Page 1 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

THE ANTI MEET CUTE

Hazel

Obviously, I believe in love.

If I didn’t, I’d be the worst kind of romance writer—the kind who lies to her readers.

But there’s something I believe in more fervently than love, and that’s the meet-cute. You can’t get to the happy ending without the unputdownable beginning.

The start of the story is my writing church, and I worship at the altar of those delicious moments when the hero and heroine meet for the first time.

Or meet again.

Tonight, I’ll be researching a new here’s-how-they-met possibility as I head to dinner in New York.

I’m one block away from the restaurant. My short, black ankle boots click against the sidewalk on Twenty-Fourth Street as I gaze up at the numbers on the buildings. I pass a tattoo parlor where a goth gal inks a burly man’s arm, and then I acquire the target.

Menu.

“It’s as trendy as it is annoying,” my friend TJ said of the joint when he told me about it last week. “And I promise it’ll inspire your next chapter one.”

I was sold. I made a reservation right away.

Now, I’m here at the minimalist-style restaurant. Under the sign for Menu are the words Meet, Eat, Mingle.

Change your life.

Ambitious, but the way I see it, this place is going to be full of fodder. I can’t wait. I draw a deep inhale of the May night air, then square my shoulders. “Cover me, I’m going in,” I say to, well, no one.

Sometimes I talk to myself. It’s a thing. Whatever.

I head inside, marching to the hostess stand. A woman wearing a black tunic and sporting a blonde undercut shoots me a bored look. Yeah, that’s on point for a place called Menu.

“Hello. I have a reservation. Valentine. Party of one,” I say.

“It’s all parties of one,” she says, monotone.

“Old habit,” I say with a friendly shrug. “In any case, it’s for seven-thirty.”

With an aggrieved sigh, she scans the tablet screen, then meets my eyes. “The other party isn’t here yet. If he or she is five minutes late, we’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Okaaaay .

It’s a new world order. Restaurants have rigid rules. But I knew what I’d signed up for. “Works for me,” I say. You catch more flies with honey and all.

“Fine,” she says, then she nods toward the dining room behind her. It’s small and bare, in keeping with the theme, aka we’re cool, you’re not . The tables are black wood, the walls are steel gray, the tiles are white. Everything is ordinary, except the experience.

This restaurant is très chic because it seats strangers together.

As I follow her, I smile, giddy at the thought of an inspired meet-cute. Two sexy strangers happen to be seated together at a hipster restaurant just like this. They hit it off. Get it on that night. Then, oops! The next day he turns out to be her brand-new boss, perhaps?

But who is he? A mafia king? A sexy CEO?

The muses will let me know who the next hero is. Maybe he’ll even reveal himself tonight.

Undercut brings me to a table at the back. She waves a limp hand in the direction of the framed QR code on the black wood surface. “We use QR codes. You scan them with your phone. Have you ever used one before?”

I’m thirty-one, missy. I can work a phone, a power drill, and a twenty-speed vibrator . Not all at once though. “I’m familiar with the concept of QR codes. Also, phones,” I say.

“Cool,” she says blandly, then walks away, her tunic swishing against her leggings.

Once I sit, I rub my palms on my jeans, a tiny bit nervous. What if I’m seated with an over-sharer? An endless talker? A dullsville candidate?

But I’m excited too.

What if my companion is an enigmatic billionaire like in a romance novel? A broody rock musician? A hot tech nerd who’s looking for a matchmaker?

Gah. The meet-cute possibilities are endless, and when I write this as the opening of my next book, it’s going to be epic.

I just know it.

I’m making some notes on my phone about the vibe when a man’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

“Four minutes and forty-five seconds.” His tone is a little gravelly and a lot know-it-all-y.

Say it isn’t so.

I was already dreading sharing a stage with Axel Huxley at the reader expo I’m doing this weekend. I can’t believe fate would inflict him on me any sooner than necessary.

I turn my gaze toward the front of Menu, praying that’s not my archnemesis. Maybe he has a vocal twin. Maybe that’s a thing now.

But my prayers are unanswered. Standing tall at the hostess stand is the smart-mouthed, glasses-wearing, smirky-faced romantic-thriller writer.

Wearing black because of course he wears black.

And of course he’s arguing with the hostess. He never met a statement he couldn’t debate and dissect into a million julienned pieces, then pepper with disagreement.

He blah blah blahs a little more, finishing with, “So, you have to seat me. It’s the policy of the restaurant.”

I snort. Get over yourself, Huxley. I hope they kick you out.

I feel sorry for whichever sucker is getting seated with King Dick tonight.

Inspired, I make another note, chuckling fiendishly as I imagine my heroine running into her enemy before the clever, charming, hottie hero enters the scene.

Then I check the menu options while waiting for my brilliant professor, my inscrutable tycoon, my good guy with a heart of gold in need of a makeover.

Until the sound of footsteps grows louder and closer. I look up.

At a face I want to punch.