CHAPTER TWELVE #2
He looks at me for a second, smiles, then reaches his hand for mine, weaving his fingers through my own, leaving me mesmerized at the sight. “This.” He returns his gaze to meet mine. “What about you?”
“This works.”
“Sloan’s all good?” he asks, eyeing the ceiling overhead and her room beyond.
“Yep. She’ll probably wander through one more time tonight, but other than that she’s settled in and doing her own thing.
” Some nights I’m still not used to it, this independence from her.
Wasn’t so long ago, I was part of every second of her bedtime routine, straight through to snuggles until she fell asleep.
Now, I’m lucky if I get a kiss goodnight.
And usually, it’s because I’m going to sleep. Not her.
“What would you normally be doing now?” he asks, searching my living room as if it’s holding clues to the ways I filled my life before he wound up smack in the middle of it.
“Writing. Or working.” I shrug. “If I’m too fried to do either, I take my cross-stitch to bed and watch something on Netflix.” For someone who’s chronically working on her to-do list, my life still tends to feel empty. When I say it out loud, it sounds it too. “What about you?”
“A lot of the same. Minus the cross-stitch.” He does a crooked little half grin thing and it’s about the most endearing expression imaginable.
If I wasn’t so completely gaga for him, I’d have to hate him.
For constantly making me so goddamn gaga for him.
“If I’m not up for writing or playing around with a melody, I usually just grab a book and call it a day. ”
“You read.” Another lovely detail about the man. “What sort of books?”
“A bit of everything.” He tips his head toward me. “Thinking about checking out a blog next.”
I laugh. “Uh-huh.” I look away. I’m about to open the door to something I’ve been putting off since we first talked about my writing. “Ever read any romance?”
“No.” He smirks. “You?”
I make a face. “Ugh. I hate reading romance. Give me fantasy. Give me adventure.”
He laughs and I can tell I caught him off guard with that one. “Then why are we talking about it?”
“Because I kind of...write it.”
The surprise on his face lingers, slowly morphing into curiosity.
So, I go on. “I’m not like a secret bestselling author writing spectacular but over-the-top kink erotica under a pen name, desperate to hide my identity so the other dance moms don’t find out that I write I porn and slap a scarlet letter on me.
Not that I would hide it if I did. I look good in red.
I’d wear that shit with pride...Well, maybe I would hide it.
But only because one of the moms is super uptight and my kid hangs with her kid, and it would be a whole thing.
..” Now I’m just rambling. “But...I do hide my writing from pretty much everyone except Sloan and Arizona. And I’d like to be one someday.
Well, a bestselling author. Not of porn.
My sex scenes would never get me there. Just, you know, regular old love stories.
Provided I can ever finish writing one.”
The genuine interest in his eyes only spreads from there. “What do you mean? What’s stopping you?”
I sigh. “I don’t even know. It’s like, I get an idea, and at first, everything just spills right out of me, but then...something happens right before the story should be coming to an end. I just get stuck. Or I lose interest. Or I get a new idea and start writing something else.”
“How often has that happened?”
“Um, about thirty times or so.”
He laughs in disbelief. “You have thirty almost finished novels sitting on your computer and you can’t get yourself to write the ending on any of them?”
“It’s ridiculous, I know.” I bury my face in my hands.
“It’s also pretty fucking amazing.”
I peek through my fingers, surprised by his take on things. “How do you figure?”
“You’ve basically written thirty novels, Kenley. How many people can say that?”
I let my hands fall away from my face entirely. “Well, none of them are done. So, I don’t think it really counts.”
He arches a brow at me. “How much is missing from each story? Like, the last quarter?”
I’m tempted to hide behind my hands again, but I fight the urge. “More like the last chapter.”
“Then it definitely counts.”
“We’ll agree to disagree.”
He laughs, but there’s a sweet warmth in his eyes flooding me with care. “Why don’t you tell anyone?”
I shrug. “Because I started doing it on a crazy whim. It was the first year after my marriage imploded, where I knew it was over, but he was still holding on, but you know, the way you might hold someone you’re trying to choke to death.
In a figurative sense, of course. Not literal.
” Still, right around that time, I learned just where the line was between a verbal fight and one where things got physical.
“I needed a mental escape, a creative project to get lost in. And...I don’t know.
It’s become more than just a hobby but..
.” I exhale loudly, shaking my head. “I guess I always planned to tell people when I actually finished something, when I felt like I had something worth sharing. And I just haven’t reached that point yet. ”
“But you’re sharing it with me.”
“You seem to think we ought to be doing that sort of thing,” I remind him.
“I do.” He smiles. Because I’m clearly starting to agree with him. But he’s kind enough not to point that out. Instead, he circles back around to where we started, “But then how can you hate reading romance? Do you hate writing it too?”
“I love writing it,” I assure him. “Weird, right? But making up love stories is pretty much my favorite pastime. All my life, I’ve been the girl in love with love.”
“Except when it comes to reading about it.” He’s oddly delightfully baffled by the whole thing. It’s adorable. And funny. And I kind of love how much he keeps asking questions about it. About me . “So, what do you think it’ll take to finally finish one?”
“I wish I knew.” I sink down until my head is resting on his shoulder.
“I’ve been the girl in love with love...
who never found it.” I shrug, but it doesn’t deliver the casual gesture I’d hoped.
“And I think maybe that’s why I can’t get myself to write those happy endings.
But it’s also what keeps me coming back, keeps me trying, telling new stories over and over.
Because deep down, I’m secretly hoping, if I manage to write that happy ever after even once. ..maybe it’ll become real.”