A laugh bursts from my throat. “I’m not getting a fucking hook tattoo.”
She falls quiet with a little smile pulling her lips up into a kissable curve. I bend, kissing it.
“You make me happy,” she says.
Fuck. This girl. “You make me happy, too.”
She straightens, eyes narrowing. “There will literally not be one other girl kissing you on this show or otherwise. Dates? Okay. But they have to be hilariously miserable to make good television and then you sneak out and come see me and put bite marks all over my thighs.”
I blink, nearly choking on a peanut.
“Harlow, I told you I didn’t sign that clause. I’m not dating other women on the show.” I kiss her again. I’m hungry for it now, for the silk of her thighs on my teeth, for the way my teeth marks would look on that soft, delicate skin. Pulling back, I blink away, down the bar to clear my head.
“Won’t you have to?”
“I think they’re happy to have us signed on. I don’t think Matt or Giles is going to push for me to stay single, actually. I think they’re focusing the business story on me, and the romance angle on Colt and Levi.”
“Well, yeah, look at them.”
I growl. “Harlow. ”
She smiles, licking her lips. “You mean we don’t have to be sneaky?”
Shaking my head, I ask, “Am I crazy to do this? I’m going to be a D-list celebrity auditioning for Survivor when I’m forty.”
“Oh, come on, that’s next year. Isn’t it a two-year contract?”
“Ha.”
“At least you’ll have a hot wife.”
“Wife?” My heart takes off, too fast. She reads my deepest thoughts, the ones that want to be settled, spoken for, sharing a bed and a home and a life.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve already been my wife, remember?” Despite everything that happened in Vegas, there’s very little I take more seriously than family. I step off my bar stool and she pulls me between her bent legs. “So you’re actually proposing this time?”
“Just predicting.” She leans her chin on my chest to look up at me. “I want kids.”
Kissing the tip of her nose, I tell her, “I’m okay with that. But not for a little while yet.”
“Three,” she says.
I shake my head. “Two.”
“Then they have to be the best two possible, so we should practice.”
“Nightly.”
“And daily.”
I nod. “Vegas again?”
She lifts my arm, checks my watch. “I don’t have anywhere to be until tomorrow at ten.”
“I don’t even have to work tomorrow,” I tell her.
Harlow slaps a twenty down on the bar. “Then shit, Sunshine, we’d better hit the road.”
Acknowledgments
THANKS, AS EVER, to our wonderful agent, Holly Root, our editor, Adam Wilson (who still probably doesn’t know what hit him), the tireless and inspiring team at Gallery Books, our forever-helpful prereaders, Erin and Tonya, our amazing readers, all of the bloggers who support and promote us, and our husbands and children for their continued enthusiasm and patience.
Just after we began writing this book, Lauren and Erin’s father passed away after battling illness for over a decade. Because Christina and I are more than coauthors—we are best friends—the loss threw both of us into a bit of a tailspin, and we were unable to work much for a few weeks. I’m hijacking these acknowledgments to thank Christina for being so steadfast and present for me. You’re more than I could have ever hoped for, and always amaze me with the generosity of your spirit.
The last time I saw my father, he told me he had never seen me so happy and was so proud of me for chasing down this dream of writing. This meant the world to me. My dad—a professor, a psychologist, an epidemiologist—didn’t care that what we write isn’t heady literature or meant to be treated as any sort of cultural revelation. He just enjoyed watching me having the time of my life, and I, in turn, was grateful that he got to see me so happy writing stories that are meant to make readers smile and escape the daily stresses of life for a slip of time.
In 1992, shortly before I left for college, my dad wrote me a letter to where I was working at a camp in Yosemite. He said,
I enjoyed talking to you on the phone last night—I have really come to appreciate and enjoy these moments where I am aware that I have my own special relationship with you. You know me in ways that I’m not always very aware of myself. It’s only in my relationship with you (or Erin, although of course it’s different) that the particular person that is Lauren’s dad comes out.
Somehow, Lauren’s dad doesn’t get as much practice as Dr. Billings or Marcia’s husband. In spite of that, it always thrills me when I realize that “Lauren’s dad” is a real person that you know, can predict, and frequently love.
“Frequently” is an understatement, for sure. So, thank you, Dad, for being so wonderful that I didn’t have to dig at all into the depths of my imagination to write a father-daughter relationship for Alexander and Harlow Vega that was full of love and support and loyalty. You are missed.
—Lauren