He beamed as he rose from the bench. “You got it.” We rolled the bike off the grounds toward the parking lot. “I finished, by the way.”
My head spun around to meet Josh’s gaze. “Finished what?”
“The book.”
I froze in my tracks. “You did?”
Josh smiled and tapped my chin with his knuckle. “It’s good, Bri. Really good. Promise me you’ll do something with it.”
My cheeks heated as my eyes darted from his. “We’ll see.” I shrugged, my cheeks hurting from the big smile he brought to my face. “I can’t believe you actually read it. You hated when I’d make you read in high school.”
“No, I didn’t.” Josh lifted the bike and put it into the back of his truck.
I rolled my eyes. “Please. You made fun of it all the time.”
Josh strode to the passenger door and opened it for me to get in. “I teased you. You tease the ones you love.” His mouth split with a grin, and my heart did a pathetic leap in my chest. What I wouldn’t have given to hear the word “love” tumble from Josh’s lips not once, but twice all those years ago.
“What boy likes romance? It didn’t exactly fall in line with the comics you and Reid used to devour every chance you got.”
“It was no Batman, I grant you.” Josh’s chest rumbled with a hearty laugh. That was another thing different about the new Josh. He’d laugh with me or Reid as kids when we were alone, but it was always stiff. He always had something weighing on him heavily enough to hold back. Now, he had an easy smile and infectious laugh. I was happy the world finally saw the Josh I knew was always right under the surface, even if it meant I had to share him now.
“But it was a good story. And I loved that you only showed me. Like we had our own little club.”
I let my mouth twist into a smirk before I stepped into the truck. “We still do.”
A wide grin spread across his face before he shut the door. “Damn right, Cupcake.”
Brianna
“THIS PLACE ISpretty good. The guys and I came here after work last week. You should’ve seen their sick Halloween decorations. Spooky shit.” Scott laughed over his shoulder as the hostess led us to a table. This wasn’t exactly the type of restaurant for conversation. I was hoping for a nice, quiet dinner since I hadn’t seen much of Scott the past few weeks. He’d been working late almost every night and had to cancel the last two dates we’d planned.
“I’m surprised you found the time.” I sat down at the table and opened the leather covered menu, holding in a scowl at his admission that burning the midnight oil involved hanging out at the new Latin fusion restaurant. Starting his own business meant lots of extra socializing after hours, and even though I understood and supported him completely, loneliness and bitterness were hard emotions to keep buried. Every so often, they seeped out in a snarky comment that left me hating myself afterward.
Scott picked up my hand and laced our fingers together. “We took out that new client I told you about. You know I’d rather be out with my girl, right?”
I nodded and squeezed his hand back. “Yes, of course. I just . . . miss you. That’s all.”
“It will all be worth it in the end, babe. I promise.” Scott winked and dropped his gaze to the menu. “You’ve been working a lot, too. What campaign did you say you were on again?”
“The children’s hospital.” Another not so great thing about having a boyfriend who was a new business owner was his lack of attention to anything I said.
Scott nodded without looking as he called the waitress over to take our order. I folded my hands under my chin in an effort to hide my irritation. It wasn’t the first time he shrugged off what I did for a living, but for some reason—at this moment—it bothered me. A lot.
After she left, he turned his attention back to his iPhone, his fingers quickly dancing across the keys on his screen.
“Sorry, babe. I need to learn to shut off emails at six.”
“This company is taking a lot out of you.” I cocked my head. He’d passed the point of workaholic months ago. “You work every single minute of the day.”
A grin split his mouth as he shook his head. “It’s weird. It almost doesn’t seem like work to me.” The glint in his eye tugged at my heart. “When it’s your dream and what you want to do, it’s different. Do you ever dream about doing anything?”
“I wrote a book,” I blurted out to Scott’s puzzled expression.
“Abook?” Scott jerked back in his seat. “What, like a novel?”
“Yes. I started it in high school and finished it during college.” All the inner turmoil at losing Josh fueled a good fifty thousand words in my spare time. They poured right out, and since then, collected over a decade’s worth of dust. I swallowed as I braced myself for the next revelation. “I . . . um . . . think I’d like to publish it.”
For the first time since I’d known Scott, he was rendered speechless. He sat back in his chair, regarding me as though I just told him I had a pet unicorn.
