And now I’m here, at my boyfriend’s book launch, with my best friend at my side, talking about the best sex I’ve ever had.
Go Addie.
The event wraps up shortly after, everyone getting in one last applause for Zander and his newest book. He beams from the stage they’ve created for him, and I cheer louder than anyone in the room. The sun is just setting by the time he makes his way to me.
“C’mere,” he says, wrapping an arm around my waist with an ease that suggests his hands belong there. And they do. “I want to get a picture together before we leave.”
We make our way through the maze of black folding chairs and up to his table, which only has one final book laying on it. I pick it up, the same thriller he carried the first day I met him, now in its final form.
“Do you want me to hold it like a fish?” I ask.
“No,” he says, plucking the book from my hands and placing it back on his table. “I don’t want you to hold it at all. I just want to hold you.”
Noted. Make me melt, Mr. Browning.
We don’t even have time to pose before the manager running the event, whose name is Leanna, snaps a photo of us. She rushes up, turning Zander’s phone our way.
“Sorry,” Leanna says, flipping through a few photos. “I’ll take another if you want, but you guys were so cute candid, I couldn’t resist.”
She lets me scroll through the gallery. In all of them, we can’t take our eyes off each other. My nose scrunches as I laugh, probably at my own fish joke. Zander’s eyes crinkle. His hands are on my hips, mine are on his chest or neck or face. We’re not even trying and wefittogether. I can’t explain it, but I almost start crying.
“Thank you,” Zander says, taking the phone from me and shaking his head. “These are perfect. Thank you.”
Zander and Leanna square away event things. She lets him know the one book left is the only one they have in store now, and he offers to sign it for her. She’s thrilled about this development, tells him as much, then lets him know he’s welcome anytime.
“Hey, by chance, do you have any Adelaide Ramsay books?” he asks.
“We absolutely do,” she says and almost starts walking off without him. “Sorry, I’m so used to taking people to the books they ask for. We have both of her books and we’ll have her third when it’s out later this month. My coworker is begging me to get her in for a signing. She’s from around here, yeah?”
I laugh as I have an out of body experience. “Hi, I’m Adelaide.”
“Oh my God, an author power couple. I love it. You guys should write a historical thriller together.”
We share a look.
Someday.
I sign a few books for Leanna before we say our goodbyes. We’re just down the street from Zander’s place. He walked. I drove, parked in the guest spot in his parking garage, and walked over with Tabitha, who has now gone home with Simon.
“Take me back to your sad, grey apartment, baby.”
Zander laughs in aGod my girlfriend is exhaustingkind of way, and squeezes me further against his body. We stay glued to each other, bantering until we reach his apartment’s front door.
“For the record,” he says, letting me in first, “it is less sad and grey now.”
It’s shocking. Not only does he have the little bits and pieces of me all over his apartment, now he has yellow throw pillows on his leather couch, colourful spatulas in a jar in his kitchen, and a stained-glass sticker on the sliding door out to his balcony, just like mine.
“Zander,” I say and then I just stop talking, because what else is there to say?
“You inspired me. It’s happier at your place. I wanted to see what something like that would do for me.”
I jump on him, wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss him. He responds in kind, his hands moving to the small of my back, then lower. An idea takes root, the very same one I got when I spotted his balcony as we walked up to the apartment block, the very same from our writing date in the park.
“And are you happier?” I ask, breaking away just enough to sneak in a breath.
“Much. So much.”
“I mean, yeah, I was going to say…either you have a book in your pocket or you’re happy to see me.”
