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His laugh is soft and a little breathless. “Every chapter.”

He kisses the corner of my mouth, then my cheek, then the place just below my ear that always makes me forget what I was saying. His hand settles at my waist, steady and familiar. The air between us feels warm enough to melt February right off the windows.

I thread my fingers through his hair. “You know the hero is supposed to be the one who loses his composure here.”

“Trust me, Becks.” He rests his forehead against mine. “He's hanging on by a thread.”

I laugh, and he pulls back just enough to look at me.

“Tell me if you want to stop.”

“I don't.”

“Good.” His smile turns tender. “Because I have a confession.”

“Another one?”

“I don't want to be the man you write because you wish he existed.” He brushes a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I want to be the man who makes you forget you ever had to wish.”

There it is. The line no one could have written for me.

I kiss him before he can say another word.

He gathers me close, and we tumble back onto the bed in a tangle of laughter and warm blankets. The manuscript stays safely on the nightstand, its green ribbon hanging between the pages.

For a long while, there are no lines to remember. No scene to get right. Just the soft hush of the city beyond the glass, his hand wrapped around mine, and kisses that turn into quiet promises neither of us needs to explain.

Eventually, I rest my cheek against his chest. His fingers trace absentminded circles along my shoulder.

“So,” he says. “Does your book have a happy ending?”

I lift my head. “Obviously. I write romance.”

“And does the guy get the girl?”

“That's not the point.”

He raises an eyebrow. “It's not?”

I shake my head. “The point is that she gets to choose him, too.”

He goes quiet. Then he takes my hand and kisses my knuckles, right over the place where my pulse beats.

“Then I hope she chooses him every day.”

“She will,” I whisper. “As long as he keeps choosing her.”

“Deal.”

I glance at the manuscript. “For the record, you skipped the best line.”

“Did I?”

“The last one.”

He reaches for the book, finds the ribbon, and reads the final sentence of the scene. His voice catches just slightly.

“She'd spent her whole life wishing for a love story. She hadn't realized she was already standing in the middle of one.”