Текст книги "Beach read"
Автор книги: Emily Henry
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 20 страниц)
Gus followed me. We started up the crooked, rooty path. “I don’t think so. I think I wrote my version of a happy ending and you wrote your version of a sad one. We had to write what we think is true.”
“And you still believe a meteor hitting the Earth is the best-case scenario in a romance.”
Gus laughed.
We’d forgotten to leave the porch light on, but usually there was nothing to trip over. He’d never had porch furniture, and when I’d given Dad’s to Sonya, we’d decided to save up and get our own, then promptly forgotten. Tonight, however, the porch wasn’t empty. A cardboard box sat against the door, and Gus scooped it up, studying the shipping label.
“Must be the advanced copies,” he said. He sounded a little nervous but didn’t hesitate to balance the box against his hip and use his keys to slice open the tape along the top. He set the open box down, withdrew a copy of the book, and passed it to me.
“Don’t you want to see it first?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You first. I’ll just watch your reaction for signs that they accidentally printed it upside down, or with the wrong title.”
But they hadn’t printed it upside down or made any other ridiculous mistake. It looked gorgeous, with shades of blue swirling across its cover, the clean white lettering of the title so large I could read it perfectly even in the dim light of the stars and moon. “It’s perfect,” I said, running my fingers over the words. I flipped the flimsy cover open, and thumbed through the first few pages. “The typesetting is really wonderful and—” I’d just hit the dedication page, and whatever I’d been about to say dispersed from my mind like smoke on a breeze.
The bound manuscript I’d read hadn’t had a dedication in it, or if it had, I’d somehow missed it. Which seemed improbable both because of how closely I had studied every word, as if each were a piece of Gus I could bottle up and keep, and because there was no way I could have missed those first two words.
For January, I don’t care how the story ends as long as I spend it with you.
I looked up at him, his perfectly imperfect face obscured by the prickling tears in my eyes, the mess of dark hair turned jet black by the night, the soft gleam in those eyes I loved so much. “You just had to outdo the most beautiful dedication you’d ever read, didn’t you?”
He smiled. “Something like that.”
His hand found the side of my face, and his warm mouth pressed into mine. When he pulled back, my hair catching in his scruff, he said quietly, “And to answer your question about the best-case scenario for a love story, yes. If I were hit by a meteor while in the car with you, I would still think I went out on a high note.”
My cheeks still heated when he said things like that. The lava-like feeling still filled my stomach.
“I love you, Augustus Everett,” I said, and he didn’t shudder at the sound of his name, just smiled and ran a thumb over my jaw. So much had changed in the last year. So much would change next year too.
In books, I’d always felt like the Happily Ever After appeared as a new beginning, but for me, it didn’t feel like that. My Happily Ever After was a strand of strung-together happy-for-nows, extending back not just to a year ago, but to thirty years before. Mine had already begun, and so this day was neither an ending nor a beginning.
It was just another good day. A perfect day. A happy-for-now, so vast and deep that I knew—or rather believed—I didn’t have to worry about tomorrow.
Acknowledgments
Behind every book that makes its way into the world is a whole village of advocates, and this book couldn’t have had a better village fighting for it every step of the way. Huge thanks, first, to my amazing editor, Amanda Bergeron, whose skill, passion, and kindness have made every minute I spent working on this book pure delight. No one could have understood nor refined the heart of January and Gus’s story quite like you, and I’m forever grateful to have had you in their corner. I’m still just starry-eyed over getting to work with you.
Thank you also to the rest of the inimitable team at Berkley: Jessica McDonnell, Claire Zion, Cindy Hwang, Grace House, Martha Cipolla, and the rest. Huge gratitude also to the whole team at Viking, especially the brilliant Katy Loftus, Vikki Moynes, Georgia Taylor, Ellie Hudson, Emma Rogers, and Holly Ovenden, as well as to the teams at Droemer Knaur, Vulkan, Lavender Lit, Harper Italia, Le Cherche Midi, and The House of Books. I feel so ridiculously lucky to have found a home and family among you.
To the first person who read this book in any form, Lana Popovic, thank you so much for always, always believing in me and for inspiring the world’s best fictional agent, Anya.
Thanks also to my perfect dream of an agent, Taylor Haggerty. You have been a guiding light to me through this whole process, and I know on a deep bone-level that Beach Read could not have made it here without you and the rest of the incredible people at Root Literary: Holly Root, Melanie Castillo, and Molly O’Neill. Huge thanks also to my ridiculously savvy foreign rights agent, Heather Baror, and the rest of Baror International, as well as Mary Pender of UTA, who has been an incredible support to me since the beginning of this journey.
I also must thank my dear friend Liz Tingue, one of the first people to take a big chance on me and my writing. Truly, none of this would have been possible without you. I’m forever grateful to both you and Marissa Grossman for being on my team since the beginning.
There are so many other people who have been essential to my growth as both a writer and person, but I especially need to thank Brittany Cavallaro, Parker Peevyhouse, Jeff Zentner, Riley Redgate, Kerry Kletter, Adriana Mather, David Arnold, Janet McNally, Candice Montgomery, Tehlor Kay Mejia, and Anna Breslaw for being such wonderful friends and giving me such a lovely, vibrant writing community. You are all sparkly, fierce, hilarious, and ridiculously talented. Not to mention, like, really pretty.
And of course, I couldn’t write about family, friendship, and love if not for the spectacular family, friends, and partner that have been given to me.
Thank you to the grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, and whole lot of dogs who have always surrounded me in love. To Megan and Noosha, the women whose friendship has taught me how to write about best friends. And to the love of my life, my perfectly favorite person, Joey. Every moment with you is the vastest, deepest happy-for-now I could have dreamt of. With you in my life, it’s hard not to be a romantic.
He just wanted a decent book to read …
Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.
‘We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it’
Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books
The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes. 
Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy. We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.
So wherever you see the little bird – whether it’s on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity autobiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism – you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.
Whatever you like to read – trust Penguin.
THIS IS JUST
THE BEGINNING
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published in the United States by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 2020
First published in Great Britain by Penguin Books 2020
Copyright © Emily Henry, 2020
The moral right of the author has been asserted
The short quote from June in January was written by Leo Robin.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-241-98953-1
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
