Page 104 of One More Chapter

“Hey, what’s your favorite food?”

He huffs a laugh.

“Like, right now, or normally?”

I scrunch my face in confusion, and he smiles like the last few hours of the day didn’t even happen.

“My current hyper-fixation food is those little Nerds cluster balls. But that can change at any given time. Last week, I ate like, four containers of strawberries in the span of twenty-four hours. But my safe snacks? Pizza rolls and cheese balls. Could live off of them. Probably did at several different points during college.”

I shake my head and smile, mentally adding both to my shopping list.

When he comes into his room after showering, he doesn’t even ask why I’m in his bed. In fact, when he settles into the pillows, weaves his arm beneath my back, and curls himself around me, I swear I feel the tension in him melt through to the floor.

forty

penelope

Typing “The End”is a euphoria that never quite goes away. It’s one of those addictive highs that isn’t toxic to your system—sure, I might ruin myself in the process, but the hit at the end is worth the suffering.

Then why am I one hundred times more nervous as I finish out Finn and Delilah’s happily ever after? That’s a stupid question that I’ve known the answers to for months. It’s because their happily ever after isn’t quite their own. Instead, I took my second chance, enemies to lovers babies from the series I’ve been cultivating and turned them into a rendition of Anthony and myself, right down to the silly little poem I wrote when I got back from vacation and thought I’d found my one.

Finn and Delilah. Ant and Penelope. We are one in the same.

I cannot publish this book.

And yet, it is my greatest piece of writing to date.

I already know that Rafe and Paula are going to sing its praises, not only for the way that my craft has improved from book one, but because this story practically wrote itself—straight out of my memories, fantasies, and my current day to day, but nobody has to know that, right?

Only, peoplewillknow.

My closest friends know the story of Ant and me—hell, they helped me psychoanalyze some of the very same words of his that I penned into Finn’s character. Anyone who knows us will realize from the prologue that this story is a Penelope Barker Original. I don’t know if I can do this to Ant.

Not after all of the progress we’ve made. Not after the last couple of weeks we’ve spent together, in our state of not-quite-together-yet limbo.

Not after I just stocked our kitchen with pizza rolls and cheeseballs.

But I have a deadline to make. I have readers who have been waiting for this book since the beginning of the series. I have a team behind me ready to start marketing, and new contracts to sign once this book is officially on shelves.

I have too many people that I would be letting down if Ididn’tpublish it. So why should I care about the feelings of one person over all the rest?

“Did you do it?” he asks, lightly rapping on the French doors to my office. I told Anthony this morning that I would be finishing my book today, and he promised to stay out of my hair. When I turn and nod, smiling shyly with my shoulders scrunched, his face lights up.

Why should I care about his feelings over all the rest? It might have something to do with the cupcake on a plate that he brings in, the candle that says “Celebrate” flickering against the light in his eyes. But I kind of like the way his proud smile lights up his face a little bit more.

“Why is there a candle?” I laugh, turning my chair around to face him fully.

“It felt like the right thing to do!” he chuckles back, setting the plate on my desk amidst seven different empty cups from the week of writing. “I don’t know a song about finishing a novel though. I could sing you some Taylor Swift?”

“I think I’m good on the song front,” I wave him off, still smiling, then turn to the cupcake.

“Okay, but you still have to make a wish.”

I roll my eyes playfully, secretly loving this. The attention. The pride. The fact that, when I told him I needed peace and quiet today, he did so by running to Stop & Shop and getting me a gourmet cupcake.

Normally, you make a wish by closing your eyes. As I let the one matter of my heart that I’d buried with a padlock and a mountain of dirt almost two years ago come fluttering back on the wings of hope, I lock eyes with that turquoise river, hoping he can see to the bottom. Ant holds my gaze, and for a moment, I wonder if I can have it all. The man I’ve known since we were babies, the writing career, the friends, and the foundation beneath me in case any of it ever fails.

After I blow out the flame, Anthony takes out the candle and offers it to me with the frosting sides out. I lick off the vanilla swirl while he peels back the paper.

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