Page 125 of The Romance Line

Oh god. This is a man who has major trust issues. “No,” I say, meaning it from the bottom of my heart as I rope my hands around his neck. “I’m trying to weigh all the options, but you have to know—I meant what I said earlier. I don’t want anyone else to even think they have a chance with you.”

He presses his forehead to mine, relaxing again. “Good. Because no one does. You have me, Everly. You fucking have me.”

I feel his certainty in my bones. It gives me the courage to even think about doing something risky. I pull back to meet his face. “Max, let’s get through the next event, but once we do, I could try to talk to my boss.”

His eyes light up like a thousand sparklers on the Fourth of July. “Yeah?”

I nod, even though the prospect is terrifying—like offering my job for the chopping block. “There’s not really any other way around this than for me to ask Zaire if I can keep my job, while…”

“Being with me?” he supplies.

I love that he saysbeingrather thandating. Being feels deeper. A promise. A commitment.

“Yes. But I don’t know how to say it to her or when exactly. And I don’t want to organize it while I’m still working on this makeover. I just need a little more time to plan out how to do it. Can we figure it out once we finish the project? In a week or so? Does that buy you enough time without giving Date Night an answer?”

His smile isn’t disappearing. It’s growing. “I can buy all that time for you. You’re worth it,” he says, then he kisses me like we’re together.

Except the clock is also ticking, and it sounds a little more foreboding than it did before.

In the morning, he takes off early to work out with the guys while I get ready to meet up with my friends for a Saturday morning pole class. Before I leave, my camera app shows there’s a delivery for me. Curious, I head downstairs and grab a soft padded envelope.

From Lace and Wishes.

Huh. I’m not familiar with that shop. I don’t remember ordering from there. I trot back upstairs, anticipation crackling under my skin. Before the door even closes behind me, I rip it open.

When I take out the soft seashell pink tissue and unwrap the gift, my breath catches. He sent me a pair of panties. Again.

They’re royal blue again—team colors. Again.

But this time they’re custom-made. With his number stitched on the front.

45

INESCAPABLE THINGS

Everly

I’d thought this trick would be hard. But after I invert to a leg hang and drop my right arm, it feels smooth and easy enough to release my back leg.

“Yes! I knew you would get your butterfly on the first try,” Kyla says as she spots my hips.

I swear her faith in me before I had my own has helped me pull this off. I’m smiling stupidly, even with my nose against the pole since I’m fully upside down. Or maybe because of it—I didn’t expect to see this view. I like this view.

After a few seconds, I flip back over, releasing from the move I didn’t truly expect to nail on the first try. “I didn’t think it would be that easy,” I say, kind of amazed. “But thank you—for everything.”

“You did it all. You’ve been doing inverts and you’re strong,” she says and there’s that word again—strong—oneI’m trying to step into more and more. I feel stronger every day.

“We knew you’d get it too,” Maeve says proudly, clapping from a few feet away.

Josie’s cheering too, and so is Fable. The whole class is, actually, including the woman with the blue hair who nailed this move a few weeks ago—when I longed to be like her.

I still feel self-conscious walking around the Upside Down studio in only a sports bra and shorts, my scars on full display. I’m still hyper-aware of the ways my body is different. But one look around this place with women of all shapes and sizes—tall, short, pear-shaped, plus-size, rectangular, thin, athletic—and I should have known no one would look at me differently. But some things you just have to experience to believe.

When class ends, we leave and for a brief second, I imagine Max waiting for me after class—well, when I don’t go with my friends. I picture us grabbing a bite to eat, doing life together like that.

It’s such a lovely image it makes my chest ache. Because I know it’ll be hard to get there.

On the street, Maeve declares, “We need to celebrate your butterfly with lunch.”

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