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

            “He needs to, like, notice her,” Yan said.

            Mack cupped his own face. “The curve of her jaw.”

            “Or the way her hair always slips free and falls across her forehead,” Gavin said.

            Del sighed. “I mean, is it even a romance novel if she doesn’t chew on her bottom lip when she’s concentrating?”

            Mack shook his head. “Damn, I love that shit.”

            Malcolm nodded with wisdom. “It’s one of the best parts of romance novels. The celebration of all those small, important moments of awareness, of noticing someone for the first time, of feeling alive when they’re near you. Of wondering when they became so important to you. It’s romantic as fuck, man.”

            Vlad realized they expected him to say something. “They can’t just kiss for the sake of kissing,” Vlad argued. “And nothing ruins a first-kiss scene like when you can tell that the author just put it there for the sake of having a kissing scene. It has to feel natural.”

            “But they obviously want to kiss,” Del pointed out.

            “Yes, but they can’t give in to the longing yet.”

            “Why not?” Mack asked.

            “It would not be true to the characters.”

            Colton stuck out his bottom lip. “Are you saying this is going to be a slow burn? I wanted to help write the sex scenes.”

            “It has to be a slow burn,” Vlad said. “They have too much history to move too quickly.”

            “Too much history, huh?” Noah said. “Interesting.”

            Vlad narrowed his eyes. What did that mean?

            “Look,” Malcolm said. “All we want to know is what’s going to happen next. You really left us hanging here.”

            “But . . . you liked it?”

            “It’s brilliant, Russian,” Noah said. He leaned over and riffled Vlad’s hair. “We’re so proud of you.”

            “It’s true,” Mack said, lowering to the sit on the floor. He kicked his legs out straight and leaned back on his hands. “You’ve got us hooked, man. Give us some more to read.”

            The momentary surge of confidence he’d felt at their praise deflated like a pin in a balloon. He slumped and picked at the edges of the Velcro keeping his bone in place. “If I knew that, I would’ve written it.”

            “You don’t have any more written?” Yan asked in a pouty way.

            Vlad shrugged with one shoulder.

            “How long have you been stuck?” Malcolm asked.

            “Couple of years,” Vlad mumbled.

            “Couple of years?” Yan’s jaw dropped to nearly to his chest.

            “You’ve been staring at it for two years?” Colton asked.

            “If you’d ever tried to write a book, you’d understand,” Vlad grumbled. “It’s not easy. I feel like I’ve been writing and rewriting the same few chapters over and over again but can’t figure out how to move forward in the story.”

            “According to all these books,” Yan said, gesturing at his super-helpful pile of resource guides, “if you are stuck, it’s not because you can’t figure out what should happen next. It’s because you probably got something wrong in what you’ve already written. So we just need to fix that.”

            “Wow,” Vlad deadpanned. “Is that all?”

            “Obviously, they need to have sex,” Colton said.

            Everyone ignored him.

            “I agree in theory with Yan,” Del said, ripping open the bag of gluten-free crackers that Elena had sent along for snack time. “Maybe you can’t figure out how to move forward because you haven’t dug enough into your characters’ backstories.”

            Mack and Malcolm looked at each other and spoke in unison. “Backstory is everything.”