Page 1

“ S o, come out and join us at the Grand Opening event for LoveLorn Books next weekend! Myself and Sara will be ready to greet all of our guests. We look forward to seeing you! Waverly, signing out!”

I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her.

Waverly Cross, owner and social media content creator of LoveLorn Books.

Single – never married – with one estranged living parent, her mother.

Rents an apartment by herself in New York City, New York. One best friend – married to Cole Larson – Sara Larson nee Williams.

Other than that, the subject seems introverted and more comfortable socializing online than in-person unless it's not in her bookstore. I have such a problem .

This woman popped up in my feed weeks ago and since then my powers have been used for evil. I knew things about Waverly Cross that she probably didn’t even know about herself at this point.

Being a retired government operative had its perks. Finding things out about people was as easy as a few clicks of a button when you were trained with the right set of skills.

The problem was no one had ever screamed to the very core of my soul the way this woman did.

I needed to meet her. I had to create an instance where there was some sort of…fuck. What did the feral book community call it? Some sort of fucking meet-cute?

The book community.

That was my in. What was tied to the book community? Different subcategories of online personas fought for dominance over the literary population. Bikers, masked cosplayers, and even uniformed figures in the public service industry.

Glancing down at myself and raising an eyebrow, I contemplated. I could be a masked cosplayer. I was ripped, tattooed from the neck down, and pierced in places the typical man wouldn’t dream of being.

Or you could write a book.

Both eyebrows raised this time. That could be a way of finding out what she liked. The things that weren’t accessible in my web searches. Her bookstore catered to the darker side of romance and that sang to me like a siren song.

I could write a book .

Message her and get her insight. Find out what women like her wanted. A gender neutral pen name would also help to keep her relaxed.

Do both.

Write a book and be the masked man?

I was going to be very busy.

But I was going to do it. I'm going to do it all for Waverly.