Elizabeth claps her hands together. “Would you? That would be just wonderful.” She gives me another quick, impulsive hug. “I’ll go get you a pen. You can sit at the counter. Oh, could we take a picture?”

“Sure,” I say, charmed and overwhelmed.

Elizabeth lets out a little sigh of happiness and hurries out of sight.

“You don’t have to do that,” Gabe says.

His voice is low but he’s moved closer to me so I feel the heat of his breath on the back of my ear.

“Smart and funny?” I ask. “Addictive?”

“You disagree?” he asks.

I don’t have an answer.

“You’ve read them,” I say instead.

“I thought we’d established that I’ve read everything you’ve written.”

It’s one of the hottest things anyone has ever said to me.

I turn slowly toward him. He doesn’t move back and my gaze is level with his lips. They wear a wry smile.

I look up, my eyes locking with his.

“You’re a great writer,” he says.

I revise my previous thought. That is probably the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me. Mostly because it’s Gabe. Mostly because I can feel tension stretching between us, pulled taut like Saran wrap. Mostly because if I just move forward a step or so and move upward four or five inches, my mouth will be on his mouth, and ten years later, I still haven’t forgotten how good that feels.

“Here we are!” Elizabeth says, and Gabe takes a step back to let his mother through.

She has a bouquet of pens fisted in her hand and she pushes them all at me.

“I didn’t know if you had a preference, so I just brought you the ones we had.”

“Thank you.” I find a simple ballpoint. “This will do fine.”

She smiles at me, and it’s such a great smile, so warm and open and loving, that I realize I might do just about anything to keep it on her face.

No wonder Gabe bought his mother this store. She seems like a wonderful person to make happy.

I settle behind the desk and begin signing the books she puts in front of me. Their stock is much larger than I expected—usually when I go to sign at independent bookstores, I’m lucky—and grateful—if they have half a dozen of both books combined.

The Cozy has at least thirty copies of each.

The day my first book came out, Jeremy insisted that we go to as many bookstores as we could so I could sign copies. It started out poorly. Our local bookstore didn’t have it, neither did the one in the next borough. The thought had been a kind, encouraging one, but Jeremy had assumed that everyone got a rollout like he did. He thought my book would be stocked everywhere.