Then the camera cuts off.
Tears are streaming down my cheeks. I’m shaking my head, in complete shock. Miller still has his arms wrapped around me. He brings his mouth to my ear. “And you said promposals were stupid.”
I laugh through my tears. Then I turn around and kiss him. “I’m obviously wrong a lot.”
He presses his forehead to mine and smiles.
Someone turns on the lights. We separate, and my mother is wiping her eyes. “Now that’s what you guys should have submitted.”
Lexie is nodding in agreement.
“Doesn’t meet the criteria,” Jonah says. “It wasn’t all filmed this year.” He looks at Miller and winks. “It was great, though.”
I stare at the blank television in disbelief. And then, something strikes me. “Wait a second.” I face Miller. “You said you named your truck after a Beatles song. But Nora was the name of my character in that play.”
He smiles.
“Do the Beatles even have a song called ‘Nora’?”
He shakes his head, and I can’t even believe this guy right now. He’s never going to be able to top this.
An hour later, I’m still on a high. Not a real high. A Miller high.
He promised he’d feed me because I’m starving, but he’s heading in the opposite direction of town.
“I thought we were going to eat.”
“There’s something I want to show you at home, first.”
I’m sitting in the middle of his truck seat, leaning my head on his shoulder. I’m looking down at my phone when I feel the truck begin to slow down. We pass Miller’s driveway, though. He pulls off to the side of the road in the dark.
“What are you doing?”
He opens his truck door and grabs my hand, pulling me out. He walks me a few feet and then points at something. I look up at the city limit sign.
“Notice anything?”
I look down, and it’s cemented to the ground. I laugh. “Wow. You did it. You moved the entire city limit.”
“I was thinking we could hang at my house and order pizza with Gramps tonight.”
“Pepperoni and pineapple?”
Miller shakes his head, drops my hand, and begins walking back to his truck. “So close to a perfect ten, Clara. So close.”
Five minutes later, me and Gramps are acting like Miller ordering pizza is the most exciting thing we’ve ever witnessed. We’re both sitting on the edge of our chairs. I’m biting my nails. Miller has the phone on speaker, so the room grows tense when the pizza guy says, “I don’t think we deliver that far out. Our delivery area is inside the city limit.”
“I do live inside the city limit. By about twenty feet,” Miller says confidently.
There’s silence on the other end of the line before the guy says, “Okay. Got you in the system. We should be there in about forty-five minutes.”
When Miller hangs up the phone, we both jump up and high-five. Gramps can’t really jump up, so I give him a low five.
“I’m a genius,” Miller says. “Five months of hard and very illegal work finally paid off.”
“I’m kinda proud of you,” Gramps says. “Even though I don’t want to condone anything illegal. But I mean . . . it’s pizza, so . . .”
Miller laughs. The alarm on Gramps’s medication timer goes off, so I walk to the kitchen to get him the pills he needs. I’ve been helping Miller out with Gramps while he’s at work. There’s a full-time aide here during the day, but it’s getting to where he needs help during all the other hours too.
I like getting to spend time with Gramps. He tells me so many great stories about Miller. About his own life. And even though he still jokes that his wife skipped town, I love hearing him talk about her. They were married for fifty-two years before she died. Hearing the stories of the two of them helps reaffirm my belief in love.
Jonah and my mother help too. It was weird for a while, seeing them together. But they’re a good fit. They’re taking it slow and have decided to wait before making any big moves, like moving in together. But we have dinner with Jonah and Elijah almost every night.
Jonah is a completely different person with my mother than he was with Aunt Jenny. Not that he wouldn’t have been happy living a life with Aunt Jenny and Elijah. But my mother makes him light up in a way I’ve never seen before. Every time she’s near him, he looks at her like she’s the greatest thing he’s ever seen.
I catch Miller looking at me like that sometimes. Like right now, as I stand in the kitchen, prepping meds for his grandpa.
I take them to the living room and sit next to Miller on the couch.
Gramps swallows his meds, then sets his glass of water on the table next to his chair. “So? I guess you finally saw the video of when Miller fell in love with you?”
I laugh and lean into Miller. “Your grandson is a romantic.”
Gramps laughs. “No, my grandson is a nitwit. Took him three years to finally ask you out.”
“Patience is a virtue,” Miller says.
“Not when you have cancer.” Gramps stands up. “I’ve been waiting to die for seven months now, but it ain’t ever gonna happen. Guess I might as well get this over with.” He uses his walker to slowly make his way into the kitchen.
“Get what over with?” Miller asks him.
Gramps opens a drawer where he keeps a lot of his paperwork. He rifles through it and then pulls out a folder, bringing it back to the living room with him. He tosses it on the table in front of Miller. “I wanted to wait and have my lawyer tell you about it after I was dead. Thought it’d be funnier that way. But sometimes I think I might never die, and you don’t have much time left to apply for college.”
Miller pulls the folder toward him. He opens it and begins to read the first page. It looks like a will. Miller scans over it and chuckles. “You actually left me the rights to your air in the will?” Miller asks, looking up from the papers.
Gramps rolls his eyes. “I’ve been telling you this for ten years, but you keep laughing at me!”
Miller shrugs. “Maybe I’m missing the joke? How can you will someone air?”
“They’re air rights, you dumbass!” Gramps pushes back in his chair. “Bought them when I was thirty, back when me and your grandma lived in New York. Bastards have been trying to get me to sell them for years, but I already told you I was giving them to you, and I don’t break my word.”
I’m just as confused as Miller, I guess. “What are air rights?”
Gramps rolls his head. “They don’t teach you kids anything in school. It’s like owning land, but in bigger cities, you can actually own parts of the air so people can’t build in front of your building or on top of your building. I own a small chunk of that air in Union Square. Worth about a quarter of a million dollars last time I checked.”
Miller chokes on nothing. He keeps choking. Sputtering. I pat his back before he stands up and points down at the folder. “Are you kidding me?”
Gramps shakes his head. “I know how much you want to go to that school down in Austin. My lawyer said it’s gonna cost you about a hundred and fifty thousand to get a degree. Plus, you’ll have taxes to pay when you sell the rights. I figure you’ll have enough left to help with a down payment on a house someday or maybe travel. Or buy some film equipment. I don’t know. I ain’t making you rich, but it’s better than nothing.”
Miller looks like he’s about to cry. He paces the room, trying not to look at his grandpa. When he does, his eyes are red, but he’s laughing. “All this time you kept saying I was inheriting air. I thought you were just being you.” He walks over to his gramps and hugs him. Then he pulls back. “And what do you mean you’ve been waiting to die first before telling me about this? Why?”
Gramps shrugs. “I thought it’d be funny. Me getting in one final joke after I’m dead, when you weren’t expecting it.”
Miller rolls his eyes. Then looks at me, smiling. I can tell we’re having the same thought, and nothing makes me happier
than knowing we might be in the same city after I graduate next year. At the same school. We might even have some of the same classes.
“You do realize what this means, right?” I ask him.
Miller shrugs.
“The University of Texas? Your school color will be orange, Miller.”
He laughs. So does his grandpa. But Miller doesn’t realize the jokes aren’t over. I’m saving one of them for prom.
I bought the perfect dress for our special occasion. It’s the most atrocious shade of orange I could find.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I want to thank you for reading this book. I seem to be unable to stick to one genre, so the fact that you guys support whatever I’m in the mood to write is the thing I cherish most about my career.
I tend to always have a huge list of people to thank with each book, but I think I covered almost everyone I know in the acknowledgments for Verity. While I could do that again, I’m going to condense these acknowledgments to focus first on a few people who had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of this novel. Kimberly Parker and Tyler Easton, I want to thank you guys for being such an epic example for all parents. The way you both coparent is inspiring and hopeful, and I feel you guys need to be acknowledged. I’d also love to thank Murphy Fennell and Nick Hopkins for the same reason and for being the two best parents my niece could hope for.
Thank you to those who read through this book as I was writing it. Brooke, Murphy, Amber Goleb, Tasara, Talon, Maria, Anjanette, Vannoy, and Lin: I appreciate your honesty and feedback. You all make me want to continue to grow in this career, and that’s why I continue to bombard you with first drafts.
A huge thanks to my agent, Jane Dystel, and the entire team. You guys continue to amaze me with your continued support, knowledge, and encouragement.
Thank you to Anh Schluep and everyone at Montlake Romance. This is our first book together, and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the entire Montlake team. I can’t wait to create more stories with you guys!
Thank you to Lindsey Faber for being an absolute delight to work with. I hope I get to keep you forever.
To all of my author friends, readers, bloggers, bookstagrammers, booktubers, industry professionals, and the like. Thank you for being part of this wonderful book world. The creativity inside all of you keeps me inspired.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © Julien Poupard
Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including the bestselling women’s fiction novel It Ends with Us and the bestselling psychological thriller Verity. She has won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance three years in a row—for Confess (2015), It Ends with Us (2016), and Without Merit (2017). Confess was adapted into a seven-episode online series. In 2015, Hoover and her family founded the Bookworm Box, a bookstore and monthly subscription service that offers signed novels donated by authors. All profits go to various charities each month to help those in need. Hoover lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys. Visit www.colleenhoover.com.
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