“All I was thinking about all day was you,” he says, kissing my forehead. “And now I’m thinking you must be hungry. I didn’t feed you dinner.”

There’s no way I’m leaving this bed. “We could get room service?”

“Sure. And then should we…talk?”

I know we need to talk—about everything that’s happened and what it means for our partnership at the bookstore and our future together—but there’s something else on my mind. Only problem is, it’s up in my room.

“Don’t take this the wrong say,” I say, “but I, uh, got an ARC from one of my favorite authors today—”

“Same!” He shifts so we’re facing each other. “It’s for the next book in this series I’m obsessed with—”

“And I keep thinking about it—”

“I read the first chapter over lunch—”

We’re talking over each other, and we both stop. Then we burst out laughing.

“You won’t be mad if we read tonight for a while?” I ask.

“Mad?” He laughs again. “I cannot think of anything better than hanging out in bed with you and reading.”

So that’s what we do. Ryan puts in a room service order. He cleans up and gets dressed, then takes my key card and goes to my room to fetch my roller bag and tote full of books from the convention. After we eat, he strips down to his boxers and I put on my pajamas, and we prop ourselves up in bed and open our books. He pulls my legs over his lap and lazily strokes them with one hand, pausing only when he needs to turn the page.

And as we lose ourselves in our stories, I find myself hoping, for the first time in my life, for a happy ending.

28

Ryan

Holding Josie Klein’s hand is my new favorite thing to do. And kissing her. Being on top of her, beneath her, inside her, hearing the sharp little noises she makes when she’s about to come. Lying in bed afterward, talking or reading or talking about reading. Everything with Josie is my favorite. She’s my favorite.

I spent so much time worrying she’d be furious and never want to see me, Ryan, or talk to me, RJ, again, that I didn’t think about how good it could be. How good we could be.

Based on this last week, we could be great.

Saturday: I woke to the sound of Josie’s sleepy sigh. Pure bliss. Then I got to live out my fantasy of leisurely morning sex, which was even better than I imagined, followed by room service, which was not as good as I expected. Turns out avocado toast really is just avocado and toast.