my eyes back to focus. “Oprah offered felicitations.”
“I know,” he said, relaxing only by a hair.
My hands weren’t visible, locked somewhere in his broad palms and fingers.
“Oprah. Oprah. She’s following me on Twitter now. Did you know that? Oprah Fucking Winfrey.”
“Maybe she’ll want you to help recommend books for her book club,” he joked.
I almost fainted at that. One million followers had nothing on being part of Oprah’s Book Club team.
At my lack of humor, he sobered again. “Okay, everything is going to be okay. Do you want me to put Theo on your social so he can filter through everything for you?”
“I…Theo?” I frowned, trying to figure out if he was speaking English. “Um…ah, n-no. Not right now, thank you.”
He didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t fight me. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I swear, you’ll get used to it. It just changes how you use social media. Consider DMs a thing of the past. Ignore your notifications and turn them off on your phone. Post and walk away. Otherwise, it will absorb every minute of your life, free or not.”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was sticky and dry.
He eyed me, bending down to get to my eye-level. “Are you all right? You’re so pale.”
A tired smile tugged at my lips. “You say that like it’s news, Tommy.”
He ignored the joke. “What do you usually do to calm down? De-stress?”
“Bubble bath, book, and sometimes baking.”
“The trifecta of Bs,” he said, almost smiling. “I’d ask you if you had a book to read, but since I carried thirty-two boxes into your room yesterday, I feel like you’ve got options.”
The tension in my shoulders eased when I laughed, the shock waning. I wondered what percentage of that could be attributed to the warmth and comfort of his hands enveloping mine.
“Aren’t I supposed to be reading for you?” I asked.
“Trust me, if I had something for you to read, I’d foist it on you with more insistence than I did our marriage.”
“Too bad you don’t write romance, or I’d beg you shamelessly for it.”
At that, his smile turned salacious. “I don’t hate the idea of you begging me shamelessly for anything.”
I tried to cover the surging fluster with a roll of my eyes.
“And anyway, I could write romance. I just don’t.”
“You say that like it’s easy.”
He shrugged like an arrogant jerk. “Romance is easy. Paint-by-number. Kiss here. Conflict there. It’s got beats just like any genre fiction.”
My frown turned into a full-blown scowl, and I removed my hands from his in order to fold them across my chest petulantly. “I call bullshit.”
He chuckled. “I can’t even handle it when you swear. You’re like a little bunny rabbit with a filthy mouth.”
“Stop hedging,” I shot, poking him in the chest. “Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Bane? Write me something to read in the tub.”
Now he was frowning too, and I tried not to gloat when I caught a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “Need I remind you, Mrs. Bane, that I’m on a deadline for a fantasy that is definitely not meant to be romance?”
I shrugged like that was his problem and not mine, ignoring the fact that he’d called me by my married name. “Make it work. Maybe it’ll unjam something in your brain. I want a romance. I want tension and angst and sparks. I want kisses and squirming and longing.”
Tommy’s bravado rose with one corner of his lips. “All right, wife. You’re on.”
He stuck out the meathook he called a hand for a shake, and I took it, squeezing it hard.
I bet he barely felt it, the mutant.
Tommy grabbed his laptop and sat back on the couch, propping his feet on the coffee table. “What are you going to do while I write?”
“Bake,” I answered without thinking.
“Bake what?”
“Everything,” I said cheerfully as I hauled myself off the couch and wandered into his massive kitchen in search of baking supplies.
❖
Tommy
Come on, man. It’s just a stupid romance. You can do this in your sleep, I assured myself firmly enough to believe it.
Amelia bustled around the kitchen as I opened a new document. A certain brand of hope filled me at the prospect of something new, the kind one only found in imagining outcomes that hadn’t yet happened. Truth was, once the document was open and that stupid fucking cursor blinked scornfully at me, my brain emptied itself of all thoughts.
My gaze drifted back to Amelia. I only saw her