"Baby, I was just about to call you," Jamie says brightly, and he halfway believes it himself, his own reticence forgotten in the moment. He leans in to kiss her, brief and easy. Underneath it all, some part of him is still wary — when was the last time Cathy reacted well to any of his books? — but there's no using creating trouble where none currently exists.

"I don't know." He laughs. "I grabbed my crap off the table and it was there in the pile. Nuts, right? I didn't think it existed here."