Page 79 of The Hook Up
“But how did you know you weren’t screwing up Henry?”
“Because I kept showing up,” she said. “And he kept smiling. You can tell a lot from that.”
Ty sat quietly, digesting that. He didn’t say anything for a long time, not until Miriam leaned across his lap to grab his computer mouse. “Let me show you something,” she said.
“Ugh,” said Ty, reeling from the heft of her mighty baby belly pressing into his arm. “How about if you tell you what you’re looking for and I can pull it up on the?—”
“There!” Miriam sat back, triumphant, and pointed at the screen. “Remember that first shoot you did with Ellie? The one where she was nervous as hell and you tried to put her at ease?”
It seemed like so long ago. “Vaguely,” he said. What he did remember was the smell of Ellie’s hair and the warmth of her breast grazing the heel of his hand.
“Did you know the camera was rolling when you came out from behind it to talk to her?”
Ty frowned, trying to recall the details of that afternoon. “I haven’t seen it,” he said. “I just put it out on the server so you could check it out if you wanted.”
Miriam jabbed one manicured nail at the screen.“Watch it now. Notice the way you both light up when you’re talking to each other. If you can do that and then come back and tell me you don’t belong together, I’ll shut up about this forever.”
She smiled then heaved herself up out of the chair. Ty reached out to steady her, but she waved him off. “I’m good,” she said. “Just a couple more weeks to go.”
Headed toward the door, she turned and pointed at him. “Be good to yourself, Ty. You deserve it, too.”
He stared at her for a long time then nodded. “Thanks.”
As she vanished through the door, Ty turned back to his computer monitor. He looked at the file she’d cued up, hesitating. Editing the footage from Great Wolf Lodge had hurt like hell, but this was different. This was Ellie alone. Ellie and him together Could he really do this?
Don’t be a chickenshit. He clicked the file.
Ellie’s face appeared on the monitor, nervous and flushed as she sat there alone in her pale blue dress. There was fear in her eyes, but also determination. The simple loveliness of her face hit Ty like a fist to the sternum.
“I’m sorry,”she said to the camera.“I feel dumb.”
Wow. Had it really been only a few weeks since she’d been terrified of the camera? He watched, spellbound, as she bit her lip and stole a nervous glance at the light.
“How about we try this.”It was his own voice this time as he slid into the frame.“I’m just going to sit right here, and we’re going to chat like normal people.”
But there was more to this conversation than a simple chat. It was there in the way they leaned close like two people sharing the warmth of a campfire. It was there in Ellie’s eyes as they sparked with interest at his story about the asshole Navy admiral. It was there in the way he watched the side of her face as she turned to grab her water glass, his expression so full of love and admiration and hope that he looked like a whole different person.
Something magical had happened that afternoon. Had Ellie known?
He sure as hell hadn’t. How had he missed it?
“That’s so sweet,”Ellie said on camera. Her gaze stayed fixed on him, and the way she smiled brought back a clearer memory of that conversation—how her voice had stirred something inside him, like two puzzle pieces finally clicking together.
How had he been so blind?
“I believe in karma.”It was his own voice speaking this time, and the look on his face answered his question. He had known. Deep down, he’d known from the start that Ellie meant something to him.
“If you take the chance to be a jerk to someone, someone’s bound to do the same to you,”he continued, his gaze fixed on Ellie’s face.“Stop the flow of assholery and respond with kindness instead, and you’ll eventually get the same in return.”
She lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind one ear, and his breath caught in his throat. Ty forced his lungs to take in air. Had anyone ever looked at him that way, ever?
Not in his whole life. Not ever.
But it wasn’t just the way Ellie looked at him.
He stared at his own face, noticing the easing of lines he’d thought were permanently etched in his forehead. As the images flickered on his screen, his face came alive, and Ellie responded in turn.
Jesus.
