Page 235 of Story of My Life
“So much it scares the hell out of me.”
“So much you want to run away?”
He shook his head. “Never again. Besides, you love me too,” he said arrogantly.
“Oh, I do, do I?”
“I’m ninety percent sure, and I’m confident I’ll earn the last ten by the end of this grand gesture.”
“You finished my house. That’s a pretty grand grand gesture.”
“I want a life with you. I want a home with you. I want to fill that life and that home with the people and things we both love.”
“Like monster grills?”
“Like perfectly reasonable grills and annoying relatives and more books and pets, maybe kids.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. Well, I don’t want to be the only one freaking out here.”
“Mission accomplished,” I said, pressing a hand to my nervous intestines.
“But nothing I have to offer could ever take the place of what you’d already lost,” Cam said.
An annoyed meow came from the other crate, and I thought I spotted a flash of whiskers.
“What did I lose?” I asked.
In answer, Cam marched over to the last moving box I’d stashed in the corner. He pulled out the books. My books that now belonged to Jim.
“These,” he said. “They can go on the shelf now.”
“Wait. What are you saying?”
“She’s not getting it. Should we do some charades?” Gage wondered loudly from the hallway.
“Oooh! I love charades. Okay, act out, ‘We got your books back!’” Zoey shouted jubilantly.
My heart didn’t trip. It didn’t somersault or skip a beat. It stopped.
“You got my books back?”
“Wow, she’s a really good guesser,” Levi said.
“She’s like supersmart,” Zoey informed him.
Cam nodded. “We did. Jim no longer owns any of your IP. He signed the rights back today.”
“Oh my God, is he dead? Did you beat him to death with his own arms? Are you going to prison? They’re just books, Cam. I’ll write more of them. Lots more.”
“I didn’t beat him with his own arms, and I’m not going to prison. It was legal.”
“We intimidated him legally,” Gage shouted through the door.
“Mostly,” Levi added.
“Zoey called a meeting with Jim and his boss,” Cam told me. “We showed up with six of your mother’s favorite lawyers. And once the bloviating windbag shut his gaping piehole, we laid out how damaging to the agency’s reputation it would be if all the clients knew they employed agents who legally assumed the rights to authors’ intellectual property.”
