I let out a sound I refused to acknowledge as a hiccup.
“You have an engineering degree. You were promoted to team leader in a top-tier tech company in goddamn New York City.” She paused, letting all that sink in. “You wrote a book—in your free time. A good freaking book, Rosie. A beautiful and epic love story about a war veteran that travels through time and fights to find a place, his place, beside the woman he so helplessly loves in the present day. Do you know that Charo is still calling him ‘My Officer’？ The woman has claimed that fictional man as hers and she genuinely gets pissed at people if they so much as mention him.” I knew that. Lina had sent me screenshots from more than a few aggressively enthusiastic messages. “The day she finds out that you are the Rosalyn Sage, she’s going to flip and pester you for the rest of your life.” A pause. “And that’s only because you smashed it. You knocked it out of the park.”
“I didn’t really smash it, Lina. I—”
“That publishing house didn’t offer a deal because of your pretty face.”
“Okay,” I reluctantly agreed. “I guess my first book was okay.”
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 English adored it.” 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 the whining part, but the one about me being 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. “Out where?”
“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.”