Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) by Lyssa Kay Adams

            “She has to go look for Jack,” Malcolm said. “Otherwise, has she really chosen Tony? How will he know that she really chose him?”

            “Why the hell does that matter?” And why the hell was he taking it so personally?

            “It matters because Jack is the one thing still standing in their way emotionally,” Malcolm said. “He’s everything Tony fears he lacks as a man, and he’s the past that Anna can’t forget. Until they deal with those issues, it’s a cheap way to end the book.”

            “Did you read the scene?” Vlad argued. “He just told her he loves her. You guys have been riding my magnificent ass to get Tony to advance the relationship. It’s the one thing he has feared more than anything else. How is that not digging deep?”

            “You said that telling her how he felt about her was his greatest fear,” Malcolm said. “But is that really it? Is that what truly scares him?”

            “Yes.”

            “What if she’d left anyway?”

            Vlad scowled as he pondered Malcolm’s question. “What do you mean?”

            “What is the worst possible thing that could happen to him at this point?”

            “For her to not feel the same way.”

            “No,” Colton said, suddenly somber in a way Vlad rarely saw his friend. “For her to love him, too, but to leave him anyway.”

            Silence descended over the room. The reverent, damn, that’s some deep shit kind of silence.

            “Vlad, does Tony believe that Anna would ever choose him over Jack?” Malcolm asked.

            “No,” he breathed.

            “Which means she has to go look for Jack,” Mack said. “Otherwise, has she really chosen Tony? How will he know that she really wants him?”

            “He has to let her go,” Noah said.

            Vlad shook his head. No. That was too mean. He couldn’t do that to Tony.

            “More importantly,” Malcolm said, “he has to find the faith that their love is strong enough for her to come back to him.”

            Vlad tossed his notebook. “If you guys know my characters so damn well, then you write it.”

            Colton tsked and opened a beer. “Sorry, dude. Only you can write the end to your own story.”



* * *



            * * *

            “I don’t think this looks right.”

            Michelle pulled her tray from one of the large ovens inside the ToeBeans Café kitchen and set it on the cooling counter with a skeptical eye.

            Elena peeked over Michelle’s shoulder at the golden-brown pastry cups. “They’re perfect.”

            Elena was teaching them how to make korzinochki, a sweet little sour-cream tartlet that had been one of her father’s favorites and would be perfect for the watch party later.

            “I don’t think that looks right,” Andrea said, pointing at Alexis’s cat, Beefcake.

            Since ToeBeans was a cat café—Alexis hosted cat adoption events on the weekends—Beefcake came to work with her every day to sit in a window box and intimidate customers. He looked like the bad end of a failed science experiment.

            “I should get a cat like that,” Claud said, watching from a stool next to the stainless-steel counter inside the kitchen. She declared that morning that she’d be happy to eat the cakes but wanted no part of making them. “I need something to sit in a window box and bare its privates and hiss at men.”

            “Isn’t that basically what you do every day?” Elena asked.

            Michelle smothered a laugh and turned around, shoulders shaking. Elena looked at Claud, who had a small smile on her face.

            “Okay, these can cool while we make the filling,” Elena said.

            Alexis gathered all the ingredients—heavy cream, sour cream, and powdered sugar—and measured them into her professional-size mixer. Once the white concoction was the right consistency, they spooned dollops onto the pastries.