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I nod.
“How long?” That’s all she says, in her normal Tabs voice. “Cam, how long have you felt this way?”
I shrug. “Years.”
“How many?”
“Many.”
She opens my journal again. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well, I guess first maybe you could tell me you're relieved that we feel the same way about each other?”
She nods. “I guess. I mean, yes. I am relieved.” She smiles with her eyes. “And I want to come back to that, but this,” she points at the journal, flipped open to a few weeks ago, “the way you’re writing—in your journal—it reads like a romance novel. Which suggests that you’ve been reading romance all along and never told me. Why?”
And there it is. The perfect opportunity to tell Tabs the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the heart-stopping, terrifying, likely friend-ending truth.
“You know that’s not something to be embarrassed about, right?”
I grimace. “I was afraid of everything I could lose if you knew.”
Tabs frowns. “What do you mean?”
My blood is rushing so loudly in my ears it drowns out my thoughts.
She lays her hand on my thigh, and my abdomen tenses. We’re both still naked, and for a split second, I consider stalling this discussion with round two. Until Tabs asks, “That you secretly read romance? Or that you’ve secretly been in love with me for years?” and I know I have to tell her the truth.
“Neither. There’s more. And it will explain my reaction—which I’m so sorry for. I didn’t mean what we just did, what we had, what we have is wrong. It was everything, Tabs. Everything.” I pause. “What I meant was…”
She nudges me. “What?”
I hold her face and kiss her on the mouth. “I have one more thing you need to see. I’ll be right back.”
If I tell her, I’ll breach the anonymity clause in my contract with the publisher. If they learn about it, it will be career-ending. But I’d rather give up my income than give up Tabs. I should have told her years ago.
I pull my laptop, and the journal with the pages I’d drawn inspiration from for book five, off my desk. The journal is flagged with at least twenty Post-it notes. I flip to the page I want her to see as I walk back to the bedroom.
Tabs is sitting exactly how I left her, reading another page from my most recent journal. She places it on the bedside table, then wipes a tear from her cheek. I hate that I’ve upset her—especially in the precious minutes after making love. I should have kept my mouth shut about my expectations for our first time.
“It was transcendent, Tabs. It was next level. It was perfect.”
“Then why did you say?—?”
I hold out the dog-eared journal. “Read this. Please.”
I watch as she reads scribbled notes about a couple making love. It’s mechanical. A rough, first draft. And it uses only the character’s first letters to indicate who is doing what to whom, which means that Ian, the Duke, is written as “I.”
Tabs swipes the tear away and shoves the journal back at me. “So, you had sex with some woman whose name starts with G. Why are you showing me this? Because sex with G was boring?”
I just stare at her in speechless confusion.
Tabs scrambles to her feet, and I have to hold her to keep her from bolting.
“No. That’s not me. It’s the Duke and Gabriella.”
“As if! You think I’m going to believe you’re writing fanfic in your journal? Please. You can lie better than that, Cam.”
“I’m going to let you go so you can read from my laptop. But you have to promise that you’ll let me explain before you kill me.”
