I rub my hand over my face. “Grams.”
Grams shoos me away with a hand. “I’ve been waiting twenty years to share that one—don’t you dare ruin this moment for me. Do you know how long I’ve held on to these gems?”
I wave my hand, giving her the all-clear.
“He had a favorite blankie he would shove down his pants while he watched Barney,” Margot adds helpfully.
“Margot,” Mom chides quietly from the stove, but she’s laughing, too.
I take another sip of my beer. “Please, do your best. I make a fool of myself for this woman daily. There’s nothing you can say to quell her adoration of me.”
I can see every member of my family straighten with this challenge, and then they watch London put the colander down on the counter and walk over, sliding her arm around my waist. “He called me by the wrong name about fifty times the first night we were together.”
Silence surrounds us for a single heartbeat and then my family bursts into laughter. With this, London has just joined their ranks and endeared herself to them forever.
I stare down at her, giving her a playfully reprimanding look while she rests her chin on my chest and her blue eyes twinkle with mischief. “I love you,” she mouths.
“You’re lucky I love you, too.”
Her eyes widen as if she’s just remembering. “We’re moving tomorrow.”
I lift my hand and gently sweep her bangs to the side. “First stop, Six Flags,” I whisper.
“Then surfing in Santa Barbara.”
“Then more roller coasters at Great America.”
“Then . . . our new place,” she says, smile slowly straightening. “And no more bartending.” I know she’s scared. I know this is huge for her. But she has jobs lined up for months, and her work really is brilliant.
“And then I start school.” I bend, kissing her nose.
London searches my eyes, seeking that reassurance I know she won’t ask for aloud anymore.
We will be okay.
I am yours.
You are mine.
We’re doing this together.
“And then you marry me?” I say.
I expect her to laugh. I expect her hand to cup my cheek and for her to kiss me in her gentle refusal but instead she blinks slowly up to my face. “They have a roller coaster in Las Vegas, you know.”
Acknowledgments
THE FUNNIEST THING about this book was our sense at the end that we could have stayed a lot longer with Luke and London. This book came so easily, and their story was so fun and fluffy for us, that by the end we were both surprised that it was over. And that we loved it just the way it was.
Of course, it’s pretty nice that, after having to rewrite Dark Wild Night, the subsequent book was an easier process, but it just shows us time and again that sometimes it’s smooth, and sometimes it’s rocky, but it’s always worth putting in the effort. So, there’s a little bit of advice to you aspiring writers out there: we still struggle, and it’s always kind of a shock when it’s easy. So get that story down on the page no matter how much it feels like you’re trying to get blood out of a rock. It’s worth it.
Thank you to every single person out there who reads our books or tweets at us, and who blogs about, reviews, or shares our stuff with their friends. Without you, we have no books. We are eternally grateful!
We love working with our editor, Adam Wilson, so much—not only because he’s just really fabulous with punctuation, grammar, and pasting the perfect YouTube clips in our margin notes, but also because he is able to see outside his own life and experiences so well that he can make each character of ours stronger through his basic human intuition. To be able to find the pieces of a character that work and the ones that don’t and help guide us in the right direction is pretty amazing. We love writing these books with you, dude.
Holly Root is a rare, encyclopedic human. We have a question—she has an answer. We have an idea—she has some history and context to help guide us. Thank you for every single thing you do—from the tiny email to the long phone calls. You’re better than the mathematical equivalent of (cupcakes x unicorns)4.
Our Simon and Schuster Gallery family is as wonderful as ever: Louise Burke, Jen Bergstrom, Carolyn Reidy, the ever-magical Kristin Dwyer, Theresa Dooley, Melissa Bendixen, Jen Robinson, Liz Psaltis, Diana Velasquez, John Vairo, Lisa Litwack, Jean Anne Rose, Steph DeLuca, Ed Schlesinger, and Abby Zidle. Working with each of you makes us feel like we’ve just consumed about seven liters of bubbly stardust. Now we can fly!