something came along and changed us

Never Been Shipped came out one year today!

I talked about this some on the book tour for that one (and probably here in this newsletter), but historically, I’ve never been the biggest fan of Friends to Lovers as a trope. Eventually I came to realize just how fucking stupid I sounded for even saying that, because as with any trope, a lot of it is in the execution. When it hits, it hits.

Hating Friends to Lovers is so interesting because I think for a lot of us, it is the origin story of our relationship. It’s certainly more common than Enemies to Lovers (I would hope?). My younger son put it best once when he said that he just didn’t “get” Enemies to Lovers because . . . why wouldn’t you want to be with someone who was nice to you? Amen, brother. I hope you hold on to that feeling!

But of course narrative is different than real life, and often we like the extra drama and angst in a story. Things can be hot in a book boyfriend and an absolute red flag in a real boyfriend. This is the nature of fiction.

(This is the smallest example of that, but like in romance novels men are always tilting her chin up with their finger. Touch me like that?!?!?!?! Put your fucking FINGER under my CHIN to get my attention?!?!?! I’m sorry but I would karate chop your throat. Sexy in a book. Would drive me crazy in real life.)

My main issues with Friends to Lovers, as I saw the trope:

• There’s no tension. You don’t get to see their Meet Cute (because they met a long time ago), and you don’t get to see the unfolding of them getting to know each other (because they already know each other).

• There’s no chemistry. If they wanted to fuck, they would’ve fucked by now. Right?

• It bothers me when I feel like one of the friends absolutely has to know that the other has liked them for a while. I don’t believe in the “Friend Zone” in that I think that friendships should be allowed to be friendships without always having to put those expectations on it, and if one person isn’t feeling it then they don’t owe you anything just because you want to take the relationship in a different direction. At the same time, it feels . . . dishonest? A little cruel? If you know that your friend feels that way about you but you never address it because you don’t want to fuck up the friendship. The friendship is already getting fucked up, it’s just happening slowly and painfully.

With Never Been Shipped, I kind of cheated because I made it estranged Friends to Lovers, which does hit different. John and Micah start from a place of tension, because they’re not even friends at that point in the story — just two people with a lot of history who are “meeting” each other anew.

But that’s the thing about Friends to Lovers. Okay, so you don’t get to see their Meet Cute, but you do get to see that Moment When They See Each Other in a Different Way. You don’t get to see the unfolding of them getting to know each other, but you do get to see the unfolding of them getting to know each other now that things have changed, that maybe they’re paying attention to things they used to overlook or take for granted, or weren’t privy to when the relationship dynamics were different.

Like one moment I love in a Friends to Lovers romance is that moment of oh. Ohhhhhh I’m seeing you with brand new eyes. Has your mouth always looked like that? Have you always made that sound? I’ve never thought about it before but suddenly I’m thinking about it.

And it’s extra weird because we know each other. Right? That’s where the chemistry comes in. The book has to make me believe that either the two characters have thought about each other in those ways, they’ve just shoved it down because they knew It Could/Should/Would Never Happen (they don’t want to fuck up the friendship, etc.), or else they weren’t clicked in before but now they’re really clicked in. Things change!

This is why Micah and John’s first kiss when they were 13 was always very important to me. I got a note about it, during revisions, that said it was confusing because it would lead people to wonder why they hadn’t just gotten together then, instead of wasting so much time dancing around each other, being with other people, etc.

But that kiss wasn’t confusing. It was clarifying. At least to me. To John and Micah, yes, it was confusing as hell.

Micah presents the kiss in a “fuck it, why not, let’s try our first kiss together.” Which is very Micah — to hide behind bravado, to pretend that something doesn’t mean anything to her when really it does. And then she worries that she came on too strong, that she pushed John into something he didn’t want to do, which is very Micah, too — that she tends to be the one who is more bold, who strains against a comfort zone.

Meanwhile, the kiss means everything to John, because he’s always liked Micah, from the first time he met her. But John does tend to hang back, to wait, to not express what he wants or risk anything he’s scared to lose. His fear is that he’s not enough for Micah, that she’s this bright, shining star of a person (even before they’re actual rockstars!), and he won’t be able to hold onto her. He’d rather be her friend, if that’s how he can have her in his life.

“So the kiss wasn’t good?” That’s what I was asked about it in revisions, and I admit it made me see red a little. Was the kiss good? They were thirteen. It wasn’t good — it was awkward, and a little weird, and made each of them retreat back into self-doubt and figuring that okay, they’d tried it, and maybe it was better to just move on and pretend it never happened.

It also wasn’t good — it was incredible. It was everything they’d both wanted. It was their first kiss.

So in the case of John and Micah, those feelings have always been there, they’d just shoved them deep down, trying to prevent anything which might blow up their friendship or, later, the band. And then by the time everything has blown up anyway, it’s too late. The rift that happens when their band/friendship breaks up is as painful as if it had been a romantic relationship, after all. (One reason why I don’t fight the #secondchanceromance tag, even though technically, they never did get that first chance!)

Which brings me to the last point. Wouldn’t Micah have known, on some level, that John felt the way that he did about her? Everyone else pretty much knew. Ryder knew — it’s why he’s so threatened by John. Frankie definitely knew — it’s why they can’t help but make little comments to each of them basically like, when are you two clowns going to put us all out of our misery?

(Did Steve know? haha I feel like if you somehow surprised Steve with the question as a yes or no, he’d answer yes automatically without even thinking about it, but if you talked to him about it in any other way he’d somehow be oblivious.)

I always thought that Micah did know, on some level. She admits as much to herself when John finally tells her he loves her: “But she also knew immediately that he meant what he’d said, that it was the truest thing he’d ever said to her. Hearing him speak the words aloud felt simultaneously like the biggest surprise and like the most beautiful, inevitable thing.”

(That’s one of my favorite quotes in the book. This whole section, really.)

Micah’s always been her own biggest enemy. She’s aware of it — her tendency to self-sabotage, her seeming knack for “ruining” something that was otherwise good. So she really doesn’t want to do that to John, which is one reason why she buries her feelings, and then it also takes her a long time, I think, before she’s emotionally ready to hear it. Only through the healing that she’s done in the book is she able to believe him.

Another note I got — that Micah seemed a bit “manipulative” in the first sex scene, when she and John hook up in her room. I struggled with that one a lot, too. I think one reason I did is because . . . honestly, yeah, she’s a little manipulative. She’s kind of supposed to be. That word has such a negative connotation so I personally wouldn’t use it; I’d say she’s very aware of the dynamics and she’s decided to act on them. John is still a grownass man who can decide how he wants to go from there.

I always like to say that Micah was a different character for me because she’s the first woman I think I’ve ever written who is absolutely aware of her own beauty/sex appeal. It’s part of what made her famous — for better or worse — so it felt disingenuous to me to have her not be aware of it. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t still have insecurities or hangups, but yeah, she knows she’s hot!

And she knows John is attracted to her! That, I think, she has always known, and has always been very careful with, even as sometimes she might tease a boundary here or there. In that scene in her room, she knows she has the power, sexually. And she wants to cross right over that boundary, in a way that’s less self-destructive and more constructive, because what she really wants is to build something new. The part that she can’t see clearly yet — the part that really scares her — is the emotional part, and that’s where she’s really putting herself on the line. If John rejects her, she’ll know it’s not because he doesn’t physically want to, it’s because careful, thoughtful John has weighed the risks and decided she’s not worth it.

I still love these two so much. Can you tell?

This Weezer song isn’t a perfect fit for John and Micah for a lot of reasons — I don’t see them as having been parasitic fishes, they’re not Nancy/vicious, they do “miss us,” etc. But the song title and overall vibe do fit John and Micah at the start of the book, and my family is just so excited for new Weezer on the horizon. A couple years ago we were telling our oldest son how everyone knows there are only 2.5 canonically good Weezer albums, and he was insistent that that wasn’t true. Everything Will Be Alright in the End, he said, was up there with anything else they’ve ever done.

So long before “Go Away” blew up the way it has, we went and listened to the album it’s on. And goddamn if he’s not right. That’s a GREAT album. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite, but if you went off the Weezer album I’ve played the most in the last two years . . . it’s Everything Will Be Alright in the End. And “We Might as Well Be Strangers” feels like it could’ve come straight off it, which I mean as the highest compliment.

Publishing is so weird, because here I am being nostalgic about last year’s book, deep in the middle of revising next year’s book, but still I have to remind you! about this year’s book! You can preorder In Every Possible Way from Tombolo Books, and put any personalization request in the comments section of your order.

And I’ll be going on tour, so if you’re local, please come see me at any of these stops:

• June 23 at 7pm - Tombolo Books (St. Pete, FL) in conversation with Dr. Jessica Cook

• June 24 at 7pm - Flutter Romance (Austin, TX) in conversation with Ehigbor Okosun

• June 25 at 7pm - Half Price Books (Dallas, TX) in conversation with Alexa Martin

• June 26 at 6pm - Barnes & Noble (Orlando, FL) in conversation with Amy Buchanan

Currently reading . . . Many years ago, I picked up Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong by Juliet Macur out of a Little Free Library, and I became SO obsessed with this book. A major hyperfixation of mine for a while was what a piece of shit Lance has always been and how all his lies got exposed. The part I remember the most clearly is when Betsy Andreu, the wife of one of the other riders, asked her husband Frankie if he ever doped the way Lance had once admitted to them he had. (This admission, taking place in an Indiana hospital room, became a MAJOR point of contention in the investigation later, basically just did it happen, did it not happen, who was there, who knew about it, etc. etc.) At the time Frankie was like no, of course not, honey, I would never.

Later, Betsy is watching a bike race on TV and she sees that her Frankie, who is an excellent sprinter but not necessarily a great climber, is suddenly climbing AWESOME. He’s never biked like that in his life. He’s passing known climbers like they’re standing still. And Betsy gets on the phone with him and is like BULLSHIT you’re not doping.

I just love that moment. What a badass. To call your own husband out and be like, I KNOW you’re not that good, dude.

Anyway, I was in the mood to revisit this book so I listened to it on audio. It still hits!

watching . . . My family went and saw Backrooms in the theater and now it’s like we’re in the backrooms because it’s kind of taken over my house lol. They’re watching all the YouTube videos and getting lost in the lore. It’s obviously a very interesting, engaging movie, to have us all obsessed like this. There’s a lot to talk about with it. I was really impressed with how willing the movie was to let you just sit in silence for a while — I guess that would be the only argument I could see against it, is that it can be really slow/quiet, but I like that in horror. I like a creeping dread, that unsettling feeling that something is about to happen but you don’t know what or when. Unfortunately the family next to us weren’t as comfortable sitting in the silence, which is one reason why I don’t always love seeing a movie in the theater. I am way too sensitive to people whispering the whole way through it. (If your kid is too young to see the movie without you having to explain/talk through every single part, don’t take them!!!!)

listening to . . . I actually haven’t been listening to a lot of music! I just realized that when I went to write this section. I’m been working on revisions, and although I can write to music no problem, in revisions I either need something really instrumental/background or I just want nothing at all. I did listen to the two newly released Weezer songs, as this newsletter gets at, with my kids in the car on the way to the park. We sat in the car for a bit while “Shine Again” finished and then we talked about what we liked about them and what we’re looking forward to in the new album. And then we got out of the car and my kids were immediately like, oh, I think we might be too old for the park. It’s nothing but little kids running around and this feels awkward. (We were meeting up with my sister and six-year-old niece, and once she arrived everyone got on the swings and had fun, but I could totally see that shocking moment when you’re like wait have we outgrown this and that’ll always be linked to this “We Might as Well Be Strangers” song to me.)