Page 78 of Faking Romance

“How many of you are watching this?” he asks.

“All of us. It took you two long enough,” Margie says.

I’m now shaking with laughter, doubled over on the bench, trying to catch my breath. “I…can’t. Why are you all watching us?” I finally manage as Gray walks over to me.

“We wanted to make sure the grand gesture worked,” Al explains.

“What grand gesture? The flowers and cat?” I ask in confusion.

“OK, everyone, thanks for the help. We’re signing off now,” Gray says, and he flips a small switch on the side of the device, but not before I hear Cornelia say, “We’ve got night-vision binoculars at our place.”

Gray and I burst out laughing.

“Dear God,” I say once my tears subside. I wipe under my eyes.

“Come on, let’s go have a drink at my place, where people won’t be using night-vision binoculars to watch us,” Gray offers as he stands and holds out his hand to me.

I accept it and he pulls me up against him. “Gray,” I start.

“Yes, wifey,” he says.

Grinning, I lean back a little so we can look at each other. “I don’t think I was ever faking romance with you. I think I started falling for you when I first saw you watching me in your window.”

He leans down and presses his forehead to mine. “I wasn’t faking either. You drive me crazy, but…I guess that’s why I love you.”

I feel my eyes tear up again but this time it’s with tears of joy. “You love me?” I whisper.

“Yes,” he replies.

“I love you too,” I admit.

He leans down and kisses me and in the distance I hear cheering, we both laugh through the kiss, and when we pull back, I see the love in his eyes. I’ve never seen that from a man before, not like how he’s looking at me. This is real; it was real the entire time.

He takes my hand, and we begin to walk back to one-eleven Hearts Lane.

“By the way,” I say, “you really didn’t need to organize movie stars to attend my grand opening. That was a bit over the top for a grand gesture.”

“You knew?” he asks.

“I figured it out,” I admit.

He pulls me against him, stopping us in the middle of the sidewalk. “I guess I’ll need to come up with a bigger, grander gesture, then,” he muses.

“Nah”—I pause—“or maybe you could just write me a song or something and have it played in a movie.”

He chuckles and kisses my nose. “I’ll work on that.”

“Good, because now that you made a grand gesture, you still have to keep this love alive. I have some books you could read, I mean, if you need some inspiration,” I say with a wink.

“Oh, you have some books, huh?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I reply as I lean up and kiss him. This time when our neighbors hoot and holler, we don’t stop, because we don’t hear them, the world is just Gray and me.

EPILOGUE

Roxy

Four weeks later…

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