Page 124 of The Book Club Boyfriend
She spots me through the crowd—standing by the back table, hands in my pockets, playing it cool even though my heart’s doing something dumb and teenage—and her face softens just a little.
Like I’m the thing she was looking for.
She makes her way through the crowd, stopping to take selfies with fans, sign books, and chat. I can’t take my eyes off her.
When she stops beside me, I lean down and press a quick kiss to her mouth. “You good?”
She nods, somewhat dazed. “I can’t believe this many people showed up.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised. You wrote something real.”
She glances at me, eyes bright but wary. “You practicing for your acceptance speech as boyfriend of the year?”
“Nah,” I say, wrapping an arm around her waist. “That one’s for the after-party.”
She laughs—really laughs—and I swear I’d walk through fire to hear that sound on loop for the rest of my life.
From the front of the store, someone taps a mic and calls her name. She groans. “That’s my cue to make a heartfelt speech and pretend I’m not internally screaming.”
I give her hand a squeeze. “Go melt hearts, Calloway. And afterward, I’m taking you home to celebrate.”
She leans up, presses a quick kiss to my cheek, and whispers, “I can hardly wait.”
She pulls away and heads toward the crowd, shoulders back, chin high. I watch her go, full of pride and something deeper—something quieter and heavier and terrifying in the best way.
Because nine months ago, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to see this.
Scarlett steps up to the little mic stand near the front of the store, framed by a wall of her books and a blown-up cover poster with her name in big, gold foil letters. The crowd hushes, buzzing with the kind of giddy energy I’ve only ever felt in packed arenas before the puck drops.
She clears her throat, tapping the mic once. “Okay. Hi. Wow.”
The crowd laughs, and she gives them a sheepish smile that does something inconvenient to my heart.
“So… I had this whole speech planned,” she says, glancing down at a folded index card in her hand, “but then I realized it made me sound like a robot who swallowed a thesaurus, so I’m just gonna wing it.”
More laughter. Someone from the book club yells, “We love chaos!”
“This book was hard to write,” she continues, her voice a little steadier now. “Like, rip-your-hair-out, stare-at-the-ceiling, ugly-cry-in-the-bathroom hard. I thought I’d lost my voice. I thought I was done.”
She pauses, glancing toward the back—towardme.
“But someone reminded me that stories don’t have to be perfect to matter. That sometimes the best ones are a little messy, a little bruised. That love doesn’t always show up on schedule, but when it does… it’s worth writing about.”
My chest tightens. The room goes quiet in that reverent, leaning-in way.
“So, thank you,” she finishes, looking out at the crowd. “For being here. For reading. For letting me be messy, and loud, and wildly romantic about things I swore I’d given up on.”
A pause.
“And thank you to the guy in the back who made me pancakes when I couldn’t get out of bed, and who buys every edition of my book just to make it look like I’m popular.”
Everyone turns to look at me, and I swear my ears turn red.
Scarlett grins. “This one’s for you.”
Applause breaks out—loud and warm and full of love.
She steps down from the mic and disappears into a sea of hugs and compliments, and all I can do is watch her, completely and hopelessly gone.
