“Writing a scene where the hero answers the door wearing only a towel.”

  She shoots me a don’t you wish you were right look. “As a matter of fact, no.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Don’t make me prove you wrong.”

  “Prove it,” I counter.

  She spins her laptop around, and slides it toward me. I peer at the screen, reading the first line.

  “Oh, no you don’t. Read that shit out loud,” she says, flapping her hand at the silver machine.

  I stifle a laugh, then I clear my throat and read. “After an ungodly long shower, where I stood under the scalding-hot stream for a few days—it feels that way at least—I step out and wrap a fluffy white towel around my breasts. As I cinch it closed, the doorbell rings. Seriously? Like I’m going to open the door now anyway. But maybe it’s my friend Penelope, since she just returned to town. It’d be rude to leave her hanging.

  “I pad quietly to the door as a droplet of water slides from my hair down my shoulder. I peer in the peephole, and my breath catches. It’s Noah, and he’s dragging a hand through his thick, dark hair. He heaves a sigh, one of obvious frustration, perhaps from our fight outside the hospital last night. Admittedly, it had been a long night. But I said things, and he said things.

  “I don’t move, still unsure if I’m going to answer it when he mutters something under his breath, and it sounds like my name. Like a c’mon Lacey. And it’s chased by a please. That last word undoes me, and I swing open the door, curious but still annoyed. Before I can even ask why he’s here, his eyes roam up and down my frame and he mutters, ‘Wow.’”

  I look up, then blow out a long stream of air. “You made the heroine answer the door in only a towel?”

  She shrugs a playful shoulder. “I’m an equal opportunity towel-after-the-shower-scene writer.”

  I lean closer, park my chin in my hand. “Please tell me they’re going to have hot hate sex next.”

  She leans across the table, her lush mouth inches from mine. “You tell me. You’re up, Huxley.”

  I crack my knuckles and get to work.

  It feels good to be back here with her.

  It feels even better to leave with her.

  And it feels great when she spends the night. Well, first we play a game. I fuck her in the stairwell.

  Then call out ten points.

  But she called out my name.

  So we both won.

  I can’t believe my brother roped me into this. “Of all the escape rooms in New York, why did he have to pick a museum-themed one?” I ask Hazel as we leave the Christopher Street station, the chilly air slapping my face.

  It’s a few months later and we’re nearly done with our book. But right now, it’s time for friends and family.

  “You’re going to do great,” she says, grabbing my hand with her mittened paw.

  “This is like, half my books. This is what Brooks does every day. He’s an expert,” I say, dreading it a little more with every step.

  “Then you’ll do great. Since you write these escapes all the time.”

  I shoot her a withering look. “I’d do great if I had all day to plan and research it. Then to draft it, then beat myself up over how awful the first draft is, then throw the draft in the trash, drink ten coffees, chase them with whiskey, and finally find the answer in the shower the next morning,” I say as we turn onto the next block, heading toward Conundrum on Jane Street, home of the place where my brain is about to be put to a horribly public test.

  “I solve plot problems in the shower too,” she says, all cheery and completely oblivious to my struggles. “Like this morning when the vineyard owner decided to buy a brand-new vineyard as a big gesture for his heroine. I came up with that under the hot water.”

  “Show-off,” I mutter. “Also, is that your way of telling me to buy you a vineyard and name it Sweet Raccoon Vines? Because I do well, but I don’t do that well, sweetheart.”

  She stops in front of a red-brick building, shaking her head, laughing. “No, and also, did you just see me not placating you about the escape room?”

  “I saw it and felt it deep in my bones,” I say with a scowl.

  “Remember what I told you in Barcelona? Just have fun,” she says, then presses a kiss to my lips. “And if you have fun, I’ll reward you.”

  That lifts me from my escape room funk. “You mean if we’re the last to solve it, I can go down on you in the escape room? Twenty points. I’m so there,” I say, then I grab her hand and walk faster.

  43

  I’M IMAGINING

  Hazel

  He doesn’t do bad things to me in an escape room. Please. Cameras and all. But we do win. What can I say? I’m a competitive monster too. We located the stolen work of art before Carter and Rachel, my sister and her fiancé, and my friend Ellie and her guy Gabe did. They’re all in town for the holidays.

  Now, with the escape room behind us, we’re all hanging out at Gin Joint, a speakeasy in Chelsea. The fireplace roars and torch songs play overhead.

  “I demand a rematch,” Carter says, lounging on a blue velvet couch as he lifts his beer. “Who’s in? Tomorrow. We’ll find another one. And this time, Gabe and I will win.”

  Ellie’s fiancé, Gabe, cracks up, then shakes his head. “Dude, do not volunteer me for another one of those. You’re lucky you got me to go to one at all,” says the football player. Carter and Gabe are both receivers—Carter plays for the San Francisco Renegades, and Gabe just retired from the Los Angeles Mercenaries. They’re good friends too.

  Carter rolls his eyes. “Big, tough football player hates escape rooms.”

  “I do not hate escape rooms,” Gabe corrects. “I simply prefer poker, blackjack, and betting games.”

  My sister’s fiancé, Milo, jerks his gaze toward the guys. “Poker? Did someone say poker? Let’s play tonight.”

  “I’m in,” Axel says, lifting his tumbler of whiskey in a yes. “And I will destroy all of you.”

  I roll my eyes, then ruffle his hair. “You’re extra competitive when you think you can win.”

  “Damn right,” my guy says, and I love that he’s changed some things about him—like opening his heart—but he’s remained the same in other ways. Like hating escape rooms and jumping at the chance to play a fierce game of cards. He leans in and plants a kiss on my cheek. “Just like you are.”

  From her cozy chair, Rachel sips her martini, watching the guys peacock. There’s a sly look in her eyes. When she sets down the glass, she says, “Or we could all go to a new wine and beer tasting tomorrow. Hazel and I got tickets to a cool spot in Brooklyn. Want to come?”

  If there’s one way to capture a table’s interest, that did it.

  Carter jumps first. “I’m in,” he says, then after yeses abound, he switches seats with Milo and slides in next to Rachel.

  “So, I had to come all the way to New York to see you. What’s the deal with that?” he asks her playfully.

  “I saw you last week in San Francisco,” she points out with a smile.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m just saying…you’re avoiding me.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I am not avoiding you. Ever.”

  “You better not be. Don’t tell any of these guys, but you’re definitely my favorite friend.”

  Rachel’s cheeks flush pink, then she says softly, but not too soft for me to hear, “I’ll keep your secret.” Then she adds, “And you’re mine.”

  As they chat more, I slowly turn my gaze to Axel, asking with my eyes if he heard that.

  His irises say yes.

  “My friend and your brother?” I ask quietly, just to confirm the obvious.

  “They’ve been friends for a long time,” he remarks.

  I dip my face closer to his ear. “I’m imagining a friends-to-lovers romance.”

  He arches a doubtful brow. “You think so?”

  “I sure do,” I say, then lift my wine and clink my glass to his. “We have a little bit of that too.”

  He just smiles, speechless once again.

  When we leave a little later, I’m not thinking of anyone else’s romance. Just mine with this man who’s my partner, my guy, and truly, my very best friend.

  I go home with him, and it’s where I belong.

  EPILOGUE

  SOMETIMES IT RAINS

  Axel

  Done.

  Well, almost.

  It’s December, I’m in Big Cup with Hazel, and I just finished writing the best words in our way overdue Ten Park Avenue installment.

  I smile slyly at the clever partner in crime across from me, who’s waiting. Just waiting.

  She knows what’s next. She wants it. She’s practically going to pounce on the laptop screen.

  So I drag it out a little more, like a dick, taking my sweet time studying the screen. Just to taunt her.

  Finally, she relents. “Axel! Just do it. Write the two best words, and then show it to me. Now.”

  Ha. I knew she’d break first. Acting all blasé, I say, “Fine.”

  Then I type The End, and I share the final scene with her.

  She dives right in, and if that isn’t the sexiest she’s ever looked, I don’t know what is. Smiling, cackling, rapt. It’s gorgeous, watching her read.

  When she reaches the final words, she draws a deep breath, and gasps. Then reaches across the table and kisses me. “We did it,” she says when she breaks the kiss.

  We sure did.

  It wasn’t easy. We butted heads a few times, disagreed on some moments, and fought ruthlessly over whether Lacey would bang her head on the headboard during a particularly athletic sex scene—I shocked Hazel by saying no, she shocked me by saying yes—but in the end we found our way through. We wrote and rewrote and compromised, and we made each other better together.

  Poor Lacey though. She wound up with a goose egg the next day. But hey, that was the price she paid for three orgasms.

  After we polish the final scene—translation: Hazel adds a line here or there but finds zero, count ’em, zero grammatical errors—we take off into the chilly New York day.

  “So, should we celebrate finishing our book by going to a billionaire’s party tonight?” she asks. Then bumps her elbow with mine. “Confession: I’m going to be taking notes all night long on what his Fifth Avenue penthouse looks like. I’ve only ever written them. I’ve never seen one.”

  “Me too. And it better be grander than my imagination. Though I can imagine a lot,” I say.

  “I’m still kind of surprised we were invited.”

  “Baby, he likes us. We’re the reason he’s having this engagement party.”

  She smiles. “Maybe we are.” Then she waggles an eyebrow. “And I get to see you in a suit tonight.”

  I roll my eyes. “You do love a man in a suit.”

  “Correction—I love you in a suit.”

  “How do you know? You’ve never seen me in a suit.”

  It’s her turn to roll her eyes. “Some things you just know.”

  J. Hudson Bettencourt

  I wasn’t supposed to be on the train the day I met Amy Chandler six months ago. But that’s how it goes with so many of life’s moments.

  They were never supposed to be on the schedule. Your flight is canceled, your car won’t start, the snow keeps you in a cabin.

  At the time, these beats certainly don’t seem like moments. They seem like inconveniences. Annoying flat tires that threaten to ruin your day.

  That was how I felt that evening in Nice. I’d been in the French city, meeting with a new green energy company I’d invested in, and I was slated to catch a flight to London. I had a meeting the next day with the JHB executive board, based in London, where I’d lived for the last few years as my holdings expanded in Europe.

  But as I checked out of the hotel in Nice, my flight alert flashed on my phone. There was rain in London.

  Well, what else was new? That city was always home to a gray storm.

  This time, though, there was so much goddamn rain, so much infernal thunder and lightning, that the airport shut down.

  All flights were canceled.

  But man can’t rely on one mode of transportation, one source of fuel. That’s the foundation my business was built on. I’d simply go to London another way.

  I headed to the train station in Nice instead, planning to catch the midnight train to Paris, then transfer to a London railway. But when I walked into the station and stood under the departure board checking the times, my attention strayed to a woman with chestnut hair.

  She walked past me, chatting amiably with a group of tourists, perhaps. Three other women wearing T-shirts that said Book Besties. My gaze stayed on the brunette. She was tall, with lush hair cinched back in a ponytail, and the most inviting smile I’d ever seen.

  Her smile was warm, real, and also…intriguing.

  When the three women excused themselves for the restroom, the brunette headed toward the departure board and craned her neck to check the times.

  “I’ve only double-checked the departure twenty times, but I can’t seem to stop,” she said, then shrugged. “You never know when they might switch times.”

  “A train line that switches departures capriciously? I might have something to say about that,” I said, and I had a lot to say about it in fact. Efficiency was the cornerstone of my clean energy business.

  She turned to me, her brown eyes curious and friendly. “I trust you don’t like capricious train lines?”

  “In fact, I forbid them,” I said, and that was the truth, though of course she probably had no idea.

  She laughed. “Well, glad you have your priorities straight.”

  Then she walked away.

  That was that.

  She was gone. I had no idea what train she was taking. Would she be on one of my trains to London? To Barcelona? Or one of the many others departing in the next hour, fanning out all over Europe?

  What did it matter, though? She was simply a woman I had exchanged a few lines with in front of the departure board.

  Except as I waited in the station for my train to leave, I replayed that brief exchange too many goddamn times for my own good. We’d barely talked and yet I couldn’t get her out of my head.

  There was something about her. Something about that moment.

  She could be married.

  Uninterested.

  Unavailable in a million ways.

  Shoving her out of my mind as best I could, I answered a few emails from the board and took a call from my vice chairman.

  Then it was time to go—I had a meeting to attend. A job to do. I was headed for the platform to catch the train when someone with a Book Besties shirt scurried past me then darted onto the train on the other side of the tracks.

  My pulse raced unexpectedly.

  My woman could be on that train. She’d been traveling with the Book Besties.

  I gazed at the long line of blue and cream-colored cars.

  My skin warmed. Possibilities flickered through my mind.

  This was annoying, this reaction to a woman. This reaction to anything that wasn’t business.

  But there it was, insistent, under my skin.

  This was a moment. Because that was my train. My line. My choice.

  And goddamn it, I was making it.

  Purposefully, I crossed the platform and boarded the train to Barcelona.

  Was I a stalker?

  No, I wasn’t a fucking stalker. I was a man who’d spotted an opportunity. And while I could be patient, I also didn’t let a tantalizing chance pass me by. I said hello to the JHB Travel Manager, followed the blonde in the T-shirt, then scanned the car for the brunette I’d exchanged words with in the station.

  If she was there, I could ask her a simple question.

  That was all I wanted to do. Ask.

  I headed down the first car, then the second. She was nowhere to be seen. This felt like a fool’s errand. Then I caught sight of chestnut hair and warm brown eyes. She was turning toward her compartment.

  I kept going, closing the distance between us, and she stopped with her hand on the doorknob, pausing like she recognized me.

  Remembered me.

  Letting go of the knob, she stepped into the aisle, tilted her head, studied me.

  I was caught up and determined all at once.

  When I reached her, I didn’t waste time. I had a question to ask. “I’m J. Hudson Bettencourt. And it would probably be terribly capricious of me to ask you to dinner tonight, here in the dining car, but if you’re single and available, I’d love to take you out.”

  Her smile was my answer. “Are you capricious?”

  I arched a brow. “Right now, I am.”

  She studied me a beat longer, her pretty pink lips parted in curiosity. “I’m single. And what do you know? I very much enjoy dinner.”

  I grinned. “I, too, like dinner.”

  It was simple. Unexpected. And the start of the best thing that ever happened to me.

  I canceled my meeting in London. I had a new mission—get to know Amy. That evening over dinner, I learned more about her. She was clever, lovely, and a little wounded. Impetuously, I asked her if I could travel with her, and she said yes.

  But truthfully, the request didn’t feel impetuous. It felt right.

  The next night in her compartment, she told me about the end of her marriage, when her husband came out. “We’re still friends,” she explained with a small smile of acceptance. “We still support each other, and I want the best for him, but there was clearly no spark.”

  “And how are your kids doing with that? The divorce, that is?” I asked, as we sat on the couch in her compartment. Though, I made a note that we needed new couches. This one felt like a stone.

  “They’re young, so they’re doing well. I think. And Sebastian and I really want to make it work for them. I’ve got a very supportive family. I’m close with my brother and my parents, and they help with the kids.”

  That warmed my heart. My family was gone, and I was glad she had hers. “That’s good. That you’re close with them, and that the kids are doing well.”