Page 68 of 500 First Editions (The Romantics #3)

RYAN

THE DARE

A sparkle emoji.

Willow had left a comment on a social media post from Blair Dalton’s podcast with a teaser for the episode I had been on. And it was a single sparkle emoji.

What the hell was this woman up to?

The tightness in my chest that I was certain was an impending heart attack began to ease. I hadn’t felt this light since before Bev walked into the house and spilled the truth about Shep.

I blinked and looked at the emoji again just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. No, it was there. Plain as day.

Followers had latched on to the comment and were pestering her to death about what it meant. The comment itself had almost as many likes as the post did. Too bad for them; she had probably already logged out.

Willow was scheming. I could feel it.

I hoped she was scheming for us to get back together. But if that was the case, why wouldn’t she just text me back or return one of the many calls I attempted that never went through since she still had me blocked?

My phone chimed, and I nearly jumped out of my skin, hoping it was Willow.

It wasn’t.

Mom

Heading back from lunch. Need anything before I get home?

Me

Is that where you’ve been? I thought I was suddenly an empty nester.

Mom

I’m still waiting for the day I’m an empty nester. You’re cramping my style.

Me

How was lunch?

Mom

Lovely. Willow took me to this great Greek place. I should have gotten some takeout to bring back to you. It was divine.

My mother went out to lunch with Willow . . .

My mother went out to lunch with my sort-of ex-girlfriend.

My mother. Who I had never even introduced Willow to. But apparently, they were best friends who went to lunch while I was heartbroken and hungry.

Me

Traitor.

I hunched over in my desk chair and massaged my temples. I had been working from the house for most of the morning, going through coaching sessions and batching social media content for the month. The cup of coffee I had this morning was long gone. I needed calories, and lots of them.

I fired off a text to Willow, asking her about lunch with my mother, then pushed away from the desk and stood when the text immediately bounced back because I was still fucking blocked.

I stomped into the kitchen and reached for the fridge when the doorbell rang. The hangry ogre inside of me was going to rip the head off of whoever dared get between me and lunch.

The doorbell rang again.

“I’m coming. I’m coming,” I grumbled, yanking the front door open with a little more force than necessary.

A slightly terrified delivery man stood on the other side, holding a brown paper bag and paper coffee cup. “Ryan Ford?”

“That’s me.”

“I’ve got your order. Sorry if it’s cold. I told the lady who called it in that we don’t usually deliver out here. It’s too far from the Village. But she begged, paid double, and tipped well.” He stuffed it into my hands. “Anyway. Take it easy.”

What the . . .

I peered into the bag and found eight pierogies nestled neatly inside.

Wait . . . Did he say that he drove all the way to Queens from the Village?

That meant . . .

I set the bag down and popped the top of the paper cup. Hot chocolate and pierogies from the Village.

I abandoned the food and ran back to my room to grab my phone. I called Willow’s number. It rang once, then that fucking automated message about the call being unable to connect played.

“Dammit!” I huffed. I just wanted her to fucking talk to me.

Then again, I needed to get some food into my system before I talked to her.

The pierogies were lukewarm, but just as good as the first time we’d had them. They sat heavy in my stomach as I washed them down with tepid hot chocolate.

Fuck. I missed her.

She looked so fucking cute that day, wearing overalls that matched her hair and the Converse I had come to learn were her favorite. Nostalgia was a cruel film.

I had just finished the last pierogi when the doorbell rang again.

Something fishy was definitely going on.

I jogged to the door and yanked it open to find yet another delivery man. But instead of food, he held a massive vase of sunflowers.

“Ryan Ford?” he asked from behind the arrangement.

“Yep,” I said as I took it out of his hands. “Do I need to sign for it?”

“Nah,” the guy said as he wiped his palms on his shirt. “Already paid and tipped.”

“Drive safe,” I said as he waved me off and headed back to the van that sported a florist’s logo.

The second the door closed, I set the flowers on the living room coffee table, took two steps back, and stared at them.

Were they for my mom? Was she seeing someone? But the man delivering the flowers had asked for me by name.

A tiny white envelope was pinched on a pick in the middle of the arrangement with “Ryan” written on it in neat cursive. I pulled it off the little stand and opened it up.

Ryan,

It’s a shame that most men aren’t ever given flowers until their funerals.

You deserve to see the same kind of beauty that you put in the world.

I stumbled back like I had just been sucker punched. Willow sent me flowers. Sunflowers, at that. The state flower of Kansas.

Every little detail started moving around like puzzle pieces as I tried to mentally map out what she was up to.

I wasn’t surprised when there was a third knock at the door. I yanked it open and said, “Yes, I’m Ryan Ford.”

But there was no one. Just a cardboard box on the stoop. The mail truck was already moving down the block.

I was ripping into it before the door had closed. I probably should have been more careful in case it was breakable, but curiosity won over caution.

A book fell out, and I caught it right before it hit the floor. The cover was pale pink and had a crisp cursive title in teal blue. Dare You to Love Me by Willow Winslet. A watermark, stamping it as an uncorrected proof, was emblazoned on the corner.

Holy shit.

There were two little tabs that stuck out of the pages. I dropped down onto the couch before I passed out, and opened to the first one. It marked the dedication page.

To Ryan

The man who loves the smell of books.

The man who dared to love me.

This is for you to have and to hold.

Willow’s looping signature was scrawled across the bottom of the page in permanent marker. I ran my thumb over the pages, making them fan as I inhaled the smell of paper and ink. My thumb caught on the second tab that marked a page toward the end of the story.

I opened the tab and immediately spotted what I was meant to read. A short passage had been highlighted and underlined.

“I dare you to give me your worst. Your hurt. Your hard days and your losses. Your flaws and scars. I dare you to let me love them the way that you have loved mine. I dare you to let me kiss the marks on your heart until you see them as paint strokes that form an unblemished, priceless work of art. I dare you to give me your dying breath, and trust that it will be the comforting whisper that caresses my memory until I am called to join you. So, dare me to love you, because you dared to love me.”

The book fell from my hand, the spine hitting the wood floor with a clatter as the world went silent.

She . . . She dedicated her book to me.

And she wrote . . .

I flopped back against the couch and ran my hand through my hair. Holy shit.

I grabbed the book and read the marked lines again and again and again. I was so engrossed in committing every word to memory that I didn’t notice the non-stop vibrating and dings coming from my phone.

I set the book down and looked at the screen. My social media notifications were out of control. The number kept getting higher and higher by the second.

“What the hell?”

I tapped into the app and immediately saw what had caused the mayhem.

Willow had posted a photo. Of us. Showing our faces. And she tagged me in it.

It was one of the many photos I had kept in my “Future Wife” album that she had asked me to text to her. It was of the two of us under the willow tree at sunset. Oranges and green melted together as the sunset dripped down from the heavens and kissed the earth.

The caption read, “Dare you to love me.”

Before I could make sense of it, a new notification popped up. Willow Winslet tagged you in a video.

I hunched forward on the couch, resting my elbows on my knees as I opened it up and hit play.

“Hi, everyone,” Willow said with a smile as she sat in front of an unidentifiable white wall.

“It’s been quite a summer. A lot has changed in my life since I last posted.

I know many of you are expecting this to be a book announcement, and it is.

We’ll get to that. But first, I want to talk about this. ”

She had inserted a clip of the two of us going at each other’s throats at Rom-Con, and I fucking laughed. She looked irate and I was eating it up.

The video cut back to Willow in front of the white wall.

“It wasn’t my finest moment.” Her eyes softened as her smile widened.

“But that one moment of me making an ass of myself brought me so many incredible moments after. If you’re new here, I’ll recap.

Ryan Ford of The Ford Method dared me to date him for three months so he could prove that his method works.

If he won and made me fall in love with him, I had to publicly endorse The Ford Method.

If I didn’t fall in love with him, he would have to shut down his podcast.”