Mister Romance by Amelia Simone (the reading list .txt) 📕

lot. Health class sex ed had nothing on romance descriptions. But I wasn’t reading for the sex. Okay, not entirely for the sex.

Some days it was for the sex.

But it was also about the plots, humor, and relationships. Found family was my jam, and I loved a good grovel. Even at that age I was skilled at sticking my foot in my mouth up to the ankle and romance helped me see that there was hope for someone as awkward as me.

Romance novels even helped me snag my first high school girlfriend. I’d thought it was flirting when I gave Melissa Swanson a dozen cupcakes with frosting the same pink as her favorite sweatshirt. She thought I was taunting her for the extra curves she used the baggy cotton to hide. Not my intent.  Teenage me had been horrified when she burst into tears and rushed to the girls’ bathroom. I couldn’t let her think that’s what my gift had meant. I may have been an idiot, but I wasn’t an asshole.

Luckily, Melissa had forgiven me and agreed to go to the movies when I apologized and explained. It was the most awkward five minutes in the girls’ bathroom ever, talking through a stall door, but I survived. Granted, I got a girlfriend and detention out of the deal. I liked to think I learned from my mistakes, but the last few years of my haphazard dating history proved that was a lie. I’d only discovered new ways to screw up. Ironic, considering my bestselling author career. I’d learned how to write successful relationships, but when it came to practical application, I was still hopeless.

I’d never properly thanked my dad for making it manly to read romance, but I definitely should. As an only child with older parents, we did a lot of reading at home. All genres were welcome, but romance easily made up fifty percent of our reading list.

When I was starting my writing career, they supported me by beta reading my early sci-fi projects. But romantic plot ideas wouldn’t leave me alone, and sci-fi just couldn’t scratch the itch. I’d always been pretty open with my parents but was still flooded with regret when I sent them my first romance novel and they provided detailed comments on the sex scenes instead of the butterfly garden proposal. I wished I’d edited it down to a parent-friendly version with no cussing or stray nudity, but at the time I needed expert help, and I knew no one more expert in reading romance than them.

My mom, bless her, had no issues taking me to task over how I described female pleasure. I was grossly uncomfortable; she was oblivious. My mother didn’t need to know that I’d dubbed all of her comments as coming from Alpha Reader One to help divorce myself from the most cringeworthy suggestions. However, without my parents sharing their love of reading, I wouldn’t be a successful author.

I also wanted to stay a successful author, which was a major point in favor of keeping my identity from Tamra and bailing on a coffee meet up. I could still send her a gift card and some signed books for answering my questions instead. Revealing my true self to her could potentially mean outing myself to the world if I upset her.

Maybe email was best. It didn’t hurt to try. My nursing questions were pretty basic, but my online research on shifts and hospital roles had yielded a variety of differences among hospital systems. I wanted the straight scoop. Most of my information on what a typical nurse’s day was based off online job postings, which were idealized. It was all rainbows in recruiting. I imagined for patient privacy reasons, there were relatively few nursing blogs that I could read to gain a more human perspective on daily life.

I could always see how Tamra responded to my emails, then decide if we should meet in person.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: Labor & Delivery Questions

Hey Tamra,

Thanks again for your willingness to help me! My next project features a labor and delivery ward prominently, and I’d love your help to make it realistic. If you’re game, answering the questions below would be helpful. I’ve done some online research, but I understand things vary a lot from hospital to hospital and region to region. Would you also be up for reading my draft to help me catch inaccuracies? That would be a huge help, and I’d be happy to pay for your time.

What are your hospital’s shifts?

What are the standard job roles?

What do you love about your job?

What do you hate about your job?

What are some funny things that have happened in the delivery room?

What do people get wrong about what it’s like as a nurse?

What is something you wish people knew about being a nurse?

What is something you wish people knew about labor and delivery?

Thanks again,

V

I looked at my clock. It was nearly six. Jimmy was due soon so we could carpool to dinner. Since I had wrapped up my latest manuscript earlier in the day, I was officially off the clock until I started my next project with Tamra. Self-publishing was wonderful because I set my own deadlines, but there was also tremendous pressure to publish at least quarterly, which was grueling. Three months to plot, write, edit, and promote my work was aggressive. Fitting in editing clients on top of that meant I worked a lot of hours. But it paid for my rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of ... a semi-nice apartment in Tacoma, my health insurance, and both a Nintendo Switch and PS5. Luckily, video gaming at home was my idea of fun. My modest lifestyle had allowed me to save for a rainy day. Running a small business was a nightmare for stability, and I’d had one too many rainy days when a book didn’t sell well. Being self-made had its drawbacks.

Jimmy’s knock pulled me out of my reverie. I moved to the door and looked down to make sure