The Target date was fun, considering that Cade hated all forms of shopping. Worse, he had to fight with himself every second to keep from touching Gabby or thinking about kissing her. Not the most appropriate behavior for Target.
He lasted ten minutes in the little girl’s department looking at dresses, until Gabby finally looked at him and said, “Why don’t you go look at some tools or something?” and he gratefully headed off to find a bulb for his broken porch light. Twenty minutes later, he was happy to find that his presence had not been missed.
Ava was glued to Gabby’s side, chattering away, smiling. They’d picked out a colorful dress and matching shoes and a hair bow that Ava wanted to wear right away.
Gabby even talked him into buying a woven basket for Ava’s toys to keep behind his couch so that sometimes said toys would actually be contained and not scattered all over the floor.
Cade couldn’t remember when he felt so…unburdened. For once he didn’t think about the thousand concerns he had about Ava adjusting to their new life, or his research project and how maybe he should feel more thrilled about it.
No, he just enjoyed the day, the happiness of his daughter, and the beautiful woman by his side.
“I took some great photos today,” Gabby said, as Cade came back downstairs from putting Ava to bed. “Super cute. Want to see them?” She handed him her phone and he flipped through the images. There was one in Target with Ava’s face peeking out between clothes on the rack.
He couldn’t help laughing. “You took one in Target?”
Her lips curved up. “I took a bunch in Target.”
Cade snorted. “You let Ava take this one?”
It was a picture of Gabby with a pink feather boa around her neck holding a dress up in front of her.
“Okay, so maybe part of me is still a little kid.”
He looked down at her, his heart beating wildly in his chest for no reason other than being near her. She was right next to him, their elbows touching, and all he could think of is how he wanted to put the damn camera down and fold her into his arms. But he forced himself to focus on the pictures. “You have a good eye,” he said, handing her back the camera.
“Thanks to Photography 101, 102, and Independent Study.”
Cade frowned. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
She shrugged. “All right then, I’m multitalented,” she said. “What can I say?”
“I bet you are.”
Her cheeks pinked up at that. “Are you flirting with me, Professor?”
Cade opened the door for her before he said something else inappropriate, and they both stepped out onto the porch. The night was soft and mild, a hint of coolness in the breeze drifting in from the street.
He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. God, he wanted her. Only his fraying self-control prevented him from reaching out to tug her against him and feel her soft breasts pressed against his chest. He wanted to run his hands through all that beautiful hair and drag his lips over her soft, full ones. “Gabby, I—” His voice faded, making him clear his throat. He kept his fists balled in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to take his hands out.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand what you can’t say.” She laughed. “Or at least part of what you can’t say.”
Hell, what would he say? That being near her was driving him crazy, that all he could think about was taking her to his bed. That being near her was eroding his will, second by second, and he no longer knew if he could continue to defend his principles anymore.
He held her by the arms, hoping she could tell from the way he was looking at her that he meant far more than what his words said. “I had a great time today. And so did Ava.”
“I had a great time too.”
Her eyes searched his. He owed her more, but he wouldn’t cross the line again. “I want you, Gabby. It’s all I can think of.”
Gabby did something strange then—she pulled out her phone and scrolled through it. Then she held it up to his face. “It’s over,” she said quietly.
“What?” He looked in confusion at the email in front of his eyes. An automated response from the college. You have withdrawn from Course number E04001, Creative Writing Level One.
“When did you do this?”
“Today,” she said. “In Target.”
“I’ve failed you as a teacher.” That was the thought he vocalized, his first thought. But the other thoughts flooded him with a desperate hope—that finally, finally, he could touch her, taste her, have her. That the time had come where he could stop being her teacher and just be…a man.
“No, Cade. You’ve been an amazing teacher. I feel confident my teacher will continue to work with me independently. And I want to sleep with my teacher. How’s that for—”
He silenced her by placing his lips over hers and kissing her long and slow and deep. His hand curled softly around her neck, in her hair, and he pulled her to him, angling her face so their mouths fit together perfectly. Their mouths, their bodies flush, at last, after all this time, and he could not get enough. He swept his tongue into her mouth, and her tongue met his, and oh, she tasted wonderful, sweet like the warm, late summer afternoon they’d just spent together, and he couldn’t stop.
Their kisses turned deeper and wetter, and she clung to him, pressing her body against his. His hands wandered under her shirt, caressed the soft skin of her back, skimmed over her bra, and an involuntary groan escaped him. She was clinging to him, her hands skimming his chest, his back, the waistband of his jeans. They were going to do it right here on the porch if he didn’t get himself together.
Dimly, he heard the soft buzz of a text. Gabby broke away, breathing a little hard. “I think this Independent Study’s going to be pretty good,” she said as she reached for her phone.
He bent to kiss her again. “Don’t go,” he murmured against the soft skin of her cheek. “Stay with me.” He’d never had a woman over at his house, because of his concern for Ava. But his need for Gabby threatened to overshadow all his rules.
“It’s Rafe,” she said, looking at her phone screen. “He asked if I could run over and check on Nonna and help her get ready for bed. It’s his night to stay with her but he’s running a little late.”
“Oh,” Cade said, trying to keep the disappointment from his voice.
For a minute they stood there, their hands joined, his fingers kneading hers.
“I have to go,” she said, but she didn’t move.
“I’ll work on getting a sitter,” he said. “Are you free this week?”
“Sure,” she said. “Friday. And also Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, and Monday,” she said, grinning.
He laughed.
“I better go,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am,” he said, kissing her on the mouth.
“See you soon.”
It couldn’t be soon enough.
* * *
An hour later, a knock sounded at Gabby’s door. She’d showered and thrown on a pair of flannel pj pants and a T-shirt and a pair of thick slipper socks Nonna had bought her for her birthday. Her hair was up in a messy bun. “Who is it?” she asked, a little frightened. That was the thing about living out here in the country—people didn’t knock on her door. Midnight had taken up residence in the house, coming in to curl up at the foot of her bed most nights now. On hearing the knock, he’d promptly fled under her bed. “Great watch cat you are,” Gabby said.
“It’s Cade,” came a deep, masculine voice that immediately made her heart plunge into her stomach.
She opened the door to discover him with his arms stretched out overhead, hanging on to the doorjamb, a move that showcased the elegantly corded muscles of his arms.
Her pulse seemed to double in rate, her heart pounding wildly against her ribs. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice sounding a little bit cracked, a little bit hoarse.
Their gazes met and held. Everything seemed to stop—her heartbeat, her breath. For one moment there was only him, looking at her like no man had ever looked at her before, and she knew that now there was no escaping everything she felt for him.
From the first night she’d met him, the first time he’d smiled at her, something deep within in her had known what her brain hadn’t: that this man was different. This man had the power to strip though all her baloney and see her for who she truly was, despite her best efforts to hide that.
“Gabby,” he said, displaying an unholy grin. “Can I come in?”
She could only manage a nod before she drew him over the threshold, and somehow they managed to shut the door. Suddenly they were leaning up against it, his hands on either side of her head, his body aligned with hers. She could feel him hard and aroused.
His kisses were urgent, deep, and intentional. The sense of holding back that she’d always gotten with him had vanished, and the resulting intensity took her breath away. She slid her hands around his lean waist, under his shirt, against his warm skin, loving the contrasting smoothness and firmness of him.
He wrapped his arms around her, his kisses never ceasing, their tongues tangling together, hot and wet and urgent.
“You weren’t kidding when you said soon, were you?” she said breathlessly.
He gathered up her hands in his big ones. “I can’t think of anything else but wanting you, Gabby. When you said you dropped the class—it was like a dam burst, and I had to see you. Luckily my mom was free tonight.”
Gabby’s eyes widened. “What did you tell her?”
“That it was an emergency.”
She smacked her hand against her forehead. “You did not.”
“I did.” He stepped closer. “A love emergency,” he said with mock seriousness.
She could imagine herself saying that, but Mr. Practical? Mr. I-Don’t-Believe-In-Love? “You did not say that to your mother.”
“Not in those exact words. But I did make her promise not to ask any questions.”
“Did that work?”
“She only asked one,” he said, taking another step closer.
Gabby stepped back, only to find that she’d run into the wall. “And what was that?”
He came very close. So close she could feel the heat radiating off of his big body, see the hunger in his eyes. “She asked me,” he said in a low voice, dipping his head and edging even closer, “if I was going to see you.”
“What did you tell her?” She swallowed hard, very aware of his nearness. She could only imagine what his mother was thinking.
“I said of course I was going to see you.” And then his lips were on hers, and he was pulling her closer until she was pressed up against him, engulfed by his kisses, wrapped up in his clean scent. A sense of wonder that they could finally stop fighting this attraction, and relief that they were finally, finally together, washed over her in waves.
“Then do you know what she said?” He planted kisses on her neck, working his way to the sensitive little hollow between her neck and collarbone. His hands moved to her waist, traveling under her shirt, up her back, finally coming to rest on her hips. She dropped her head back in surrender to the sensations that were overtaking her.
“I have no idea.”
“‘Hallelujah!’”
“I’m glad she approves.” Gabby chuckled, but she was still a little uncomfortable that his mom was aware of…well, she didn’t really want to think about it.
“Mmmm,” he said, which she took for I’m done talking about my mother now. He tugged on her shirt as if to pull it off but then froze. “Wait, don’t move,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “No,” he said softly. “Just that you’re beautiful. And I think I just found your tattoo.”
“Took you long enough,” she said.
He traced his hand up the side of her abdomen, then bent to examine where it was imprinted on the lower right side, the top corner of it just visible over her waistband. “A butterfly,” he said.
“Yes.”
“It suits you. Pretty, symbolic, a reminder more to yourself than to the world. I like it.” He tugged on her T-shirt. “Now take this off,” he said.
“I have an idea,” she said.
He stopped the kissing and looked at her. “I’m up for new ideas,” he said. “What is it?”
“It’s a perfect, beautiful night. Would you want to go outside? I was thinking we could take a few blankets out there under the trees.”
“I don’t care where we go. As long as it involves getting naked with you in the next thirty seconds. Or less.”
She ran to her closet and pulled out two blankets. “This way.”
They walked down the hill from the carriage house and spread them out on the gentle slope that overlooked the lake. The stars were spilled across a velvet sky, no lights around to dim their brightness.
Cade threw off his shirt and lay down on the blanket, patting the space next to him. And oh, there was that spectacular chest, the plains of muscle softly shadowed in the moonlight.
“I know a lot about the constellations,” Gabby said, as he drew her into his arms.
“Another class?” he murmured as he kissed her.
“No,” she said. “Just a lot of stargazing and dreaming.”
His face was over hers now, and lord, he had the longest lashes. “You’re beautiful,” she said, kissing his full lips as he pulled her down with him onto the blanket.
“I’ve never met someone like you,” he murmured as he scanned her face in the moonlight. “You have a…a wonder about you for everything.”
“Some people might call that a little crazy.”
He smoothed his thumb across her cheek. “I’ve been thinking of you a lot, Gabby. And the thought of you makes me feel—lighter. Like it’s possible to have fun again. With you, I feel like myself—and I haven’t felt like myself for a very long time.”
“Well, I feel like you took me seriously at a time when I didn’t even take myself seriously.”
“I take you very seriously.”
She’d never met a guy who liked her just for her. She’d had guys like her in spite of her quirks, in spite of her many scattered interests, but most of them had wanted to mold her into the person they’d wanted her to be, and she’d let them.
But not Cade. She never thought to pretend with him, and he’d accepted her for who she was from the start.
His lips met hers, and he kissed her so softly, so gently, so well, that every thought fled. She combed her hands through his thick, silky hair and pulled him closer, finally able to kiss him, to touch him, to be with him at last.
She raised her arms and he helped her peel off her shirt. There was admiration in his gaze. “I wish I could describe what you looked like right now with your hair all spread out and—”
That made her blush. “You’re the established writer. You have the pretty words.”
“Honey, you just took all my words from me.”
Then his weight was over her and his mouth was on her breast. Whatever he was doing with his tongue—and he did it slowly, carefully, and attentively—shot sparks of sensation everywhere and made her squirm from the almost unbearable pleasure. She ran her hands up and down the sculpted ridges of his back, tugged at his waistband until he shucked his pants and briefs. His mouth went to her other breast, his tongue laving her until she moaned. She stroked his hard length, ran her hand over his taut butt, reveling in the beauty and strength of his body.
He kissed her mouth, then moved out of her grasp. “Gabby, I—I’m not sure I can take much more touching—it’s been a long time. I’m not sure I can last.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “We have all night.”
He tugged down her flannel pants and teased his finger along the lacy seam of her panties until she shuddered.
He pushed the tiny scrap of silk aside and stroked her at her core, where she was slick and wet and ready. Her intimate muscles clenched, and any control she thought she had was fading fast. Then he slipped a finger inside her, then another, stroking her swollen flesh, and kissed her deeply, whispering how he’d dreamed of doing this for so long, and how lucky he was to be with her.
His words undid her. She felt fevered and restless, her back arching, her hands roaming over him. She could barely think as sensation overtook her body.
“Cade, I am seriously ready. Now. Together.” She could barely form sentences, so instead she tugged on him impatiently, pulling him over her.
He grabbed a condom from the corner of the blanket and slipped it on, and she guided him into her body. His gaze was unwavering and honest, so much so that it brought tears to her eyes.
“Am I—hurting you?” he managed.
“No, no, I—I’m just so—” overcome “—happy. I’m happy.”
He entered her, at first slowly, then steadily, filling her completely, picking up a rhythm that echoed the beating of her heart. She wrapped her arms and legs around him as he drove into her, steadily and powerfully. As their rhythm mounted, his face grew taut, his lips pressed together tightly, yet he never took his eyes off her.
“Now,” she said. “Oh, now.”
Waves of sensation rolled through her, one after another, overtaking her while she clung to him, her muscles clenching and tightening. He cried out her name and shuddered while her own release continued on and on.
Suddenly there was silence. Gabby rested against Cade’s chest, her body still wrapped tightly around him. She could hear his breathing, a little heavy, feel the damp hair at his neck. Her heart was pounding in her ears, the blood still rushing as she came back down to earth. In the trees overhead, an owl hooted, and the crickets continued their steady song. But in her world, everything had changed.
* * *
“Tell me about what you’re working on,” Gabby said a few hours later, running a hand over Cade’s chest in a way that was…doing things to him again. Making him want her again, even though they’d made love three times and were now wrapped up in the blanket, staring at the dense smattering of stars overhead.
Cade wasn’t much for camping out or sleeping outdoors, especially on the unyielding ground with a pine cone sticking him in the ass, but he would not trade where he was for anything in the world. Gabby’s soft body was curled up next to his, her arm across his chest, her head tucked into the spot between his neck and shoulder as if she were meant to be there—always.
He laughed, and the sound resonated in his chest in a full, good way. He hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. “Why do you want to talk about that now?”
She smoothed a hand over his pecs. He placed one of his hands over hers and brought it quickly up to his mouth, kissing it. “Because I want to know everything about you,” she said. “So tell me about the sad, depressed young man who returns home, only to find desolation and despair everywhere.”
“Well, I’ve changed it a little since then,” he said.
“Changed what?”
“There’s a woman he loved. She’s in the town. He sees her.”
Gabby’s head popped up, her hair spilling over him like a waterall. “Is it a love story? You’re writing a love story?”
She was way too excited about that. “No. I mean—maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well, there should be someone who loves him. Does he have family? Brothers and sisters? A mother?”
“His family’s not very supportive. He’s pretty much on his own.”
She sat up suddenly. “Cade, why on earth are you writing something so…depressing? If I wrote stuff like that I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the mornings.”
He chuckled softly and kissed her on the forehead. “That might not be a bad thing for us,” he said.
“Seriously. What are you thinking here? Who reads this stuff?”
“It’s about existential questions. About the futility of life. About how man is essentially alone.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding very deadpan.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
“I just don’t understand how you can have such great sex like what we just had and still want to write fiction that makes a large portion of the population want to drink themselves into a stupor.” She paused and seemed to consider that. “Unless the sex wasn’t so great…for you?”
He laughed. “First of all, I never fully understood this before,” he said, tongue in cheek, “but I see now that you’re a popular fiction snob, and that really saddens me.”
“Is that something you can get over?” she asked, “or is it a dealbreaker?”
He sighed heavily. “I don’t know. But maybe my sad character can use somebody who cares about him. Because maybe life isn’t all that bad.”
“Oh, great. If you tell me a little about him I can help you find someone to care for him. I mean, you’ve certainly talked with me a lot about my story. I’d love to hear about yours.”
He shook his head and grinned. “What, you mean like match.com for fictional characters? You really do love a happy ending, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone want love? I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t.” She paused and touched his arm. “You haven’t answered the question about the sex.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not exactly sure how to rate it. I think I need another run-through to be extra sure.”
She smacked him in the arm.
“Okay, okay. Just for the record…it was mind-blowing.”
“What?” Her eyes widened and he couldn’t help but grin.
“The lovemaking. With you. Mind. Blowing.”
“Now that’s a story I’d like to read,” Gabby said, before she kissed him again.
* * *
At five in the morning, Cade awakened to cool, damp air and the itchy sense that bugs had been feasting on both of them throughout the night. The crickets had silenced, but their sound was replaced by the clear, sweet notes of the first few birds rising early before the dawn.
Gabby had been using his chest as a pillow, the silky strands of her curls covering him like a blanket. His back felt sore and stiff from sleeping on the ground, but he lay there for just a moment longer, stroking her back, thanking his lucky stars for such an incredible night, and for bringing him such an incredible woman. Morning had come way too soon.
“Gabby,” he whispered, his mouth feeling dry, his voice cottony. “Wake up, sweetheart.”
She stirred and woke up, rubbing her eyes. “Cade,” she said, lifting her head off his chest. “Good morning.”
“It’ll be dawn soon. I’m going to head home. Let me walk you up to the house.”
“We tried this before and you know what happened.” Yes, they’d started to move back to the house twice. Both times had ended in more lovemaking that made them forget all about seeking a real bed. But now it was almost dawn, and he had to go before Ava awakened.
He helped Gabby up, shook out the blankets, and together they walked back up the hill. As soon as she opened the door, the cat scampered out, happy to be free. They kissed goodbye at the door, lingering kisses that made him feel like he hadn’t been kissing her half the night. Finally he forced himself to stop, cradling her face gently in his hands. “You’re beautiful,” he said simply, because she was.
She smiled. “You’re crazy.”
“No.” He kissed her again, this time longer, his hands bracing against the door behind her. She slipped her fingers lightly around his wrists, and they kissed like that for a long time until Gabby put her hands on his chest and lightly pushed. “Go,” she said.
Tearing himself away was hard.
He’d been infatuated with Emerson, his first love, and he’d loved her blindly, through all her faults and even her selfishness. He’d had women he’d liked and enjoyed but felt almost nothing when it had come time to part. But this was different. Gabby didn’t make him feel like he was giving all the time, the desperate kind of giving where no one gave back. She made him feel like she was giving to him, waking him up for the first time in his life, making him laugh. Lightening his load. And she made him want to give her everything back.
He was humming quietly when he walked through his front door. His mom was in the living room, folding up blankets on his couch, where she’d obviously slept.
“Mom,” he said, “how come you didn’t sleep in the spare room?”
“I wanted to be able to hear Ava if she woke up and found you gone. And the couch was comfy.” She dropped the last blanket onto the couch and smoothed it down. “What time is it?” she asked innocently.
Oh, hell. There was no use lying. After all, he was thirty-two years old. But that somehow didn’t make it any easier.
“It’s five a.m., Mom.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Did you have a nice time? I mean, scratch that.” She cleared her throat. “I’m glad you’re back.” She plucked something off his shirt. A blade of grass. He tried not to wince.
He kissed his mom on the head. “Thanks for watching Ava,” he said. “I really appreciate it.”
She headed toward the kitchen, sending one waving hand up above her head. “Gabby’s a nice woman,” she called. “You could do worse.”
“You want some coffee? I’ll make it.”
“You bet,” she answered.
“All right then,” he said, getting to it. “Hey, Mom?” Cade popped his head around the kitchen doorway. “Love you.”
Paige smiled. “I love you too, son. I love you too.”
* * *
“Okay, Nonna, are you ready to help me sort through this box?” Gabby asked the following evening as she sat on Nonna’s porch swing. She patted the swing for Nonna to come sit down. Instead, her dog, a bull terrier named Rocket, jumped up and snuggled in beside her, making her move the box. “Looks like Rocket wants to help too.”
Her grandmother took a seat on the other side of Rocket. But she didn’t dig into the box. Instead, she fingered the pendant that Gabby still wore around her neck.
“Has this brought you luck?” she asked. Gabby thought of Cade. How wonderful their lovemaking had been. How hopeful she was for the future—and how in love.
God, she loved him. Maybe she had from the moment he’d smiled at her and said he was sorry for stealing her parking spot.
Anyway. “Yes, I think it has. I love the necklace, Nonna. Tell me about it.”
“Oh, I never talk about it,” she said. “I didn’t want to make your grandfather upset.”
Gabby fingered the smooth, pure white stone. “Did someone from the old country make it for you?”
Instead of answering, Nonna grabbed the shoebox and rifled through the papers. “Let’s do this now,” she said. “Here.”
Nonna began to empty out the box, handing Gabby papers one after another. Gabby unfolded each yellowed paper one by one and laid them out in her lap. “These are stock certificates.” She read the names typed across the tops. Coca-Cola. IBM. Disney.
“Dear God in heaven, Nonna. You bought stock in Disney?”
“Your grandfather and I did.”
“This…this is worth a lot of money.”
“Good,” Nonna said. “Let’s see what else is in here.”
Rocket, bored with human nonsense, snored, deeply asleep at Gabby’s side while she sorted out a life insurance policy, a CD, and old bank statements, then handed the box to Nonna. “Any more jewelry in there?”
Nonna flipped through the rest of the papers. At the very bottom of the box, she stopped and pulled out an old black-and-white photograph with wavy edges.
“Here he is,” she said solemnly.
Her grandmother’s eyes had gone soft, and her fingers ran absently over the wavy edges of the photo. She tilted it towards Gabby. “Jacob,” she pronounced.
Jacob. The name she’d mentioned once when she’d shaken Cade’s hand. The photo showed a good-looking young man with dark, curly hair—curlier and shorter than Cade’s. He wore a short-sleeved, button-down shirt with his arms crossed, a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve. He leaned casually against an old convertible car, some model from the ’50s. And he was grinning widely.
He looked confident and young and like he was just about to laugh at something the person taking the photo had said.
“Who is he, Nonna?” Gabby asked, sensing something important, but not wanting to push her grandmother into remembering if it was painful or sad.
“A boy I loved.”
“A boy from Italy?” Gabby asked.
“I think so,” she said softly.
Gabby held her breath, anticipating what her grandmother would say next, but she didn’t say anything at all for a very long time.
“I tried to make myself throw the photograph away but I…couldn’t,” Nonna said, wistfulness in her voice. “So I had to keep it somewhere where your grandfather wouldn’t see it. I felt a little bad keeping it. But I couldn’t let it go.”
She’d kept an old photo of a handsome young man who’d clearly meant a lot to her at the bottom of a dusty shoebox, under the Coca-Cola stocks, for more than fifty years.
Would her grandfather really have cared about Nonna’s old boyfriend?
“He loved you too?” Gabby asked, not wanting to upset her grandmother or trigger memories she’d rather forget, but she was dying to know the story.
“Yes,” she said finally, on a sigh. “He loved me too.”
Forget the Coca-Cola or the Disney stocks. Gabby wanted to know more about Jacob.
* * *
Cade was talking to his agent on the phone that afternoon after work when Ava came racing down the stairs in her new dress, a brush and ponytail holders in her hands.
“I want French braids, Daddy,” she whispered, dangling the coated rubber bands in front of his face and attempting to climb onto his lap.
Cade took the brush and began to brush her hair, hoping to keep her quiet until he finished his conversation. “Actually, Joanna, I’m going to send you a couple of chapters by the end of next week.”
“Ouch, Daddy!” Ava cried, holding on to her hair. “That hurts!”
“Sorry, baby,” he said, trying to be gentler. “Why don’t you run up and get the detangle comb and the spray bottle, okay?”
She nodded and ran off, eager to have her hair done for her birthday party.
“Caden, I’m sorry,” Joanna said. “I don’t think I heard that correctly. Did you say you actually wrote something?”
“I said I’m working on some chapters, and I’ll send them when they’re ready. In the meantime, I’ve got something else I want to ask you to read. It’s something one of my friends wrote, and it’s fantastic. Okay if I send it?”
“What is it?” she asked, a healthy dose of skepticism permeating her tone. She wasn’t one of the best agents in New York for nothing.
“Just read it, okay?”
“I’d rather have those chapters, Caden, because I’m a little afraid they don’t exist.”
Cade laughed.
“Did you just laugh at me?” Joanna asked, getting prickly.
“Not at you.” There was a time when her words would’ve made him shudder. Actually, there was many a time when they had. Maybe even now they should make him feel more panicked, because his chapters were little more than a mess of pages, more incoherent than coherent. But there were words on pages, and the difference was that he wasn’t afraid for the first time in years. He was excited.
In the old days, he might’ve said something cocky like they’ll be worth waiting for. But now…now he was humbler. “I’m laughing because I’m excited to send them. As soon as they’re ready. In the meantime, I just clicked send on the other pages. Let me know what you think.”
“Caden.”
“Yes, Joanna?”
He heard her sigh. “I’m really excited to read whatever you send me.” There was a pause on the line. “And you sound good. Like you’re alive again.”
He said goodbye to Joanna and scooped up Ava, who’d returned with more rubber bands, which meant she was probably going to ask him to do something he’d have to Google again, but even that didn’t seem so daunting today. He gave a big, evil-sounding laugh that made Ava scream with delight and pretended to bite her neck. “Come here, birthday girl.” He clicked on YouTube for a fancy braiding lesson and got to work with the spray bottle. “We’d better hurry. We’ve got a birthday party to go to at Grandma’s. And Aunt Beth is coming. And Gabby too.”
He’d invited Gabby because Ava had wanted her there. But he had just as much.
“My birthday party,” she said, very pleased. “I’m the birthday girl.”
“And a very smart, kind, and beautiful birthday girl you are.”
He laughed. I am alive again. And it’s damn good to be back.