Twice in a Blue Moon
Page 27
“I don’t want to hide,” I admit. “I don’t want this story to die out because we’ve disappeared. I want to face it head on.”
He tilts his chin up, grinning. “Do you, now?”
“I mean, me and you.” I swallow past a lump in my throat. “I want to take over the narrative. If you want that.”
Sam takes a small step closer and it brings his body right up against mine. “I want that.”
“I found your emails.”
His brow rises. “Yeah?”
“And I want that,” I tell him, adding at his small, confused frown, “I want free-range, bottomless love.”
His grin sneaks in from the side. “You know what they say about this farm?”
“What’s that?”
He bends, and inhales just behind my ear, smelling my hair. “That anyone who walks down that road in search of love finds it.”
“Is that right?”
Sam’s mouth is on my neck now, gently biting his way up. He hums in confirmation.
I stretch against him; he’s so warm. “Well, that’s pretty handy.”
“How so?”
“I was just wandering down the road, hoping to find it and—lucky me—you stepped out. You’ll do just fine.”
With a laugh, Sam picks me up, hauling me over his shoulder, and carries me toward the farmhouse. The sky has settled into a deep starlit canvas overhead.
“Have you ever seen the stars from this exact spot on Earth?” he asks me.
My heart squeezes and then stretches into a thunder. “No, sir.”
He slowly sets me down on a thick patch of lawn, dragging my body along his, and then lowers himself, patting the grass beside his hip.
“Come on,” he whispers, patting the ground again. The moon is high and full, the sky is an explosion of stars. I settle down next to him, drugged by the heat of his body curved around mine.
“Come right on down here with me, honey,” he says, “and let’s look at the sky.”
Acknowledgments
Writing a book is a lot like giving birth: it’s painful, you’re sweaty and probably swearing for a lot of it, and just when you think you’ll never do it again, you cross the finish line and have this brand-new thing in your arms.
Just like having kids, putting a book out into the world takes a village. We rewrote this book at least three times, and our former editor, Adam Wilson, saw it when it was something else entirely. Thank you for pushing us to make each book better than the last, Adam. Kate Dresser held our hands through the rewrite and helped make this book into what you’re holding today. We’re so happy with how it turned out.
Our agent, Holly Root, is simply amazing. Thank you for guiding us through the ups and down of publishing, for knowing when to cheer us on and when we need perspective.
Kristin Dwyer isn’t just our PR rep, she’s our third Musketeer. You work so hard to get our books into the hands of people who will shout about them, and we are so grateful. Dirty martinis, dry, with extra olives all around (no blue cheese). We love you, Precious.
Have we mentioned how much we love Simon & Schuster and our entire Gallery family? Thank you to Carolyn Reidy, Jen Bergstrom, Kate Dresser, Adam Wilson, Jen Long, Aimée Bell, Molly Gregory, Rachel Brenner, Abby Zidle, Diana Velasquez (we miss you), Mackenzie Hickey, Anabel Jimenez, Tara Schlesinger, John Vairo, Lisa Litwack, Laura Cherkas, Sarah Lieberman, Stacey Sakal, and last but absolutely not least the Gallery sales force who attend meeting after meeting and fight to get our books on shelves and into readers’ hands.
Erin Service always happily reads our books when they are messy, when they are less messy, when they are polished, and just before they go to print. She’s very good at finding typos even at the end of this whole process, which is a particularly impressive talent. Thanks for being the best pre-reader and sister ever.
Betsy Sullenger took hours of her own time to help us make the film shoot feel realistic—though we must say we did take some artistic license so anything that doesn’t feel authentic is totally on us. You were also very kind for not laughing at us when we asked the most basic film questions… and there were a lot of those. We adore you, woman.
Candice Montgomery is one of our cherished friends, fellow writers, and—in this case—sensitivity readers. Thank you for helping us carve Luther and Nick out of the most precious of stones, but also helping us see where we fell short in our writing of them. We hope we captured your feedback, but if we missed the mark, it’s on us. We love you, and will listen forever. Everyone please read Candice’s beautiful books, Home and Away and By Any Means Necessary.
The librarians and booksellers of the world are true heroes. Thank you for what you do! And to every blogger, reviewer, Booktuber, Instagrammer, and podcaster: we know you do what you do because you love books, but we also know that it is a lot of work. Thank you for reading our words, and for taking your time and talents and voice to tell others about them. We see you and we are grateful.
To our families: we love you the most. Our babies have grown a lot in the time since CLo first began a decade ago—from nine to nineteen, from three to twelve, and from birth to nine years old. We of course, haven’t aged a day. (Our husbands have, but they’re still pretty fantastic and, more than just putting up with us, somehow seem to still find us charming.)
Thank you to BTS—Nam-joon, Jin, Yoon-gi, Hobi, Jimin, Tae, Jungkook, and ARMY—for being Christina’s happy place.
Lo, these pages are full of thank-yous, but my biggest has to be saved for you. People are always asking about our friendship, and how this works. To put it simply: you’re my person. Thank you for sharing your beautiful words with me, for helping me become a better writer, for always ALWAYS being supportive, and letting me be annoying in your text box all day. You’re my best friend. I love you.
PQ, thanks for pulling my head out of the sand with this book. I guess I should be glad that we made it to twenty-four books before one of them nearly drove me insane. Even if that had happened, though, you’d still be stuck with me forever. ILY.
More from the Author
The Unhoneymooners
My Favorite Half-Night…
Josh and Hazel's Guide…
Love and Other Words
Roomies
Dating You / Hating You
About the Author
© ALYSSA MICHELLE
CHRISTINA LAUREN is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners/besties Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA Today, and #1 international bestselling authors of the Beautiful and the Wild Seasons series, The Unhoneymooners, My Favorite Half-Night Stand, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, Love and Other Words, Roomies, Dating You / Hating You, and Autoboyography.
You can find them online at christinalaurenbooks.com, @ChristinaLauren on Instagram, or @ChristinaLauren on Twitter.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Christina-Lauren
SimonandSchuster.com
Facebook.com/GalleryBooks
@GalleryBooks
ALSO BY
Christina Lauren
Dating You / Hating You
Roomies
Love and Other Words
Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating
My Favorite Half-Night Stand
The Unhoneymooners
THE BEAUTIFUL SERIES
Beautiful Bastard
Beautiful Stranger
Beautiful Bitch
Beautiful Bombshell
Beautiful Player
Beautiful Beginning
Beautiful Beloved
Beautiful Secret
Beautiful Boss
Beautiful
THE WILD SEASONS SERIES
Sweet Filthy Boy
Dirty Rowdy Thing
Dark Wild Night
Wicked Sexy Liar
YOUNG ADULT
The House
Sublime
Autoboyography
&nb
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Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition October 2019
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Interior design by Lewelin Polanco
Cover design and Illustration by Ella Laytham
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lauren, Christina, author.
Title: Twice in a blue moon / Christina Lauren.
Description: First Gallery Books trade paperback edition. | New York: Gallery Books, 2019. | “Gallery Original Fiction Trade”—Title page verso.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019013433 | ISBN 9781501197420 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 9781501197437 (ebook)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3612.A9442273 T85 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019013433
ISBN 978-1-5011-9742-0
ISBN 978-1-5011-9743-7 (ebook)