I’ll never get tired of the smooth heat of his torso, the way his hands roam hungrily over me like he wants to touch everything at once, the way he digs his fingers into my hair when I kiss down his body. His abdomen tenses beneath my hand, hips arching, and then pulls me up and under him, taking his time, pressing his sharp exhales and playfully dirty words into my ear.
We’ve gotten good at this—we practice diligently—but I’m still surprised at the depth of emotion that rocks me whenever I sense that he’s close, when I feel him start to grow tense and a little wild. He teases me about the way I watch him, but I think he secretly loves it because I swear watching his eyes drift closed right at the second he falls is the hottest thing that I’ve ever witnessed.
I don’t let him get up, not yet. I hold my arm out in front of us and we stare up at the ring on my finger, laughing at how foreign the words husband and wife sound in our voices.
Where are we going to do it? I wonder. Andrew looks at me like I’m thick. Here, of course.
We populate the small wedding party with our chosen family. We decide Tahiti is a good honeymoon spot. Dog before kids.
Sweet kisses turn slow, and then deeper, and then I’m over him and he’s watching with adoring focus, playing with the ends of my hair, skipping fingertips over my curves, guiding my hips until he’s sweaty and urgent beneath me.
I collapse on the bed beside him. The sheets are soft, smooth cotton, cool against my back, and Andrew coughs out a sharp, satisfied laugh. “How do you expect me to walk after that?”
“I hope Benny meant for us to sleep out here,” I say, slowly catching my breath.
* * *
But we’ll need water and food, and we’ve still got several hours before sleep.
He looks at me and laughs. “Do you want to pull a brush through your hair?”
A glance in the bathroom mirror tells me my hair is a wild tangle, my lips are swollen and kiss-bruised. My smile is love-drunk and lopsided. I do the best I can with my fingers to fix the hair situation before giving up.
“My stuff is in the car,” I say. “Benny doesn’t care what my hair looks like.”
It’s only when we walk into the kitchen to the cacophonous “SURPRISE!” yelled by seven excited voices that I get why Andrew wanted us to go inside and tell Benny, why he suggested I brush my hair, and why he’s beet red and doubled over in laughter now. Ricky and Lisa are not on a cruise. Theo is not down in Ogden working on his new house, and although Kyle is still in Manhattan, Aaron and the twins are not. I’m not sure when they got here, or how long they’ve been waiting for us to come back inside so they can congratulate us on our engagement.
“Were you wrestling?” Zachary asks in a lisp, now missing his two front teeth, and Aaron struggles valiantly to not burst out laughing.
“Yes,” Andrew answers earnestly. “And look! Mae won a ring.”
I am engulfed by hugs from my future in-laws(!) and Aaron and the twins. Benny takes the opportunity to laugh at the telling disaster of my hair before pulling me in for a tight squeeze. Although this is the best surprise ever, it feels oddly quiet without my parents and Miles.
Slipping my phone from where I left it on the kitchen counter, I take a picture of my left hand, texting it to my mom:
I bet you knew he was going to do this, but look!
I stare at the phone, waiting for the indication that she’s read the text, but my message sends slowly, the bar inching across the top.
“I hear you’re loving your new gig,” Aaron says, pulling my attention up.
“I am!” I tell him, grinning. I am now the lead graphic designer for Sled Dog Brewing, an up-and-coming microbrewery only a half mile from Red Rocks and the hottest biergarten in town. I have a team of two who run the website and social media, and I design all of the gear—T-shirts, pint glasses, hats, beanies, and all kinds of fun merchandise. The owner has been so impressed with my work he’s asked me to redesign all of their labels, which means my artwork may someday be in refrigerated cases all over the country. So far, Sled Dog has been the most fun and rewarding job I’ve ever had.
“I got a bottle of that imperial stout,” he says.
“How’d you manage that?” The imperial stout just won an international gold medal; it’s nearly impossible to find it locally, let alone in New York.
“One of the dads at school is a distributor. He hooked me up.”
“I love you.” Stretching, I kiss Aaron’s cheek. Even across the country in Manhattan, he’s staying connected to what we’re doing out west. I follow the kiss with a hand ruffling his newly natural salt-and-pepper hair. “And I love this, too.”
“Yeah.” He smiles at me. “Shortest midlife crisis on record.”
“Hopefully Lisa got some documentation of the dye job.”
“Or at least half of the dye job,” he jokes.
Lisa protests, laughing, “Hey.”
I don’t even notice Andrew had slipped outside to the car and come back in with my bag until he hands it to me. “I hate to ruin the surprise, but you might want this.”
“The surprise?”
He winces. “Your parents’ flight was delayed. They’re almost here.”
“Really?” I squeal, and quickly pull my brush out, tying my hair into a bun on top of my head.
Just in time, because my mom is already singing my name before she’s even reached the porch. “Mae! Where’s my girl?”
Behind her, Dad is carrying his bag and hers, and grinning ear to ear.
Andrew comes up behind me as Mom jogs up the steps, and she throws her arms around both of us. “I knew it!” she sings. “I knew, I knew, I knew!”
“How long have you known he was going to do this?” I ask her.
“Well, let’s see.” She looks to Andrew, calculating back, and Dad comes to give us each a hug. “Maybe two months?”
“We got the tickets in April…” Dad says. “So, longer than that.”
“I asked your permission in February,” Andrew says, laughing. “On our two-month anniversary.”
Lisa comes out, and she and my mom turn high-pitched and animated with their shared happiness. Ricky, Dad, and Aaron give each other a here we go look and head inside, presumably to find beer in Benny’s fancy new fridge. Benny greets my parents before heading down the steps with Kennedy, who’s holding a book about leaves. Theo wrestles with Zachary in the living room. I miss Kyle, and I miss my brother, but I bet there’s a tiny electric zap in their mood, even in the middle of their busy lives.
I catch a small tidbit of what Mom is saying: “… here, but before or after Christmas?” and assume that our wedding is being planned without us, that the pressure for grandchildren will start almost immediately, and that we’ll have our hands full with busybodies for the rest of our days. All of that will have to be discussed, but after the moment we exchange our vows—whenever that is—luckily, we won’t have to negotiate how to blend our families. They were blended long before we came along.
When we step out of the sun and back into the house, my eye is caught by a framed picture on the wall in the new sitting room. From far away it’s hard to tell what it is, but up close, I realize it’s an aerial photograph. Andrew puts his arm around me and then leans in, studying the photo. Finally, he reaches forward, putting the tip of his finger right in the middle. “There we are.”
“What?”
He moves his finger to the side, and I see what he’s showing me. It’s the cabin, in the center of a cluster of other buildings, in the midst of a busy swirl of streets, in an even busier stretch of mountains. Beyond that, the world stretches out in both directions, and every single point on Earth’s surface is the center of someone’s universe, but this picture gets it right.
The center of my world is right where I’m standing.
acknowledgments
Just a little bit of magic, we said. We can totally do it, we said. It’ll be easy!
It may not have been easy, but writing this novel
was certainly fun. We wrote this one before 2020 arrived, before all hell broke loose, and the idea of falling into a romance time loop felt like a perfect, seasonal escape.
It feels even better now when we get to go back and read it. Mae is safe at this cabin, with loved ones and only the requirement that she figure out what path she’s meant to take. If we all had something this simple to focus on, life would be so much easier.
We guess that’s what romance gives us—yes, it’s aspirational and wish fulfillment; it’s fun and uplifting—but this year, it is also a much-needed escape. Romance is here doing what romance does, and we need it now more than ever. So we have to start this off by thanking some spectacular romance creators whose work has pulled us out of reality and into true joy this year: Park Ji-eun (Crash Landing on You), Alexis Hall (Boyfriend Material), Scarlett Peckham (The Rakess), Rebekah Weatherspoon (Xeni), Martha Waters (To Have and to Hoax), Kate Clayborn (Love Lettering and also your Twitter feed), Lisa Kleypas (hi, goddess), and Nora Ephron for, well, everything. We are deeply inspired by you, and so grateful to be able to turn to your creativity and entertainment in these weird, wild times.
Our core team is the best core team: Agent Holly Root is the consistent voice of calm, wisdom, and delightfully timed snark. Our editor at Simon & Schuster/Gallery, Kate Dresser, puts up with a lot, and we mean a lot, of U-turns. Thank you, Kate, for being the CLo enthusiast when we start, the sounding board when we’re stuck, the gentle red flag when we’re editing. Kristin Dwyer is our PR rep and Precious, and even when time stopped and we no longer knew what the world looked like past our own window, it was okay. We did it, we got it done: people found our books. You always do so good, girl.
Thank you to the S&S/Gallery team for hustling their hardest, as always: Jen Bergstrom (we truly adore you), Aimée Bell, Jen Long, Rachel Brenner, Molly Gregory, Abby Zidle, Anne Jaconette, Anabel Jimenez, Sally Marvin, Lisa Litwack, John Vairo, and the entire Gallery sales force and subrights groups. In the midst of a pandemic, the loss of Carolyn Reidy hit everyone hard. She will be greatly missed. It makes us doubly grateful to everyone at S&S for always being amazing and forever being on our team.
Thank you to Marion Archer for reading, and rereading, and rereading. Your notes and feedback are always so spot-on and appreciated. Erin Service, making you swoon is our only goal. To the readers in CLo and Friends, thank you for making us laugh and keeping us company (and, of course, for loving our books). We adore each and every one of you.
To every reader out there, we hope this book finds you safe and happy. Thank you for picking it up. It is our greatest wish to the universe that Mae and Andrew’s story gives you an escape that you choose, but (for your sake) one that you don’t need too desperately. It’s been a hard year, and we are here sending love and—we hope—a rollicking dose of magical fun.
With massive affection,
Christina & Lauren
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next “delightful” (People) novel from New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren.
Coming soon from Gallery Books!
CHAPTER ONE
Jessica Davis used to think it was an honest-to-God tragedy that only twenty-six percent of women believed in true love. Of course, that was nearly a decade ago, when she couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be anything but deeply and passionately obsessed with the man who would one day be her ex. Tonight, though, on her third first date in seven years, she was astounded the number was even that high.
“Twenty-six percent,” she mumbled, leaning toward the restroom mirror to apply more lipstick. “Twenty-six women out of one hundred believe true love is real.” Popping the cap back on, Jess laughed, and her exhausted reflection laughed back. Sadly, her night was far from over. She still had to make it through the entrée course; appetizers had lasted four years. Of course, some of that was probably due to Travis’s tendency to talk with his mouth full, oversharing highly specific stories about finding his wife in bed with his business partner and the ensuing messy divorce. But as far as first dates went, Jess reasoned, it could have been worse. This date was better, for sure, than the guy last week, who’d been so drunk when he showed up at the restaurant that he nodded off before they’d even ordered.
“Come on, Jess.” She dropped the tube back into her bag. “You don’t have to make, serve, or clean up after this meal. The dishes alone are worth at least one more bitter story about his ex-wife.”
A stall door clicked open, startling her, and a willowy blonde emerged. She glanced at Jess with bald pity. To this woman, she must look like a wet dog out in the rain.
“God, I know,” Jess agreed with a groan. “I’m talking to myself in a bathroom. Tells you exactly how my night is going.”
Not a laugh. Not even a courtesy smile, let alone camaraderie. Instead she moved as far away as possible to the end of the empty row of sinks and began washing her hands.
Well.
Jess went back to rummaging through her purse but couldn’t help glancing toward the end of the counter. She knew it wasn’t polite to stare, but the other woman’s makeup was flawless, her nails perfectly manicured. How on earth did some women manage it? Jess considered leaving the house with her zipper up a victory. Once, she explained an entire season’s worth of data analysis to a roomful of marketing executives with makeup only on one eye. This gorgeous stranger probably hadn’t been forced to change outfits after cleaning glitter off both a six-month-old cat and a seven-year-old child. She probably never had to apologize for being late. She probably didn’t even have to shave. She was just naturally smooth everywhere.
“Are you okay?”
Jess blinked back to awareness, realizing the woman was speaking to her. There was really no way to pretend she hadn’t been staring directly at this stranger’s cleavage.
Resisting the urge to cover her own less-than-impressive assets, Jess offered a small, embarrassed wave. “Sorry. I was just thinking that your kitten probably isn’t covered in glitter, too.”
“My what?”
She turned back to the mirror. Jessica Marie Davis, get your shit together. Ignoring the fact that she still had an audience, Jess channeled Nana Jo: “You have plenty of time. Go out there, eat some pasta, go home,” she said aloud. “There’s no ticking clock on any of this.”
* * *
“I’m just saying, the clock is ticking.” Fizzy waved vaguely toward Jess’s butt. “That booty won’t be high and tight forever, you know.”
“Maybe not,” Jess said, “but Tinder isn’t going to help me find a quality guy to hold it up, either.”
Fizzy lifted her chin defensively. “I’ve had some of the best sex of my life from Tinder. I swear you give up too quickly. We are in the era of women taking pleasure and not apologizing for getting theirs first, second, and one more time for the road. Travis might be ex-wife-obsessed, but I saw his photo and he was fine as hell. Maybe he would have rocked your world for an hour or two after tiramisu, but you’ll never know, because you left before dessert.”
Jess paused. Maybe… “Goddammit, Fizzy.”
Her best friend leaned back, smug. If Felicity Chen decided to start selling Amway, Jess would simply hand over her wallet. Fizzy was made of charisma, witchcraft, and bad judgment. Those qualities made her a great writer but were also partly the reason Jess had a misspelled song lyric tattooed on the inside of her right wrist, had disastrous not-even-close-to-Audrey-Hepburn bangs for six depressing months in 2014, and had attended a costume party in LA that turned out to be a BDSM scene in a dungeon basement. Fizzy’s response to Jess’s “You brought me to a sex party in a dungeon?” was “Yeah, everyone in LA has dungeons!”
Fizzy tucked a strand of glossy black hair behind her ear. “Okay, let’s make plans for your next date.”
“No.” Opening her laptop, Jess logged onto her email. But even with her attention fixed elsewhere, it was hard to miss Fizzy’s scowl. “Fizz, it’s hard with a kid.”
“That’s always yo
ur excuse.”
“Because I always have a kid.”
“You also have grandparents who live next door and are more than happy to watch her while you’re on a date, and a best friend who thinks your kid is cooler than you are. We all just want you to be happy.”
Jess knew they did. That was why she’d agreed to test the Tinder waters in the first place. “Okay, let me humor you,” she said. “Let’s say I meet someone amazing. Where am I going to hook up with him? It was different when Juno was two. Now I have a light-sleeper seven-year-old with perfect hearing, and the last time I went to a guy’s place it was so messy, a pair of his boxers stuck to my back when I got up to use the bathroom.”
“Gross.”
“Agreed.”
“Still.” Fizzy rubbed a thoughtful finger beneath her lip. “Single parents make it work all the time, Jess. Look at the Brady Bunch.”
“Your best example is a fifty-year-old sitcom?” The harder Fizzy tried to convince her, the less Jess actually wanted to get back out there.
“Mrs. Brady didn’t give up. All I’m saying.”
“In 1969 only thirteen percent of parents were single. Carol Brady was a trailblazer. I am not.”
“Vanilla latte!” the barista, Daniel, shouted over the din of the coffee shop.
Fizzy motioned that she wasn’t done being a pain in Jess’s ass before standing and making her way to the counter.
Jess had been coming to Twiggs coffee shop every day for almost as long as she’d been freelancing. Her life, which essentially existed in a four-block radius, was exceedingly manageable as it was. She walked Juno to school just down the street from their apartment complex while Fizzy grabbed the best table—in the back, away from the glare of the window but near the outlet that hadn’t yet gone wobbly—at seven thirty every morning. Jess crunched numbers while Fizzy wrote novels, and in an effort to not be leeches, they ordered something every ninety minutes; the treats had the added benefit of incentivizing them to work more, gossip less.