Content Warning: This section of the guide includes cursing, sexual content, and references to sexual harassment.

“The woman straightened away from the table closest to the door, stuffing the cash tip into her flour-sprinkled apron. Her eyes locked on mine, and I felt something…interesting. Like the ghost of recognition. Like she was the one I was here to meet. But we were strangers.”

Dominic Russo’s immediate response to Ally Morales foreshadows their romantic relationship. This is the meet-cute of Score’s romantic comedy—recapitulating the trope where the primary love interests encounter each other in a surprising coincidence. Ally’s body language and appearance make Dominic feel something “interesting” but unnamable toward her. He tries to dismiss the feeling because they’re “strangers” at this juncture of the novel, but the sense of familiarity that passes between them portends their heated dynamic in coming chapters.

“Let’s just say life had been a shit show lately. And messing with a grumpy guy […] who looked like he’d waltzed right off the pages of some men’s magazine was definitely a highlight. Which said a lot about my current situation. I didn’t have time to worry about the consequences of being stretched too thin. This was the kind of life crisis that you muscled through.”

Ally’s internal monologue during her serving shift introduces the novel’s theme of Balancing Personal and Professional Responsibilities. Her energizing heated exchange with Dominic—the “grumpy guy”—represents her desire, while her reference to being “stretched too thin” represents her professional stressors. She is trying to navigate the complexities of maintaining her job amidst the “shit show” of her life—a conflict that becomes the driving force of her storyline.

“Another day, another terrified employee. I’d assumed they’d all get used to me. Apparently I’d assumed incorrectly. I was the beast to my mother’s beauty. The monster to the heroine. When they looked at me, they saw my father.”

Dominic’s fraught relationship with his father complicates how he sees himself. He likens himself to a “beast” and a “monster” because he is terrified of repeating his father’s sexual misdeeds. Dominic’s internal monologue captures his inability to be himself in the workplace while trying to maintain a professional reputation and to atone for his father’s sins.