“You’re smiling,” Samuel said, appearing at my elbow with two glasses of champagne. “In public. At a party. Should I be concerned?”
“I’m practicing.” I accepted the champagne and took a sip. “Apparently, I’ll need to do a lot of smiling when they drag us to awards shows.”
“If they drag us to awards shows.” But Samuel was grinning, with an irrepressible joy he’d been radiating for months. “The Oscar buzz is just buzz. It might not mean anything.”
“Varietycalled your performance ‘a revelation.’The Hollywood Reportersaid you ‘brought devastating authenticity to a role that demanded everything.’ That’s not just buzz.”
“You memorized the reviews.”
“I may have read them several times,” I shrugged. “I’m proud of you. Sue me.”
Samuel’s expression softened into something that still made my chest ache, even after a year of seeing it directed at me. “Have I mentioned lately that I love you?”
“This morning. And last night. And approximately forty-seven times yesterday.”
“Sounds about right.”
He leaned in to kiss me, and I let him, right there in the middle of the party with half of Hollywood watching. A year ago, I would have flinched. Would have worried about the cameras, the gossip, the endless public scrutiny.
Now? Now I just kissed my boyfriend and enjoyed the way he tasted like champagne and happiness.
“Get a room,” someone called, and I turned to find Jay Hansen—Samuel’s new agent, and a vast improvement over Sabrina—grinning at us. “Or at least get a corner. You’re making the single people jealous.”
“We’re celebrating,” Samuel said. “Farley just closed a deal writing for Paramount. And we’ve been together for exactly one year today.”
Jay raised his eyebrows. “Anniversary? Why didn’t you say so? I would have sent flowers.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “The last thing we need is more flowers. Our house looks like a botanical garden.”
“That’s because your boyfriend is incapable of walking past a florist without buying you roses.”
“They remind me of Virginia,” Samuel said, completely unrepentant. “And that cabin. And the first time I realized I was in trouble.”
“You were in trouble the moment I caught you wearing that mustache,” I pointed out.
“The mustache was iconic. I stand by the mustache.”
“The mustache was unhinged.”
“And yet you fell in love with me, anyway.”
“In spite of the mustache. Not because of it.”
Jay looked between us with the expression of a man who had heard this argument before and knew better than to get involved. “I’m going to go... anywhere else. Congratulations on the anniversary. Try not to scandalize too many people.”
He disappeared into the crowd, and Samuel turned back to me, his hand finding mine.
“One year,” he said. “Can you believe it?”
“Some days, no.” I looked around the room—at the glittering chandeliers, the famous faces, the world I’d somehow become a part of. “A year ago, I was hiding in the mountains, convinced my life was over.”
“And now?”
“Now I live in Hollywood with a movie star and a cat who thinks she’s responsible for all of it.”
“She is responsible for all of it.” Samuel laughed. “Without Purrsephone, we never would have met.”
“Without Purrsephone, I never would have had dead mice on my doorstep.”
