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I bent and kissed her.
She rested her hand against my cheek and kissed me back, slowly enough that I had no doubt she wanted to.
When we eased apart, she remained close.
“I missed you,” she admitted.
“Honey, I missed you too. And I know I haven’t earned the right to pretend this morning never happened.”
“I don’t want you to pretend.” She brushed her thumb along my jaw. “But I would like us to enjoy the rest of Sunday. We still have a perfectly good audiobook to finish, and I happen to think you make an excellent dragon.”
I laughed.
“That poor bastard has been waiting all weekend for somebody to sort out his love life.”
“Then perhaps we should finally let him have his happy ending.”
She stood and offered me her hand.
I took it and followed her down the hall.
***
Peyton’s temporary studio looked exactly as we’d left it Saturday afternoon, with the portable acoustic panels surrounding the microphone and the remaining script pages arranged neatly on the desk.
It was strange to think how much had happened since I’d first walked into this room on Thursday evening.
Back then, I’d been worried about whether I could read a few paragraphs without embarrassing myself. Now I knew more about recording than I’d ever expected to learn, and I’d somehow become personally invested in the romantic troubles of a fictional dragon.
Peyton settled at the workstation and checked the latest files.
“Bridget says the reviewer is available this afternoon, so we can finish the final scene and send everything for approval before the handoff.”
“Sounds good. What do you need me to do?”
She looked over the pages.
“We’ve got Drake’s final declaration, a few short responses, and one earlier passage that needs a cleaner take. It shouldn’t take too long, provided you don’t discover anything else about the forest that requires an official complaint.”
I picked up my script.
“No promises. I’ve got professional standards.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
She smiled, then turned back to the equipment.
We spent a few minutes preparing the recording. Peyton adjusted the stand, checked the levels, and made sure we were working from the correct marked passages. The duet portions already had their approved recording arrangements, and she walked me through the remaining cues before we started.
I appreciated that she didn’t rush because we were running behind our original plan.
She’d been teaching me how to do this properly from the beginning, and she wasn’t about to accept sloppy work just because we’d had a lousy morning.
The first pickup took three attempts.
I’d put too much emphasis on the wrong word, then managed to stumble over a name I’d pronounced correctly at least twenty times.
Peyton stopped the recording after the second attempt.
