“How?” I looked up at him. Max’s face lit up with laughter as he leaned down to kiss meagain.
“Lilly texted me where I needed to go to find you.” He readjusted himself and placed the laptop on the nightstand, then rolled over to pull me into him. Max kissed the top of my head as he continued to talk. “Once I booked my flight over the phone, I realized I had a little time, so I stopped by the office to tell Chase I wouldn’t be back for a while, and neither would you. When I went to your office, I saw your laptop was still there. I didn’t want to leave it in my car, so I brought it withme.”
He reached over and brought the computer back towards us, setting it into my lap. Max was only three chapters into it, and there were little notes in the margins. I sucked in a breath. What if he hatedit?
“It’s so good, babe.” I looked up at him, and the spark in his eye wasn’t one of love or adoration, it almost seemed like he was proud ofme.
“We don’t publish romance novels, but this,” He pointed towards the computer. “This could totally change my mind. I’m excited to see how itends.”
I had only written the first ten chapters so far. It was something so different when I started it two years ago, but now I had changed everything about this book, with Max being my muse. I think that was what terrified me the most. Once he read it and all of the things happening in it, he would know that it was him. That I had written a book about him and that people would know the most intimate details about our lifetogether.
“No one’s read it yet, not even Lilly.” I stared back at the computer, reading a few of his notes. Little bits on expanding or trimming, rewording, parts that he loved. The worker bee in me took over as I moved my fingers over the keyboard. I started reworking parts with Max’s arms wrapped around me. I heard a gasp behind me as I deleted a whole paragraph he said to rework, but before he could complain, I was already retyping it out, making it soundbetter.
“I love watching you work.” He kissed me on my head, and that was how we spent our day. Him reading a few chapters and me reworking them. In fact, that was how we spent the next two days, holed up in a hotel room, ordering room service and me writing. We were going to be leaving Friday afternoon and I almost hated the thought of going back to Georgia, but I knew there I would have my friends, and Max and I would be able to start our new livestogether.
I stared down at my ring as we waited at the airport. Max was checking if there were any first class seats to upgrade to so that I could have room to work. I had been in a mood since I first started typing in front of him. Every single word that came to mind needed to be written down, and even now, standing here, I was itching to bring my words tolife.
By the time we touched down to Georgia that evening, I had written at least five thousand words from the comfort of our first class seats. I had to say, the whiskey helped when it got time to write the sex scenes, the worst part for any writer if you asked me. Max had tried to hide his laughter as I got angry at my keyboard, almost giving up a fewtimes.
I was lucky that Max had left his car parked at the airport so we wouldn’t have to wait to leave, but this also meant I had no idea where we were going. We weren’t headed in the direction of his house, nor towards downtown. My knee jittered up and down with anticipation until we pulled into Little Five Points. The Vortex came into view, and I didn’t think the smile on my face could have been any bigger than when I saw Lilly and Erica standing by the frontdoor.
I barely waited for Max to park the car when I jumped out and ran towards them. Chase and Greg were laughing behindthem.
“The table’s ready.” Jack poked his head outside the door, almost shocked to see that Max and I were already here. We made our way inside, with Max quick on my heels, trying to catch up. These people seemed to be becoming more my friends thanhis.
I was excited to be able to see everyone, but even though these were our friends, I wanted Max alone. I knew this was crazy because we had just spent multiple days together being hermits, but I loved him being mine. I was also grateful that no one had mentioned the ring on my finger. I kept catching myself staring at it, and every time I did, I could see Max smiling at me, because he knew, because we bothknew.
“It’s good to have you back.” The comment came from Chase and broke me from my spell. I knew why he was happy, since I hadn’t been to work since I up and left. I felt horrible, but Max had told me not to worry about it. “We have a new account who has asked to work with youpersonally.”
My eyebrows shot up. Someone wantedme?
“You are quite known across the editing world now,” Chase praised me. I looked back down at my chili dog, trying to blend back in with thetable.
“I’m thinking about bringing romance into our genre brackets.” Max’s words stunned everyone at the table. All eyes were on him now, and I was grateful. “Alexa showed me a few books and even her ownwriting.”
Well that was short-lived. All eyes turned back tome.
“I think this is a hidden genre that we can tap into, with the right help.” Max looked towards me. “I want to move Alexa to her own division to work on romance novels. She can employ who she pleases to help her, but each department will have a special hire to help with anything sheneeds.”
I sat there staring at Max, trying to figure out the words that were coming from hismouth.
“Hotdamn.”
Erica giggled at Lilly’s words, but they were so true. Hot damn indeed. What the hell was happening? “That’s one hell of agift.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” Max winked at me but left the rest of us in silence. I tried to figure out what he meant. He couldn’t have something else up his sleeve, could he? He had just given me my own portion of his company, what else could hedo?
