Page 38 of Room 1212

“Yes!” I was certain the neighbors could hear the declaration too, but in case Jordan was hard of hearing, I shouted again, “I love you!”

A thick silence descended over the apartment. Jordan tried to get a hold of his emotions and failed, his tears spilling down his cheeks. Waiting for his reply, it was like there was a fist clenched around my insides, wrenching them tight.

Finally, Jordan gulped and took a step toward me. “When I saw those two little lines, my whole life changed. I felt like I was falling, and I wasn’t sure if you would be there to catch me this time. Writing alone in my condo, that was safe. Writing what my agent told me to write, it was easy. But for the first time, I can see a different future, one where you’re by my side. Where I can take risks and challenge myself. It’s not easy and it’s not safe, but it’s perfect all the same. It’s a future where we can raise our child together.” He wiped the tears with his shirt sleeve. “For the first time, I let myself believe in love. Not like what I write about, love at first sight and fated mates. That’s all fiction. But you and me… I want to believe we’re more than that. We’re real.”

I could feel hope glowing inside me, warming me up. It was impossibly bright. “Was that the speech you wrote?”

He huffed a little laugh. “Yeah. What did you think?”

“It was good.” Jordan was looking at me with those tear-filled eyes, and my hands itched to reach for him, to kiss away his tears.

“Real love takes work, Jordan. It doesn’t end in some happily ever after, where the characters ride off into the sunset together. We’re going to fight—but we’ll also make up.” I tentatively reached an arm out, trailing the tip of my finger over his hand. “So… was that your way of saying you love me too?”

He smiled shyly, looking down at our point of contact. He flipped his hand over and laced our fingers together, and when he looked back up, his entire face had transformed. “Yeah, I love you too.”

Pulling him into my arms felt as natural as breathing, familiar but also entirely new. For months I’d been forcing myself to believe that it was just sex, all the while knowing it was more. And when we kissed, I could see our lives unfurling ahead of us, as clearly as words on a page.

While a very large part of me wanted to throw him over my shoulder, I resisted the urge and instead picked him up like he was made of glass, carrying him down the hall to his bedroom. I laid him gently across the mattress, his head on the pillow, before lying down beside him, our bodies barely touching.

We both rolled to face each other, and I tentatively closed the distance with one hand, pulling up his shirt to trace my fingers over his stomach. Our child was in there, and they were created with love.

I could feel his eyes on me, but he stayed still for me, letting me make the first move. “When I first met you, I was planning on being super charming,” I told him, thinking back to that first day at the book signing.

“You were?” He chuckled under his breath. “Well, you failed. You were pretty awful. I was going to write you into a book as a villain just so I could maim you in unspeakable ways.”

“Hey!” I laughed. It was such a Jordan way of coping with someone he didn’t like.

“It’s okay. You’ve made up for it. I forgive you.” He wiggled an inch closer, and I could feel the heat from his body against mine, drawing me in.

“Well, I was just thinking… If I hadn’t blurted out the most idiotic thing my brain could come up with, you probably wouldn’t have been in that café trying to rewrite your book that day. I never would’ve felt the need to apologize, and you never would’ve suggested this insane casual-sex relationship, which landed you pregnant and here with me now, with an entire future ahead of us.”

“What’s your point?” he asked, a playful lilt to his voice.

“Oh, just that maybe I can believe in fate after all.”

21

Jordan

I’ddecidedTheBookNook was probably the city’s cutest bookstore. They sold locally made crafts and baking, which made the small shop smell like beeswax candles and cinnamon buns. There was a giant fake tree smack dab in the middle of the store, a spiral staircase wrapped around its trunk, leading up to the children’s section upstairs, nestled among the tree’s branches like a treehouse.

And they had a section dedicated to local authors too.

This was officially nothing like the previous book signings and tours I’d attended, not just because it was in a tiny store, but because hardly anyone had shown up.

The publisher who had printed A Ballad of Thieves didn’t have the same marketing budget as my old one did, so it was no wonder there was a small crowd. And also, everyone hated my book. While I’d resisted reading reviews, I couldn’t help but notice that I’d lost a few followers on social media. That had to mean something, right?

“Stop it,” Drew said, nudging me with his elbow.

“Stop what?”

“Overthinking. You spend so much time worrying about what other people think, that you seem blind to the fact that your book was wonderful.”

“Pfft!” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back in my chair, surveying the room. The signing would start in just a few minutes, but the crowd was sparse. I had no hotel staff at my beck and call this time, no screaming and clapping as I came in the room. “As if I can believe anything you say about my writing. You’re totally biased.”

He crouched down beside me and took my hand, drawing my full attention. “You cared about my opinion when we first met.”

“That was different.”

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