Page 91 of After All This Time

“Noah, are you okay?” Dani asks.

I’m unable to meet her gaze.

Her hand is on my back, moving in circular motions.

“I need to go…home to check on S-Sammy, b-but I don’t think I can d-drive,” I stammer.

Dani walks off to talk to Celia before she heads back over to me. “Alright, my mom is going to take my car home. I’ll drive you to your house so we can check on Sammy.” She slides her hand into mine.

The way her skin touches mine drives me wild, it’s sort of therapeutic. Her touch is healing me in ways I’ve never thought could be possible.

“Look at me.” She reaches her hands out and cups my cheeks, turning my face in her direction.

Her brown eyes are even bigger close-up.

“Tell me about the novel you’re writing.” She brings me back to reality.

“What?”

“You know. The book you’re writing and publishing,” she says to me as we’re walking to the elevators. “The book you’ve been working on since high school.”

I swallow. “I-it’s about a woman who moves to a small town. A-and she becomes the senior detective for the t-town’s police department. She g-gets assigned to solve a decades-old cold case.”

The elevator doors slide open.

We walk into it, standing side-by-side.

She meets my gaze so intensely it feels like this elevator could catch on fire at any given moment. “Tell me more.”

“Um…a man who’s a part of the prominent family she’s re-investigating willingly teams up with her to solve the case. He wants to find out who murdered his parents.”

Her distraction is working. My anxiety is subsiding like storm clouds disappearing when the sun comes out.

“There’s a slow burn romance involved,” I add.

Ding. Level 3.

Her eyes light up after I say that. “Noah Kaplan, did you just say romance?”

I roll my eyes. “Let’s not make a fuss about it, okay? Before they can even act on their feelings, she discovers a deadly secret that ruins any chance of them ever getting together…Or does it?”

“Well, I know one thing for sure.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“I’ll be one of your first readers,” she tells me all doe-eyed.

I smile. “Tell me about your book.”

“You really don’t care. It’s a romance. I?—”

I box her in, staring deep into her eyes. “Tell me about it,” I demand.

“O-okay. Um…it’s a college sports romance about a basketball captain and a gymnast. The basketball captain is the brother of the gymnast’s best friend. They cross paths at a party and she’s immediately turned off by him. He’s smitten with her from the get-go.”

Ding. Level 2.

I’m watching every part of her face move from her eyes to her lips. She’s fucking mesmerizing. The passion and dedication she has for the craft is attractive as hell.

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