Chapter Forty-One
Release Day
Emmie
The line wraps around the block.
I’m not exaggerating. I can see it through the bookstore window—a snake of people clutching copies of Cooking for Your Person, waiting in the warm October air for me to sign their books.
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
“Language.” Rachel appears at my elbow, tablet in hand, looking far too calm for someone whose client is having a minor breakdown. “And stop staring. It’s unprofessional.”
“There are so many people.”
“Yes. That’s what happens when your book debuts at number three on the New York Times list and every food blogger in America won’t shut up about it.
” She steers me away from the window. “Now. You have approximately ten minutes before we open the doors. Do you need water? A bathroom break? A paper bag to breathe into?”
“Maybe all three.”
“I’ll get the water. You handle the rest.” She disappears into the back, already typing something on her phone.
I take a breath. Then another.
This is really happening. After months of writing, editing, promoting—after pouring every piece of myself into these pages—it’s finally real. The book exists. People are buying it. People are lining up to buy it.
* * *
The signing starts at two. The first hour is a blur—faces and names and the same questions over and over. What inspired the book? Is the grumpy man real? Can you sign it to my husband, who is also grumpy?
I smile. I sign. I pose for photos. My hand cramps, and I shake it out and keep going.
Around three-thirty, I look up and see a familiar face in line.
“Mom?”
Linda Marshall is clutching not one, not two, but five copies of my cookbook, her eyes already welling with tears.
“Don’t mind me.” She waves a hand. “I’m just a regular customer. A regular, extremely proud customer who happens to have given birth to the author.”
“Mom, you already have a signed copy. I gave you one last week.”
“These are for the neighbors. And my book club. And the woman at the dry cleaner who always asks about you.” She sets the stack on the table. “Can you sign them ‘To Mom’s friend, with love’? That way it’s personal but also versatile.”
I laugh, my eyes stinging. “Sure, Mom. Whatever you want.”
She leans over the table and cups my face in her hands. “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. Your grandmother would be so proud. You know that, right?”
Now I’m definitely crying. “Mom, you can’t make me cry. I have two more hours of signing.”
“Happy tears don’t count.” She kisses my forehead, takes her stack of books, and moves aside—but not before whispering, “Your man is here. He’s been watching you for twenty minutes. It’s very romantic.”
I look up.
Crew is standing near the back of the store, arms crossed, trying to look casual and failing miserably. He’s wearing the charcoal button-down I love, the one that makes his shoulders look impossibly broad, and he’s watching me with an expression that makes my stomach flip.
He lifts a hand. A small wave. Almost shy.
I wave back, grinning like an idiot.
“Next!” Rachel calls, and I force myself to focus on the woman in front of me, who wants to talk about the chapter on breakfast foods.
* * *
By five o’clock, the line has finally dwindled.
I’ve signed approximately four hundred books. My hand is a claw. My face hurts from smiling. I have to pee so incredibly bad. I’ve never been happier.
“Last one,” Rachel announces, and I look up to see Sadie bouncing toward me with a book clutched to her chest.
“I know you already signed mine,” she says, “but I need you to add something.”
“Add what?”
“To my best friend, who I always believed in, even when she was crying into cookie dough at 2 AM and convinced she’d never finish this book.” She grins. “That’s the inscription I want.”
“That’s very specific.”
“It’s also very accurate.”
I laugh and take the book, flipping to the title page. My inscription from last week is already there—To Sadie, who kept me sane. Love, Em—but I add underneath: P.S. The cookie dough crying was essential to my process.
“Perfect.” Sadie hugs me across the table. “I’m so proud of you, babe. You did it.”
“I did it.”
“Now.” She steps back, eyes glinting. “I believe there’s a very handsome FBI agent waiting to congratulate you properly.”
I look past her. Crew is still there, still watching, still making my heart do stupid things.
“Go,” Sadie says. “I’ll help Rachel pack up.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
I start toward him, and Crew meets me halfway, catching me when I launch myself at him.
“Careful.” His arms wrap around me, steady and sure. “You’re a famous author now. You have to maintain some dignity.”
“Dignity is overrated.” I press my face into his chest, breathing him in. “You came.”
“Of course I came.”
“You hate crowds.”
“I do.” He pulls back just enough to look at me. “But I love you. So here I am.”
The words still hit me every time. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing them.
“The line was so long,” I say. “I can’t believe how many people showed up.”
“I can.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Your book is incredible, Emmie. You deserve every bit of this.”
“Crew—”
He kisses me before I can finish. Soft and sweet, right there in the middle of the bookstore, in front of Rachel and Sadie and my mother, who I can hear making sounds of approval somewhere behind us.
“I’m proud of you,” he murmurs against my lips. “So damn proud.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He pulls back, and there’s something in his expression—something warm and certain. “Come on. There’s somewhere I want to take you.”
“Now? I should probably help clean up—”
“Rachel said it’s fine. I already asked.” He takes my hand. “Trust me?”
I look at him—this man who once handed me a seventeen-page roommate agreement, who taught me self-defense as a first date, who built a cabin with his own hands because he needed to prove he could create something permanent.
This man who taught me that love doesn’t have to be perfect to be real.
“Always,” I say.
* * *
He drives us to the cabin, says he packed me an overnight bag and everything.
It’s late by the time we arrive, the sun already setting behind the trees, painting everything gold and orange. The air smells like pine and wood smoke, and when I step out of the truck, I can hear the creek babbling somewhere in the distance.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
“I wanted to show you something.” He takes my hand and leads me around the back of the cabin, toward the slope that leads down to the lake. There’s still just enough light to hike down to it.
And then I see it.
The dock—the old, weathered dock that was here when he bought the place—has been rebuilt. New boards, sturdy and smooth. And at the end of it, strung between two posts, are fairy lights. Dozens of them, twinkling in the fading light.
There’s a blanket spread on the dock. A bottle of champagne. Two glasses.
“Crew.” My voice comes out strangled. “What is this?”
“I told you I wanted to build something permanent.” He turns to face me, and his hands are shaking slightly. I’ve never seen his hands shake. “Something that was mine. Something no one could take away.”
“The cabin.”
“No. Not just the cabin.” He swallows. “You, Emmie. You’re what I was building toward. You’re the permanent thing. The cabin was just practice.”
I can’t breathe.
“I know I’m not good at this. At words, at emotions, at being the kind of person who deserves someone like you.” He reaches into his pocket. “But I also know that I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
He pulls out a small velvet box.
“Crew—”
“You don’t have to answer now. If, uh, if you’re not ready. But I wanted you to know—” He opens the box, and inside is a ring. Simple. Beautiful. Perfect. “I wanted you to know that I’m all in. For however long you’ll have me. For the rest of our lives, if you’ll let me.”
I’m crying. Fully crying, tears streaming down my face, probably ruining what’s left of my makeup.
“Is that a question?” I manage.
“Emmie Marshall.” He takes a breath. “Will you marry me?”
I look at him—this beautiful, broken, impossibly wonderful man. The one who taught me that love isn’t about being perfect. It’s about showing up, again and again, even when it’s hard.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, yes, yes.”
His face breaks into a smile—a real one, the kind that crinkles the corners of his eyes and transforms him into someone almost boyish. Then he slides the ring onto my finger. It fits perfectly.
“How did you know my size?”
“I measured your finger while you were sleeping.”
“That’s creepy.”
“That’s thorough.” He pulls me into his arms. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Probably not.”
I laugh against his chest, and he holds me tighter, and somewhere above us the first stars are appearing, bright and clear the way they only are out here.
“I love you,” I tell him.
“I love you too.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Now come on. That champagne isn’t going to drink itself.”
We walk down to the dock, hand in hand, and settle onto the blanket. He pops the champagne—badly, foam going everywhere, making us both laugh—and pours two glasses.
“To your book,” he says, raising his glass.
“To us,” I counter.
“To us,” he agrees.
We drink. We kiss. We lie back on the blanket and watch the stars wheel overhead, my head on his chest, his arm around me, the ring glinting on my finger every time I move my hand. It’s a solitaire diamond on a shiny gold band. Modest and perfect and exactly what I always pictured.
“Crew?”
“Hmm?”
“My mom is going to lose her mind.”
He laughs. “I know. I asked your dad’s permission last month. He’s been keeping the secret. I think it’s been killing him.”
“You asked my dad?”
“I wanted to do it right.”
I prop myself up to look at him. “You really are something else, Crew Jensen.”
“I’m trying.” He traces a finger down my cheek. “For you, I’m trying.”
“You don’t have to try. You just have to be here.”
“I’m here.” He pulls me back down, tucking me against his side. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
We stay like that for a long time, wrapped up in each other and the night and the future stretching out before us.
It’s not perfect. It never will be. We’ll fight and struggle and have days when everything feels impossible.
But we’ll also have this—starlight and champagne and the quiet certainty of knowing we chose each other.
And that’s enough.
That’s everything.