In April 2021, the Bluetooth blunder all romance readers fear most happened to me in while I was in the hospital recovering from a preventative mastectomy. With COVID-19 vaccines still difficult to come by, I spent most of my hospital stay alone in a dimly lit room, plowing through the array of romance audiobooks that I had downloaded onto my iPhone. While the nurse was checking the status of my surgical drains, my traitorous phone disconnected from my Bluetooth headphones and amplified my audiobook throughout the room.
Though not a steamy scene, it was a scene. Characters were sharing furtive glances, imagining what would happen if they closed the distance between them and shared a kiss. It certainly wasn’t a moment I would’ve chosen to play on speaker.
“Fun! A book,” my nurse said, completely unruffled. She was a total pro. Meanwhile, I rained apologies all over her as I fumbled with my phone.
Once she was gone, I searched my bed for my rogue earbud, careful to avoid movements that sent searing pains through my chest. Then, the voice beside me asked, “What book was that?” Those were the first words exchanged with my roommate behind the curtain. Before that, she’d merely been the person responsible for the occasional whir of a bed raising and lowering on the other side of the pink curtain separating us.
I rattled off all the books I’d downloaded for my hospital stay: “Take a Hint, Dani Brown,” by Talia Hibbert, “You Deserve Each Other” by Sarah Hogle,.