me incredibly anxious. Probably because I had Presley seated next to me, keeping me calm.
She had an incredible knack with people, and she’d engaged in conversation while I signed book after book. I found it amusing that most of the people wanted to talk to her, wanted to know more about the woman who had inspired my last book. I had dedicated the book to Presley, thanking her for being my inspiration. I hadn’t mentioned the book specifically, people just assumed, and I was okay with that.
It had been Josie’s idea to leak that little tidbit to the world, and it had been a brilliant plan. Presley now had her own fan page, which she found a little intimidating, but she was dealing with it well. She said the hardest part was having to continuously explain to people that she wasn’t Kora and the things that had happened did not happen between her and me.
I looked up in time to see Abby and Paige walking toward the table, both of them grinning from ear to ear.
“So, this is what you do on a Saturday afternoon,” Abby said.
“Sometimes.”
When Abby came around the table, I gave her a hug, and when she whispered, “I’m proud of you,” in my ear, I nearly faltered.
Glancing down at her, I smiled. “You’re the coolest kid ever, you know that?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Okay, we’re holding up the line here,” Paige announced. “Let’s get our copy and move on.”
“You’re not gonna read that one, are you?” Presley asked Abby.
“Not yet,” Abby replied. “But one day I will. And then, when I have cousins, I’ll tell them all about their mom and dad’s romance.”
“You do know that’s fiction, right?” I questioned.
“Or so you say,” she teased.
Oh, hell.
Presley laughed as Paige ushered Abby away with a quick wave.
“You can make that one out to the hottest bitch on the planet.”
I looked over to see Blaze and Gavin standing at the table, grinning back at me.
“As long as your man doesn’t threaten to castrate me for it.” I looked at Gavin, who was rolling his eyes.
As I scribbled those words on the first page, Presley got up and hugged them both.
“So, you ready for your next tattoo?” Blaze asked me.
I glanced down at my hands and the words Chapter One tattooed on my left hand and The End tattooed on my right. “I’m thinking about another one,” I told her.
Though it didn’t bother me at all, Blaze continued to give me shit about the tattoos, insisting I needed something bigger, since they were so small. She had insisted I was a pussy—it had been said with love, she’d assured me—and that I should’ve had it tattooed across my chest. Presley had disagreed, wanting me to see the words every time I was working, just so I would think of her.
According to Presley, the words were there, on the outsides of each of my hands to show where the story comes from—whether it was inked on paper or typed on the computer, it comes from me, from somewhere deep inside and was delivered by my hands.
I didn’t need the tattoos to think of her. She was a part of my life, the first thing I thought about when I woke up every morning and the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep. She was the love of my life, and with or without the tattoos, I would never stop thinking about her.
“So, we still on for dinner tonight?” Gavin asked when I passed the book back.
“Dinner works,” I told him.
“Cool.”
“Hey, you two, move it along,” Josie called out. “You’re holding up the line.”
“You wouldn’t be giving the orders if Gil was here,” Blaze countered, grinning from ear to ear.
“Aww, she’s cute when she blushes,” Presley noted, making Josie’s cheeks redden more.
We were all still wondering how that was going to play out, but I had asked Gil to come by and help move some furniture one day, and Josie had been there. From the moment the two of them had spotted each other, it had been … strange. One of those moments that were written in romance novels but weren’t seen by the naked eye.
That was four months ago, and none of us had figured out what her secret was or how she’d converted Gil Garner the Man Whore into something that resembled normal, but she had. And they were spending a lot of time together.
“Am I gonna get a break anytime soon?” I asked Josie. “I have someone