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  A pleasant warmth filled her to know she might have helped her friend. At least he had hope. “Just saying it like it is, Hector.”

  “The Love Doctor strikes again. You’re better than Dear Abby or any of those other advice people out there. You should do a podcast or something. People could call in and—”

  “Hey, there, you two! How’s it hanging?” a familiar voice chimed in.

  “Hey, Audie,” Izzy said as her best friend approached.

  Audie’s fitted bright-yellow bowling shirt with a cat on the right breast combined with yellow and blue striped pants with the cuffs rolled up should have assaulted her eyes, but it didn’t. Audie rocked her individual style with confidence, and it worked for her. Today, a spiffy hat—the kind an old man would wear, complete with a little feather on the side—topped her spiked platinum hair. She wore dramatic makeup, which would have come off as clownish on anyone else. Izzy should have felt invisible around Audie, but Audie always made her feel like the center of attention.

  Audie studied Hector. “Whoa. Should I find another table? You look like someone just took away your favorite kitten and you’re plotting revenge.”

  “Izzy was just telling me how to get Jillian back.” Resolution still gleamed in his eyes.

  “You guys broke up? Really?” Audie dropped into an empty seat, giving Izzy a “duh, everyone knew it was gonna happen” look.

  Izzy shook her head, hoping Audie wouldn’t go there.

  “Yeah,” Hector said, “but good old Iz had the perfect advice, as usual. I’ll get her back. She won’t know what hit her.”

  “Truth.” Audie dropped a mailbox-shaped lunch box painted with various dog faces on the table. “I’ll bet Iz has saved more marriages than Dr. Phil.”

  “Exactly what I was just telling her.” Hector stood and gathered the remains of his lunch. “Well, I have to get back. It’s merge day, and I have to work a couple bugs out of my code. The new intern still needs a little guidance on code reviews.”

  “I’m surprised you even took a lunch today.” Izzy handed him the empty pizza box in response to his outstretched hand. “See ya.”

  He tossed the trash, waved, and strode toward the main doors.

  “The new interns are here already?” Audie asked, pulling an assortment of small containers out of her lunch box and placing them on the table. “Jesus, it feels like the last group just rolled out.”

  Izzy didn’t answer. The way Audie used the interns as a frequently refreshed dating pool made her uncomfortable.

  “What do you have there?” she asked. “It looks like…I don’t want to say what it looks like.” Audie’s lunches were never run-of-the-mill.

  “Boiled eggplant. It’s super good for you.” Audie shook a gray, shapeless glob onto the pile of green. “You can put anything in salads.”

  Izzy almost gagged. “I’ll trust you.”

  “Says the woman with the metabolism of a teenage boy.” Audie tossed a lone green leaf that had fallen on the table at Izzy.

  “I run.” Izzy caught the leaf and started to tear it up.

  “The only time I run is if I’m chased. If they’re cute, I don’t bother to run at all.” Audie gave her a wry smile. “So, you helped Hector with the Jillian situation? God, I was wondering when he’d get a clue. That woman needs someone who will treat her like a queen.”

  “Like you?” Izzy asked, knowing the answer. Audie found almost anyone attractive, male or female. She was pansexual and not terribly picky. She just loved sex, and she loved people.

  Audie smirked. “You know I’d never cross the lines with a friend’s significant other. But if she wasn’t with Hector, I’d be all over her like a bee on honey.”

  “I believe you.” Izzy laughed. She dropped the shredded leaf into a pile on the table.

  “You are amazing, you know,” Audie said through a mouthful of salad greens, slimy eggplant, and some sort of boiled grains. No dressing. Gross. “You always have the perfect advice to help people with their love lives.”

  “I just tell people what’s obvious.”

  Audie pointed her fork at Izzy. “There are entire industries devoted to what you do over a tuna sandwich and SunChips.”

  Izzy waved a hand, dismissing the comment. It was true, but she didn’t want anyone thinking she had a big head about it. “It’s what friends do, Audie. I listen, and I give advice. You do the same for me.”

  “I try, but I don’t have your magic with it.” Audie made a face and moved the eggplant to the side. She stabbed at her salad and then waved her fork at Izzy, pieces of salad dropping to the table. “You have a talent. Admit it.”

  “I like helping people. It makes me feel good.” Izzy rubbed the back of her neck, embarrassed.

  Audie shoveled the forkful of greens into her mouth. She made eating a salad look like work. “You should figure out a way to charge people for it.”

  “Yeah, right.” Izzy stole one of Audie’s napkins and tore a strip from it.

  Audie cocked one perfectly arched eyebrow. “Why? You’re providing a service.”

  “I can’t charge my friends for advice. I’m not Lucy from Peanuts. The Doctor is not in. I’m a technical writer, not a therapist. They can keep their nickels.” Izzy ripped a couple more strips and added them to the pile in front of her.

  “Maybe not having a degree in it is a good thing. It makes you more relatable.” Audie dropped her fork into her lunch box and grimaced. “I can’t with this salad. I think this diet only works because it’s inedible.”

  Izzy laughed. “Exercise, and you wouldn’t need to diet.”

  “The only exercise I enjoy is the horizontal kind.” Audie wiggled her eyebrows. “I’m serious. You need to monetize your talent.”

  Izzy snorted. “You’re a riot. Who’s going to listen to me? I’m forty-seven. I’m single. I’ve always been single.”

  Audie narrowed her eyes. “The best bartenders are the ones who don’t drink. Besides, not true. You were with Siobhan for over a year.”

  Izzy laughed wryly. “Yes, Siobhan. My longest relationship, which only lasted a year because we lived in different countries.”

  Audie whisked her hands to the side. “Okay, your own relationship status aside, you still give the best advice of anyone I’ve ever known. You need to capitalize on it.”

  “What am I supposed to do, put flyers in the breakrooms with the tear-off thingies on them and wait for people to call me? No way.” Izzy wadded up the napkin strips and bounced the ratty ball in her palm. “Besides, I like my job. I don’t need another one.”

  Audie smacked Izzy’s hand from below. The ball broke into smaller pieces and drifted down like confetti. “Hey, you’re a writer. People spend a shit-ton on self-help books. You can write one of those.”

  “I’m not that kind of a writer,” Izzy said. “I write technical documents, user’s guides, white papers. I wouldn’t know a thing about writing a self-help book. I’m not touchy-feely like that.”

  Audie took a package of Twinkies out of her lunch box, and Izzy laughed. Only Audie would have boiled eggplant and Twinkies in her lunch.

  Audie’s finger shot up, and she pointed at Izzy. “Hey, how about a user’s guide?”

  Izzy stopped laughing. “What? You mean like an idiot’s guide to fixing your love life or something?”

  “Yeah! That’s it!” Audie dropped the Twinkies and spread her hands in the air as if reading a large marquee or billboard. “An Idiot’s Guide to Love.” She nodded knowingly. “There you go. Now you even have a title. You’re welcome. I expect to be the first person in the acknowledgments. It’s gonna be a best seller. Mark my words.”

  Izzy’s stomach fell. Audie wouldn’t be happy until she had a book in her hands. How had she gotten herself involved in this harebrained idea?

  * * *

  Izzy sat at her desk after lunch and spun her desk chair from left to right and back again, staring at the ceiling tiles. What business did she have writing a self-help book ab
out finding love when she hadn’t been on a date in more years than she could remember? She laughed to herself. Maybe she could write a book on how to stay out of love. At least it would be more in her bailiwick. Audie’s suggestion was hilarious. She sighed and opened her laptop. The release notes weren’t going to edit themselves.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Izzy couldn’t remember a word of the release document she had just read. The book idea kept slinking its way into her thoughts. She raised her hands over her head and stretched. An Idiot’s Guide to Love. It was a catchy title, she had to admit. Something she’d probably look at if she were browsing the aisles of a bookstore. Not to buy, of course, since she definitely wasn’t in the market, but just to skim to see what it was all about.

  She opened a new document on her laptop. After a check to make sure none of her coworkers were around, she typed An Idiot’s Guide to Love in the middle of the first page. She then inserted a page break, and…nothing.

  She leaned back in her chair. Cool title aside, she didn’t have to write it just because Audie suggested it. But she knew Audie. She was like a dog with a bone when she put her mind to something. She’d seen the look in her eyes, the excitement in her voice when she’d talked about it. As much as she hated to admit it, Audie’s enthusiasm was contagious, and she’d always harbored a secret desire to write a book. So, why not?

  She rolled her eyes.

  The subject, that was why not.

  She closed her laptop. Giving advice to her friends, as good as it was, didn’t make her an expert. In fact, she was the furthest from being an expert anyone could be, an anti-expert. Love had nearly, quite literally, killed her once.

  An image of her first love, Kelly, rushed to mind. Beautiful. Perfect…until Kelly had broken her heart and nearly killed her. Izzy grimaced. Since then, she’d shunned love, avoiding anything to do with dating or relationships. Siobhan had been a one-off. They hadn’t dated. They hadn’t been in love. She had almost no experience and, thus, no credibility. No one would buy a book she wrote on the subject.

  She needed to stop with the negative self-talk. She heard her therapist’s voice in her head. What do we do when we recognize negative self-talk? We counter it with proof of our positives. So, hey, she wasn’t a recruiter either, but she’d written thousands of user’s guides for recruiters about how to use the Gigify software. Proof she didn’t need to do it to write about it. All she had to do was a little research.

  The idea of writing the book was now a challenge she could get behind. She opened her laptop again and started taking notes.

  * * *

  My name is Izzy Treadway, and I’m an idiot.

  An idiot at love, to be specific.

  I know what you’re thinking: Why would you ever take advice from a self-proclaimed idiot?

  I thought the exact same thing when my friends bullied me into writing this book. Who’s going to want to listen to someone like me? A person who’s spent her life avoiding love? The thing is—and not to be braggy—the one thing I happen to be pretty good at is giving advice that successfully leads to deep and lasting love. At least for other people. Maybe my lack of entanglement gives me an untarnished view into the hearts of others. Whatever it is, I bat nearly a thousand percent at giving advice that works. That’s the reason why I wrote this book, An Idiot’s Guide to Love. Oh, and to get my friend Audie off my back.

  What are my qualifications, you may ask? Great question! But first, let me ask you this: is anyone actually qualified to give advice about love? It’s not like there’s a degree program out there to teach you the fine art of finding and keeping love. Nevertheless, I’ve helped countless people over the years. I’m not sure if it makes me qualified, but as long as someone needs advice about their love life, I’m willing to give it. I don’t claim to be an expert—thus the “Idiot” in the title—however, to my knowledge, I’ve never led anyone astray.

  So, take my advice. Read this book. See how it improves your love life. What have you got to lose except loneliness and heartache?

  Chapter Two

  The scent of freshly cut grass was a pleasant sensation as Izzy ran along the greenbelt running trail she’d selected for her usual after-work run. She tried to focus on the beauty around her instead of the insanity of having agreed to write a book. She timed her breathing to the steady pace of her strides. Out, out, in. Out, out, in. The hypnotic rhythm did little to quiet her thoughts.

  The book idea had taken over her mind. Wanting to write a book was one reason she’d gone into technical writing in the first place. Not that she’d seen her job as a natural progression toward her literary aspirations, but it was a way to marry her natural competency toward all things technical with her love of writing. Of course, once she’d started working, she’d put her literary thoughts on the back burner, and they’d stayed there as the demands of her work took center stage. After Audie planted the seed, however, she hadn’t been able to think of anything else.

  Of course, it was laughable that anyone would want to read what she had to say about love, but her friends seemed to appreciate her advice. An Idiot’s Guide to Love would need to be about the full journey of love, from finding it to keeping it once you had it. People were always talking about how to find love. But based on the advice she gave the most, people had a hard time knowing how to nurture it once they found it.

  It was all important, right? A good guide would need to span everything from finding love, to falling in love, and then keeping it. As she thought about what a good guide to love would contain, her running speed increased. This was going to be fun, even if no one read it.

  * * *

  The first part of An Idiot’s Guide to Love is for those of you who want love but don’t know how to find it. If you’re already in a relationship, you may be tempted to skip to part two or part three. Don’t do it. I encourage you to read from the beginning. The foundation of a great relationship starts with a solid beginning.

  We all watch the movies and read the books where people meet and fall in love. The lead actors start off all starry-eyed until they have some sort of conflict. But they always overcome it, and they end up together in the end. Their relationship is stronger than ever. Their lives are on a solid road to Happily Ever After. The simple recipe for romance, right? It happens all the time. But we all know real life is rarely like the movies or the books we read. Real life is chaos and randomness. There aren’t any signs saying “start here” and “go this way.” Nothing tells us “do not enter” or “destination reached.” Wouldn’t it be great if there were? We’d know exactly what to do. But we have to figure it all out by ourselves.

  Well, I’m going to give you some advice on how to get started on your quest for love. I won’t promise it won’t be messy. It might even be a little chaotic. But it will get you started. And to get started, you have to take that all-important first step. You know what they say, the first step is acknowledging…something. Anyway, I’m not so good at remembering quotes. What I am good at is giving advice on relationships and love.

  Chapter Three

  “How’s the book coming along, doll?”

  Izzy saw movement under the bathroom stall wall beside her. Fingers wiggled at her. Black polish with yellow smiley faces adorned the nails, and a tangle of beaded bracelets clattered on the thin wrist. She recognized Audie’s voice, but she’d know the accessories anywhere.

  “Don’t ask.” She pulled toilet paper off the roll. The backs of her thighs were numb from sitting so long. She’d been done for several minutes, but she’d been sitting there absently, trying to figure out the next chapter of the book. This little project was starting to be a major pain in the ass in more ways than one—one being Audie’s nearly constant check-ins.

  “Oh, but I just did.”

  The flush of the toilets prevented Izzy from answering right away, which was good, since she might have used a few choice words with her persistent friend. She opened her stall door at the same time as Audie,
and she had to laugh.

  “Are you stalking me?”

  Audie waved her hand dismissively. “Please. I’ve been stalking you for years now. Are you just now noticing?”

  “Just checking.” Izzy followed her to the sinks. She washed her hands and hissed at the temperature. She glanced at Audie’s reflection in the mirror. “Typical. Just when it’s warming up outside, the water comes out boiling, after being ice cold all winter.”

  Audie wiped under her eyes and adjusted a few spiky locks of hair over her eyebrows. “I think it’s to counteract the arctic air-conditioning.”

  Izzy dried her hands. “Hello, springtime colds.”

  “So, how’s the book coming? I know you’re writing it.” Audie wiggled her fingers next to her head. “I can see the cogs and wheels spinning behind your eyes.”

  “I still haven’t decided to do it. But I have been thinking about what I would write if I were to.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t think I can. At least not a guide. All I know is how to give advice to people about relationships they’re already in. A guide has to start at the beginning—how to find love in the first place. I don’t know the first thing about finding love, let alone keeping it.”

  “It’s easy. I can help you there. Or at least get you started.”

  Izzy laughed. “I’m not sure you’re the right person to give this advice.”

  Audie put a hand on her chest and raised her eyebrows. “Should I be insulted right now?”

  Izzy wasn’t sure if Audie was actually hurt or just acting like it. “No insult intended. What I mean is, you aren’t the typical example of a person who’d read this book. You can find a date just by walking to the bathroom.”

  Audie swung her head proudly and used her ring finger to smooth her eyebrow. The hurt, if it was real, was gone. “As a matter of fact, I did spot a tasty morsel hanging around Hector’s office.”