Emery Blake stared at the blinking cursor on her laptop like it had personally insulted her."10 Signs He's Worth Your Time"She snorted and took a swig of her rapidly cooling coffee. The headline glared at her from the top of a blank Google Doc, bold and mocking. At this point, she was recycling her own recycled content.
Sign #1: He doesn't ghost you after three dates.
Sign #2: He doesn't tell you he "just wants to vibe" after you've met his mother.
Sign #3: He's not allergic to emotional availability.
She paused, reread what she wrote, then sighed. Too bitter. Again.
A notification pinged in the corner of her screen.
[FROM: [email protected]]SUBJECT: Emergency Content Pivot – Meeting in 10. Be ready.
Emery groaned. "Emergency content pivot" was code for "The algorithm is mad at us again."
Ten minutes later, Emery sat in a Zoom call with her boss Marla, who had the ever-frantic aura of a woman running a business built on optimism and engagement metrics. Her pastel office looked like a wedding Pinterest board had thrown up behind her.
"Emery," Marla said, smiling so hard it looked painful, "we love your writing."
Emery raised an eyebrow. "But…"
"But we're noticing a… tone." Marla tapped her screen. "Your last piece was titled Love Is a Lie and So Are His Weekend Plans."
"Which was—" Emery leaned in, "—a hit on Twitter. Viral, actually. People love it when I'm bitter."
"They love bitter on Twitter," Marla said through gritted teeth. "But advertisers want sweet. They want real. They want 'couples who met in a farmer's market and now have matching succulents' content."
Emery blinked. "Matching succulents?"
Marla waved her off. "Anyway! Here's your new assignment: Love That Lasts. It's a new column. Real couples. Real stories. Interviews, chemistry, the whole rom-com package. You'll write the feature."
Emery stared, slack-jawed. "You want me to interview actual couples?"
"Yes! Get into their love lives. Ask the hard questions. Make our readers swoon." Marla beamed. "You start this week."
It took all her willpower not to scream into her takeout container that night.
She had one friend who was happily married, but Rachel lived in Canada now and mostly texted her pictures of her toddler covered in pudding. Everyone else Emery knew was either single, divorced, or in a relationship with someone who didn't know how to load a dishwasher.
She sighed and opened the form Marla had sent—a signup sheet for interviewees, already blasted out to Heart & Honey's readers.
And that's when she saw it.
NAME: Liam Hart
AGE: 30
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: ...It's complicated.
COMMENTS: Not sure what I signed up for. Could use some advice, I guess?
Emery tilted her head. No photo. No cute couple name. Just one guy, clearly confused and very single.
She had no idea why she clicked "schedule," but something about the blunt honesty caught her attention.
Besides—if this was going to crash and burn, she might as well light the match herself.