Do you want to explain to me what that was all about?” Will asked after I returned to the car from walking Lauren all the way back to her room.
“Oh,” I said, as I fastened my seat belt. “I hardly know where to start.”
A very sleepy-looking Cassidy—apparently the girls were sharing one room, their mothers another—hadn’t looked too appreciative about my waking her by knocking on the door (of course Lauren had lost her key).
“Oh, there you are. We were starting to wonder,” she said when she saw Lauren. Her eyes—much smaller-looking now that she’d peeled off the faux lashes—bulged a little when she saw me. “Ms. Wright! What are you doing here?”
“Just dropping off a package.” I gave Lauren a little shove that sent her stumbling through the doorway of her hotel room and into a surprised-looking Cassidy’s waiting arms. “See you in the morning, girls.”
“Please don’t break up Kitty ’n’ Rex, Jo,” Lauren begged. “They’re the OTP!”
“Break up Kitty and Rex?” Cassidy stared at me. “What’s she talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Good night, girls!”
Down in Will’s car, I explained, “There’s this rumor going around that last year at Novel Con a male author was hitting on female fans. Some people think it might have been Garrett.” Or you, I thought, but didn’t add aloud. And that person was me.
But not anymore.
Will’s dark eyebrows practically leaped off his face, he raised them so high. “Are you serious? I never heard anything like that. If I had, we never would have invited him here.”
“Well, that’s the thing about rumors,” I said. “Until they’re confirmed, how are you supposed to know whether or not they’re true? I think after what we just witnessed, though, we can pretty much assume Garrett isn’t one of the good guys.”
“I suppose.” Will squinted through the windshield at a group of hotel guests who were stumbling past us into the Marriot’s lobby, tired and happy after a night of carousing. “But that actually wasn’t what I was asking about. I was wondering if you could explain what Kellyjean was talking about back there when she said the entire Internet is calling us literature’s hottest new couple.”
Whiskers! I pulled down the passenger-side sun visor to check my reflection in the mirror, just so I could have time to collect my thoughts. “Oh, that?”
“Yes, that.” I didn’t dare glance in Will’s direction, but I was relieved to hear that there was a note of amusement in his voice. “Any idea what she meant?”
I saw that most of my eyeliner and lipstick had vanished, so I reached into my bag. “Oh, it’s nothing. Someone posted those photographs that kid took of us earlier today at the signing, and a few people think we look good together.” Try tens of thousands of people. Or more.
Will watched as I fiddled with my makeup. “That’s it?”
“Of course that’s it.” Done fixing my face, I risked a glance at him. “Why, what did you think? You think I posted it?”
“No.” He looked taken aback. “Why would I think that?”
“I don’t know. You seem kind of accusatory.”
“I’m not being accusatory. I just think if my name is being bandied about with yours, I have a right to know.”
“Well, my name is being bandied about with yours, but I’m not getting all hot under the collar about it.”
“You seem bloody hot under the collar about it,” he said.
“I’m not,” I said, slamming the sun visor back into place. “I’m just hungry. I barely got anything to eat at that thing tonight, what with Garrett pulling that stunt of his, and the fact that all they served was shellfish. Why did you choose a restaurant that only serves shellfish? Shellfish is all well and good, but it hardly sticks to your ribs like a good plate of pasta.”
Will looked annoyed. “Do you want pasta right now? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Yes. Yes, I do want pasta right now.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is a small island in the Florida Keys, not New York City. It’s after ten o’clock at night, and there isn’t any place that’s still open that serves pasta. The only place you’re going to get it is at my house.”
“Fine,” I said, folding my arms across my chest and leaning back against the cloudlike seat. “Take me to your house, then.”
“My house?” The corners of Will’s mouth twitched, though he was trying his best, I could tell, to continue to look annoyed. “Do you want me to make pasta for you at my house?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
Which was how we ended up at his house—though we didn’t eat pasta.
Oh, Will put a big pot of water on for it. He said he had a delicious recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese—it was the comfort meal he’d always made for Chloe when she’d been a kid, he said.
He took off his jacket and stood at his amazing kitchen’s granite-topped island, shredding cheddar cheese, while I sipped white wine and petted Susie the springer spaniel, listening to the soft, gentle rain that had begun to fall outside. Will had left all the glass doors open, so the cool sea breeze and the smell of the rain mingled with the scent of the sizzling roux.
“The trick,” Will was saying, looking happier and more relaxed than I’d ever seen him, “is to add pepper, because no one likes a bland macaroni and cheese.”
“That’s true,” I said. Susie was resting her head on my knee. I’d never been much of a dog person, but Chloe’s dog seemed gentle and sweet, like her owner. “So can I ask you a question?”
He laid down the chunk of cheese he’d been holding, his gaze wary. “Uh-oh.”
I grinned. “Why ‘uh-oh’?”
“It’s never good when someone asks if they can ask a question.”
“You’re right about that. What I want to know is, why am I getting a ten-thousand-dollar stipend, and the rest of the authors at the festival are only getting fifteen hundred?”
He turned on the faucet and rinsed his cheesy hands, taking his time before replying. “To be honest, I didn’t think you’d come for less.”
I nearly choked on my wine. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Ten thousand dollars? I hope you donated the money yourself.”
“I did.” He’d switched off the faucet, dried his hands, and now walked around the island to stand in front of me. Susie wagged her tail, perhaps smelling cheese and thinking a treat was coming her way. But she was going to be disappointed. All the treats coming from Will were for me. “I told you I’d heard how upset you were with me. And I needed to make sure you’d come so that I could apologize to you properly.” He leaned against the counter, trapping me within his arms. “And in person.”
I frowned at him, though inside, my heart was racing at his close proximity. He smelled of soap and the rain outside and the cheddar cheese he’d grated. “You know I can’t keep that money.”
His lips were just inches from mine. “Why not?” “Because there’s a conflict of interest.” “And what is that?”
I set down my wineglass and pulled his face to mine. “This.”
The Moment by Will Price
“Come on, Johnny,” my sister said from her seat on the edge of my bed. “Please. You have to eat.”
But I couldn’t. Without Melanie, food had no flavor.
“Don’t do this to yourself,” Zoey pleaded. “I loved Melanie, too, but you’ve got to let her go. It’s over now.”
“Never.” I knew it wasn’t Zoey’s fault, but I couldn’t help it. “It’ll never be over! Melanie was everything to me—everything a guy could want in a girl. And now she’s gone, and you expect me to eat? What’s the point? What’s the point of even being alive?”
I slapped the bowl of mush out of Zoey’s hand, sending it flying. I heard the ceramic smash to bits on the floor a few yards away.
But when I turned my head to look at the broken shards—like the broken shards of my life—I saw there was a woman standing in the doorway. She had a veiled hat over her head, and a suitcase in her hand.
Slowly, she lifted the veil to reveal a pair of sparkling blue eyes and ruby-red lips.
“Well, I must say, Johnny.” She smiled at me. “You sure do know how to make a lady feel welcome.”
“Melanie!”
A moment later, she was in my arms. “Oh, Johnny! Johnny!” she cried, kissing my mouth, my cheeks, my ears, as tears rained down from her eyes. “They told me you were dead. But I knew it wasn’t true. I just knew it. It took forever for me to find you, but now that I have, I’ll never leave you again—never!”
“You better not,” I said.
And then I kissed her. And this time when I held her, I knew it would be forever.
