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“All good things, my girl. Two best sellers? How impressive!” She eyed the book in my lap and I wanted to swallow my own tongue.

“Yes,” I managed. “I was very lucky.”

“Not luck,” Wolfe argued. “Talent.”

I flushed, averting my gaze. “I brought this for you.” I held out my book to Moira, who snatched it faster than I could blink.

“Oh, how kind. I can’t wait to read this. I’m in a book club, you know. I’ll suggest this for our next read.”

My blush spread, creeping down my neck. I was painfully awkward and terribly bad at this.

“That’s nice of you,” I said, palms dampening with sweat. “Don’t feel obligated—”

“Obligated!” she said, surprised. “Not at all. Besides, maybe you’d like to come talk to them? They would have plenty of questions for you.”

I dipped my head. Wolfe nodded like he agreed with her.

Traitor, I thought.

“Sure,” I said hesitantly. “I’d like that.”

“And the book I gave you?” She wiggled her brows. “Did you start it?”

This time, my smile came easily. I looked right at Wolfe as I said, “I did, yes. I’m enjoying it so far. It’s quite steamy.”

“You are a menace to my wellbeing,” Wolfe lamented, sinking further into his chair. “Trying to scandalize me in such a way.”

I wanted to answer him but knew that if I did, Moira and Tommy might think I was truly insane.

“The girls and I love them,” Moira gushed. “It’s nice to be swept away, isn’t it?”

I inhaled sharply, turning to face her.

We were all just trying to escape something, weren’t we? Bad days, shitty jobs, loneliness, anger. I wasn’t alone in feeling the way that I did.

Maybe my stories managed to help someone too. Made them feel less alone, seen, understood.

“Yes,” I said, “it is.”

“We’ll talk. Let me check on dinner.”

Tommy grabbed her hand as she passed, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. The blush on Moira’s face now had nothing to do with the warmth but with her husband. My chest seized, pinching until my breath caught in my lungs.

“Would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Wolfe asked softly. “To be the tether in someone else’s orbit?”

The words were morose. Weighted. He’d been spinning out for such a long time alone.

I nodded subtly, wanting him to know that I heard him.

“How long have you been married?” I asked.

Tommy scratched his chin, skin whispering over whiskers. “Forty years this spring,” he said proudly. “We were married when we were twenty. I loved her far longer,” he added, chuckling. “Since we were kids playing on the beach. She had no time for me, she made it known.” He leaned back in his chair, hands folded across his lap. His smile told me everything—that he was replaying all the days they spent together, the way that they fell in love.

“What changed?”

“We grew,” he said, sighing. “I couldn’t stay a boy forever and I made myself into a man. One worthy of her. We’d barely started courting before I asked her to marry me and do you know what she said?”

I leaned forward, intrigued. “What?”