Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
She lifts a brow seductively. “You and your iron dick are insatiable.”
I laugh softly, but then kill the laughter. “Shockingly, it’s not about sex. Ninety-five percent of my thoughts are, but not this one.”
“I like your anti-sex thoughts too. Tell me.”
“I am never anti-sex,” I say. I can’t have her thinking that.
She rolls her eyes. “I know, Axel. I know you.”
My heart clutches. I fight like hell to ignore the tight squeeze in my chest. And I try, dear god, I fucking try to focus. “I pictured a man and a woman who meet on a train,” I begin. “At first, I thought she was feisty, and he had a chip on his shoulder. But then, what if she’s the single mom PR woman, and he’s the reclusive billionaire who’s captivated by her?”
There. Amy and Bettencourt will get me through.
She gasps. “Oh my god.”
“I mean, it’s sort of obvious, I know,” I say. “But maybe we could write it someday.”
What in the holy fuck am I doing? I’m trying to be tough, but I’m talking about the thing that makes me most vulnerable.
My passion.
My love of stories.
My burning need to tell them.
She holds my face. “I’ve always wanted to write a train romance too.”
“Yeah?” I ask, my dumb heart flipping. I can’t catch a break with her.
She lowers her voice like she’s sharing a deep, precious secret. “Confession: when my publishers first told me about the trip, I imagined an elegant train romance. Velvet gowns, a dapper man, and long, lingering glances as the train sped across the coast.”
Like it has for the last few nights.
“We should write one,” I say. Because when I try to resist her, I do the opposite.
“We should. A broody billionaire with secrets. And a single mom with a wounded heart,” she says.
“He’s determined to win her over,” I add, and that’s not me, that’s not us. Though, perhaps it is.
“She tries to resist,” she says, and yeah, maybe it is us after all. Maybe we’ve been writing ourselves this whole damn time.
“But she’s helpless to his charms,” I say, then run my fingers up her arm, into her hair.
“She wanted to resist,” Hazel says, locking those green eyes with mine.
“But he wore her down,” I counter, my voice low, my heart thudding painfully. I’m aware I’m speaking in the past tense now. I’m definitely no longer brainstorming Amy’s romance.
I’m retelling this one.
Wanting to give it a new ending.
“He did,” she says, and her voice is soft and sad at the same time.
I’m such a fool. I pull her close, kiss her lips, and then…fuck it.
I can’t keep swallowing my feelings anymore. When I break the kiss, I say, rough and full of emotion, “Hazel.”
Her breath hitches. “Yes?”
I gear up to speak my heart to her, right here, right now. I part my lips, the words forming to say I’m so in love with you—when there’s a rap on the door.
I blink, suddenly unsure what to do. I clear my throat, ready to speak my truth anyway, but the other person is faster.
“Hello! We’d love to do a group photo as we pull into our final stop.”
It’s Amy, bright and cheery.
Breaking the moment.
“Of course,” I call out, my voice rusty. It hardly sounds like my own. “Be right out.”
Then Hazel turns to me with expectant eyes, a soft mouth.
And I search through my mind for a beautiful lie. “I just wanted to say…we should write that book.”
Her expression is blank, confused. But then there’s a smile. It’s slow and a little uncomfortable as she says, “We should.”
A few minutes later, we assemble for the photo, then step off the train for good.
35
DATE NIGHT
Hazel
As Axel and I lead the readers on the final activity of the final day of the tour—an hour-long bike tour around the city—I’m thinking about our date tonight when the tour ends.
We’re going to the Tivoli Gardens, the amusement park in the center of town. I can’t wait to ride The Demon and its three ridiculous vertical loops.
Bring on the adrenaline.
I’ll use it as fuel to say, What did you really want to tell me on the train?
I don’t think he was talking about books. I think—I hope—he was hinting at something more, something better.
Like, maybe we can try dating when we finish writing Lacey’s book at the end of the year. As I pump the pedals, riding past a fountain by the harbor, I picture that scenario down the road.
We could go back to New York. Meet up for our writing sessions. Finish the story we promised, and the second we write The End we can explore bougie coffee shops in Brooklyn and mock their ridiculous pour-overs, go to art galleries and figure out how to sneak into them late at night to steal things back (for research of course), then take a tango lesson together because we could both incorporate tango into our stories—him for subterfuge, me for sexual tension.