer, he clears his throat. “We’re on Team TJ. Flynn is such a fame monger,” he says, raising a fist in solidarity. “We boycotted his chicken café.”
“And we left one-star reviews for it on Yelp,” the girl adds.
“Work it,” Hazel chimes in.
Then, the strangers snap a pic of me. I manage a small smile.
When they walk back to the counter, I slump in my seat, plant my face on the wood table.Portrait of Modern Dating Carnage—that’s what they’ll call this photo if anyone else snaps the shot of me while walking past Big Cup Coffee on Thirteenth Street.
A soft hand pats my hair. “The number of sightings is way down,” Hazel says.
Right after the breakup video went viral, people recognized me every day—as I got on the subway, went to the gym, grabbeda coffee. Now, more than a month later, it’s down to a couple times a week. The Internet moved on to fresh clickbait—a former child star turned out to be a secret cult leader, a woman found a turtle in a hamburger shop and adopted it. Named itLunch.
“Yay, me,” I tell Hazel. I’m nearly yesterday’s news. I only need to ride this spotted-in-the-wild phase a little longer.
My friend strokes my hair. “You okay?”
“Fantastic. Never been better.”
“Ah, let me get out my decoder ring and translate that.”
That piques my interest, and I lift my face an inch. “I want to see this ring.”
The redhead across from me taps her temple. “I store it up here.” She shifts into a coolly robotic voice. “Target acquired is one TJ Hardman. Defeated, beleaguered wordsmith who hasn’t written a single word all day.”
Hazel shuts her laptop then clicks the screen closed on mine, a satisfied glint in her eyes.
“I didn’t save what I was working on,” I protest as I sit up.
“TJ,” she says pointedly. “You weren’t working.”
Fine, fine. Why does she have to be so right? “I wrote a Twitter post.”
“I know. I saw. It saidCoffee is life. We need to jump-start you, stat.”
I stare through the window at the New Yorkers streaming by after work while the sun dips low on the horizon. “Why am I such a mess? I don’t get it. I don’t even miss Flynn.”
Turns out it’s super-easy to get over someone when he jerks the rug out from under you in front of, oh, say, everyone in the world.
Everyone as in . . . Jude?
My stomach plummets as I ask myself that question yet again. Trish’s show is the most popular in morning news, and the video has been viewed online more than five million times.
Is one of those viewers a guy in London with a smile that flipped my heart? With eyes that saw through me. A guy who’s visited my thoughts more than I’d care to admit to anyone but a barista, cab driver, or airline rep I’ve never met before?
Fine, Hazel knows.
But she worked out for herself that I was not pining—but notnotpining—for a man abroad. When I confessed the details, it was cathartic. Especially when I confided how I was tempted to reach out to Jude a few years ago.
I’d been watchingOur Secret Courtship—had seen every episode featuring his recurring character. But when he stopped appearing and another guy took over the role, I figured that wasn’t the time to DM him with a:Hey, what’s up, guy who got away?Want a visitor?
A deal’s a deal, and our terms were very specific—when we’d made it. Something happened in Jude’s career. I don’t know what. He went quiet, so I didn’t reach out, knowing that wasn’t what he’d have wanted.