Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Charlotte poured out three margaritas, topping each with a bit of extra tequila. “Do you ever get over some asshole telling you your books are crap when he hasn’t even read them? Your books are the bomb and, girl, over a decade later you are still hitting it hard with the kinky sex. Too many romance authors get bored writing sex after fifty or so books and suddenly there are dogs on their covers and absolutely no anal. Not our Serena.”
Daphne couldn’t help it. She laughed. It was insane how comfortable these women were with each other, and she had to admit, she wanted in. She wanted to laugh and drink margaritas and talk about TV shows that amused her.
“Oh, I struggle at times, but you have to give the readers what they want,” Serena said with a smile. “My ex-husband was a literature professor, and he didn’t consider romance a worthy genre.”
“I have a degree in English, so I’ve definitely met the type,” she admitted. “I got caught by one of my snootiest professors reading Anne Rice once, and he gave me this whole lecture on how I should only read the classics and not this pop culture junk. I pointed out to him that critics said the same thing about Dickens in his time, and he should shut up or he’ll find himself on the wrong side of history because those books are classics.”
She could remember standing up to that asshole in front of the whole class right before she’d walked out and dropped it.
She’d had a backbone then.
Serena put a hand to her heart. “I love those books so much. I also remember those faculty parties. Some of them were fun. Don’t get me wrong. There are absolutely fun college professors out there. Our friend Grace’s son is one of them, but sometimes you get into the wrong group, and they feed off each other’s holier-than-thou attitudes. Especially when it comes to anything that brings a person joy. Like I don’t get why for a book to be considered worth reading by the general public it has to include death and misery. And if it includes a woman enjoying sex and a loving relationship, then everyone turns their noses up at it.”
“I’ve never read a romance.” Her parents hadn’t been big into reading. Daphne had loved reading, but she’d never picked up one of those books with muscular-chested men on the cover. She’d thought about trying that one everyone had talked about years before, but Dennis would never have let her hear the end of it. “Do you have any? It might be fun.”
She might not like them, but she should try one. She used to watch TV, and she’d gotten out of the habit when she’d been married to Dennis. She read nonfiction and watched the news and documentaries. It had been so much fun to watch with Boomer the other night.
She’d loved Star Trek when she was a kid. Why had she let that man and his family take away all her joy?
“Do I have any?” Charlotte asked in a way that let her know the answer should be clear. She slid the margarita in front of Daphne. “Yeah. I might have a couple. I can loan you a few.”
“Tasha loaned Lou some books, and she’s enjoying them.” Daphne took a little sip. Charlotte was generous with the tequila.
Charlotte took a sip of her own. “The spy school books. They’re going to kill me with those books. Not Tash but Kala and Kenz. They want to be spies. They only get the glamorous stuff. They don’t understand how boring it can be to sit on top of a building waiting for some dude who heads a syndicate to show up so you can shoot him. Also, they don’t know how much cardio is involved. There’s a lot of running after all that sitting. All in all, I’ll take managing a security company and sending other people out to do surveillance. So are you serious about Boomer?”
Oh, she slipped that in subtly. Not. “We just started dating. I think. I didn’t know we were dating before. I thought he was with MaeBe, so I thought he was totally off limits. I haven’t dated since Dennis died.”
“But that was a long time ago,” Charlotte pointed out. “Like years, right?”
“Seven,” Daphne explained. “I got caught up in raising Lou and being active in her school and stuff. She was at a private K-8 school, and the parents were all very involved. She recently moved up to high school, and I’ve been able to take a step back, which is good because the bakery takes a lot of work.”
“You haven’t dated in seven years?” Serena asked.
“Nope. I’m a little nervous about it because it’s not like I dated a ton before I got married. I was pregnant,” she admitted. “I thought I could make it work. Now I know I should have co-parented with him from a distance. Although at the time I was worried he would fight me for custody.”