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Chapter 21
While Brooke had indulged in many movie marathons over the years, she’d never enjoyed one quite as much as she did this time with Sam. He microwaved popcorn, she queued up a movie list, and they settled on the sofa together.
As they sat through several full movies and a bunch of carefully selected scenes that were heartwarming, romantic, bittersweet, funny, and sad—sometimes all at the same time—she half-expected him to sigh heavily and groan occasionally.
Instead, he got a notebook and pen and sat on his end of the sofa, writing industriously. During a bathroom break, Brooke glanced at the notebook he’d left on the coffee-table and discovered he was scrawlingnotes about the romances.
When Lloyd serenades Diane with a boom box. When Noah climbs the Ferris wheel to get to Allie. When Rick tells Ilsa to get on the plane. When Carl discovers that Ellie’s life with him was her adventure. Whenever Westleylooksat Buttercup.
“Have you thought of a BRG for John Kane?” she asked when he sat back down next to her.
“A BRG.” Sam rubbed a hand through his hair. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing his muscular forearms. “I guess I thought it was the trout-fishing date. Or Kane always wanting to take Patricia to O’Grady’s.”
“How are those big, meaningful gestures?”
“I don’t know that they are.” He frowned and studied the paused image on the TV screen. “But maybe they’re small, meaningful gestures. He took her fishing because he remembered she’d told him that some of her best childhood memories were when her father took her fishing. And O’Grady’s was the first place he ever saw her, so going back there with her reminds him of how lucky he is to be with her.”
“Oh.” The word escaped Brooke on a breath of air. “I didn’t know that.”
“I guess I didn’t put those details in the books.”
“You need to.” She shifted toward him and patted his chest. “Your readers will love it. That’s one of the foundations of their relationship right there. He listens to her. The best part of his day is when he gets to be with her.”
“I’m starting to understand what that’s like.”
Her heart skipped a beat. So was she.
As if realizing he’d just revealed more than he’d intended, Sam stood and walked to his paper-littered desk. “Should we go over what I’ve done?”
“Sure.”
He brought over a pile of notes. He’d retroactively plotted out the entire storyline from the moment John meets Patricia up until their shift into a serious relationship. After they reviewed the plot, they spent the next several hours working on fixing the weak points and outlining the future story. Together, they created a timeline, listed the main plot points, and mapped out the romance up to marriage.
Brooke managed to convince Sam that John had been guarding himself against love to avoid getting hurt, and that Patricia needed to be shown in all her complexity—intelligent, vulnerable, tough, confident, uncertain, and brave. Likewise, their romance wasn’t a straight line from first look to wedding vows. It had peaks and valleys, challenges and joy.
Sam had planned for the marriage to take place in the first book of the next Kane trilogy. When Brooke pointed out he’d have to continue writing about John and Patricia’s relationship after they married, he admitted that John Kane as a married man and even potentially a father would add multiple layers of complexity to the whole series.
By the time they wrapped up their work in the evening, the whiteboard was covered with freshly scrawled notes, they’d argued heatedly about whether John should take Patricia to Paris or the Bahamas for a vacation, Brooke had stood her ground on the incorporation oflove body language, Sam had only groaned once, and they’d both agreed that he could forego metaphoric poetry about clouds and molten lava in favor of his powerful, action-driven prose.
“You’re on to something here, Sam Harris.” Brooke capped the dry-erase marker and sank down beside him on the sofa. “Just make sure you show their feelings through actions and body language.”
“What about words?”
She glanced at him. “Words?”
“Yeah, like that exercise you made me do in the blanket fort.” He shifted toward her, his dark eyes filling with both amusement and warmth.
A smile tugged at her lips. “Words are good.”
“I agree.”
“So.” She touched his chest. “Tell me in words how you feel.”
“I feel…” He leaned closer, his gaze slipping to her mouth. “Happy.”
He brushed his lips across hers. A shower of sparkles fell through her. She edged closer as he increased the pressure of the kiss. Everything inside her tightened and loosened in time with her heartbeat. She slid her hand around to the back of his neck and parted her lips under his. He murmured a noise of approval deep in his throat, sweeping his tongue into her mouth.
An ache started in her core and expanded outward like the ripples in a pool of water. Sam cupped his hands on either side of her face, cradling her as if she were a treasure.
