“Hey, it’s not that easy. I mean . . . this is Cady and O’Neill. You know how I feel about them. I’ve sort of accepted that I wouldn’t get to read their next installment until October. If I get it now, my whole universe will be thrown out of whack.”

“So you don’t want it?” asked Seth.

“Oh, I want it. Just seems . . . I don’t know. It feels like cheating.”

“They’re in the car right now,” teased Maddie in a sing-song voice. “Sure you don’t want one?”

I looked at Seth’s smile, and something weird passed between us. I could hardly believe that minutes ago, we’d been fighting in the house. The looks we exchanged, the way I felt . . . it was almost like it used to be. I hastily turned away.

“Yes,” I groaned. “Of course I do.”

Seth said good-bye to the rest of the bookstore gang and tried to find Casey, but she was surrounded by a throng of relatives. Giving up, he led me out of the yard to where he’d parked a block or so away. Kayla was still in my arms. None of us spoke, and it was just as well because my feelings were all tangled up. Every post-breakup interaction between us had been angry or painfully tense lately. Yet, in these last few moments, things had become almost comfortable again. Was it possible we’d ever move past this phase? Could the pain I’d gone through with him really ease up so quickly?

He unlocked the car and got the book for me. I hoped I didn’t gape like a schoolgirl when I saw it. All Fools Night. The cover showed the skyline of Washington, DC, blurred like a Renoir painting and overlaid with dark indigo. All sorts of warnings about it being an advanced copy and not for sale were on it, but I paid those no heed. I didn’t want to sell it. I wanted to read it. Now.

When I dragged my eyes up from the cover, Seth regarded me with happy amusement. “I can’t believe you’re really that excited.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? And why are you surprised? Lots of people love your books.”

He shook his head. “Yeah . . . but it’s still surreal to think that I can write something—create something—that affects people so strongly that they get an emotional involvement with what I’ve pulled from my head. And to realize that someone I know personally . . . knowing it affects you like that . . . well, like I said, surreal.”

The sweet, earnest look in his eyes was making butterflies dance in my stomach, so I hastily looked back at the cover. I almost wished we’d start fighting again. “Seth . . . why . . . why are you doing this?”

“Giving you the book?” He was puzzled.

“No, I mean . . . being nice. And worrying about me back there.”

“You don’t think I’m normally nice?”