Page 79 of Based on You

Over her shoulder, near the back of the store, I caught a familiar frame in a dark coat. Xavier had flown in the night before. He stood near the back in a dark coat, not folded in on himself the way he'd been in that hotel room a month ago, watching me with an ease that hadn't been there then.

He'd found me at the side door before the signing, while I was still pacing and trying to get my hands to stop shaking.

"You came," I said.

"I told you I would. A real one, remember. Not a forwarded article from Mom." He almost smiled, then stopped fighting it. "I've called you every Sunday since New York. I'm counting that as learning how."

"You're not bad at it," I admitted.

"I'm getting there." He glanced past me at the line wrapping around the block, then back at me. "Look at all of them. I keep thinking I should have figured you out years ago. Mostly I'm just glad I get to be here for it now."

I had to look at the ceiling a moment before I could look back at him.

"Go on." He tipped his head toward the table. "Your readers have waited longer than I have."

I turned back to the line, and Simon was right where he'd been all evening: standing to my left.

He wasn't seated. He stood to my left the entire night, handing me fresh copies as the line moved, stacking the signed ones, handing me my water bottle whenever I reached for it, producing a fresh pen the second the first one ran dry. He kept his eyes on the line, on the growing stack, on the next copy coming forward. He didn't once step back and let someone else on the staff handle it.

And he hadn't stopped looking at me.

Not at the crowd, not at the winding line, not at the display of covers staged near the front of the store. At me. All night. Every time I looked up between readers, his eyes were already there, and every time I caught them, he didn't look away.

I hadn't asked him to stop.

When the last reader finally cleared and the bookstore staff began stacking the few unsold copies, Simon came around the table and wrapped his arms around me from behind. I melted back into him. He pressed his lips to my temple and held them there a long moment.

"Are you hungry?" he murmured. "We can sneak out and get food before the reception starts."

"I'm really not that hungry." I turned in the circle of his arms to face him. "I honestly just want to get through this party and then go home."

He nodded. Then he lowered his head and kissed my neck.

His warm breath tickled my skin, and I put a hand flat against his chest to stop him. "Simon. We're still in public."

"You look very attractive sitting there signing those books," he said against my neck, unbothered.

I laughed despite myself. "Are you just attracted to my huge success?"

He pulled back and looked at me, one corner of his mouth tipping up, his gray eyes locked on mine. "Possibly. If I'd known earlier you were a wildly successful author, I might have made a move sooner."

I burst out laughing and leaned up to kiss him.

"Disgusting," Olivia announced, appearing from somewhere to our left with her heavy coat already on. "Also, we need to leave right now. The party started ten minutes ago."

I looked at her, grinned, and kissed him again.

"I'm going to the car," she declared, rolling her eyes and walking away.

We followed her. We climbed into the back of the town car, and the heavy door had barely clicked closed before Simon pulled me toward him, and I leaned in.

From behind the partition, Olivia groaned. "You're both absolute animals."

"That's what happens when you love someone," Simon said.

I laughed into his shoulder. He laughed too, his chest moving with the sound. We eventually stopped kissing and just sat close together for the rest of the drive, his arm around me, my head on his shoulder, the glittering city moving past outside the tinted window.

We arrived at the Beckett Media tower.