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

            “Make any progress on the book?” Malcolm asked.

            Colton snorted. “I already asked, and they still haven’t kissed.”

            Noah groaned. “Come on. Do I have to smoosh their faces together?”

            Vlad shook his head. “No. They are still not ready.”

            “Or maybe Tony is just a wuss.” Colton shrugged.

            Malcolm tsked. “That’s a gendered insult that you need to erase from your vocabulary, Colton.”

            “What? No, it’s not. I use that word all the time.”

            “It is a merging of wimp and pussy and is used to describe weak men with an implication of effeminacy. You can trace its roots to both misogyny and homophobia.” The guys all stared in reverent silence. Sometimes, Malcolm morphed into a professor, and they all learned something that made them better men. “Our society has allowed men to get away with a lack of emotional intelligence by equating the expression of a full range of human emotion with femininity.”

            “My apologies,” Colton said. “What I’m trying to say is that Tony is a big, fat scaredy cat.”

            The waitress returned with their drinks. When she left, Vlad growled. “He is not afraid. He is realistic.”

            “Maybe it’s the author who’s afraid, then.” Malcolm said it with a raised eyebrow, a challenge against Vlad’s authorly manhood if he’d ever seen one.

            “I am not afraid of my own book.”

            Colton snorted. “Hell, you’re too scared to even let Tony admit to himself how he really feels about Anna.”

            “He loves her!” He wanted to grab the words and shove them back in, because now that they were spoken, the guys would stop at nothing to make him do something about it. To make Tony do something about it, that is.

            “Um, duh,” Noah said. “Anyone who can read sees that. The question is why you’re not letting him tell her.”

            “You do not understand.”

            “Obviously, because the way we see it, things are pretty simple,” Mack said. “Tony loves her. Anna obviously loves him—”

            Vlad stiffened. “That is not obvious. She pulls away time and again. She gives him little tiny crumbs, just enough to make him want her, to make him have hope, and then she runs away every time. She is going to leave the minute she gets a clue about where Jack might be, and Tony knows that.”

            “But she’s with Tony now,” Noah said calmly.

            “Only because it’s her job.” He scowled.

            “Bullshit,” Mack said. “He was a complete and utter asshole to her at first. She could have packed her things and hightailed it out of there. She even had plenty of reasons to do so. But she chose to stay with Tony. He just won’t see it.”

            “No. That is not true.”

            “She’s asking him to give her a reason to stay with him,” Noah said.

            Vlad frowned. “Which is not the same thing as telling him she cares for him.”

            “But it’s a goddamned start,” Mack said. “Why are you being so obtuse?”

            “Because he can’t believe she could really want him!”

            The silence that followed his outburst was humble and solemn. Probably because this time, the admission was like ripping open his chest and letting his heart fall right out onto the table while he bled out in a slow, agonizing death.

            “Jesus, man,” Mack breathed. “Why would Tony think that?”

            “He has his reasons.”

            “Does Anna know the reasons?”

            He shook his head. No. Anna didn’t know, because Tony couldn’t stand to think about what would happen if his reasons simply pushed her further away.

            “You know, all that baggage that characters carry from their backstory,” Mack said. “Eventually, that fear becomes less of a motivation and more of a stubborn hindrance. Characters have to change during a book to earn their happy ever after.”