Happiness bubbles inside me at Leo’s compliment. He not only took the time to read my books but liked them, screw being on the bestseller list, this feels a thousand times better. “Hmm, I don’t know, maybe it was that writing never seemed like an option. My mom wanted me to be a teacher, my dad wanted me to be happy, and sometimes I wanted to be a librarian. Then when I got older as great as the me being happy thing went it made it harder to figure out what paid the bills while making me happy.

“I looked into becoming a librarian, and it was years of school for a crappy salary. The guidance counselor pushed me into business classes, and I went. I always did love to read but I never even thought seriously about writing. I did the short stories in school, and it was fun but a lot of work for fun. Then came having to worry about bills and taking care of my dad.”

Leo’s hand runs up the back of my thigh then stops before he covers my ass. I sigh. “No, not tonight you have a headache.” His voice rumbles in my ear.

I laugh. “Am I not allowed to be the one to say that?”

With a rough hand, he squeezes my ass then pulls me tight against him. “Not when I know it is not the right thing for you. For something you didn’t plan, you did it very well.”

“The one good thing I had going for me was all the reading I had already been doing my whole life. Most stories follow a blueprint of act one this happens it builds to act two and then it’s all downhill in act three. I got happy and excited when I started to get lost in writing the story, I wasn’t expecting that. It was almost as good as getting lost in another writer’s story entirely. That was when I thought I might have nailed it.”

He nods to the bookcase beside the television. “I get the getting lost in books thing. Did your dad really let you read Stephen King when you were just a kid?”

“It was more like he didn’t tell me not to read it. I’m glad he didn’t. There was something very freeing about reading horror confined to a book. I could close it and walk away, the way I couldn’t with my mom dying in front of me. My parents didn’t shield us, there was no mommy will get better pipe dream.”

Leo’s hand tightens around my ass then slides down the back of my thigh. “Did that make it better or worse, not having any hope?”