Page 128 of Off Limits

His eyes widened. “Like a date?”

I nodded. Our parents knew about us, and it was only a matter of time before the news spread through my friend group. There was no reason for us to hide anymore.

“I’ve never been on a date before.”

“Me either.” Lifting our joined hands, I pressed a kiss against his knuckles. “But I think a coffee date is a good, low-stress way to pop our date cherries. What do you think?”

“I think you’re amazing,” he said, his voice soft and his eyes full of affection. “And I would love to go on a coffee date with you.”

Grinning, he untangled himself from me and stood. I let him pull me up and followed him out of the living room so we could get ready for our first official date.

Things might still be up in the air when it came to our family and other people accepting us, but none of that mattered as long as I had Asa by my side. He was my person, the one I never thought I wanted but always knew I needed.

That night four years ago might have felt like a mistake at the time, but now I knew it was the start of the most real and incredible love I could have ever asked for. We might not have been ready then, but we sure as hell were ready now, and we had the rest of our lives to make up for the lost time.

EPILOGUE

Four years later

Asa

“Nervous?”Dex asked as he wrapped his arms around me from behind.

I leaned back into his embrace. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

“No.” He pressed a soft kiss against the side of my neck. “But you have nothing to be nervous about.”

I gripped his arms and held on tight, using him to center myself so I could calm the fuck down.

Today was my first book signing, and I’d spent the past two weeks freaking out and convincing myself that no one other than my friends would show up.

A lot had changed in the last four years, but at the same time, things were still the same.

Dex graduated from his physical therapy program a few months ago and had taken a job in the rehab department at the local hospital. His true passion was sports medicine, but hedecided that working in a teaching hospital would be a better fit for him right now so he could continue to learn before moving on to athletic training.

I was insanely proud of how hard he’d worked while in school and loved seeing how happy he was now that he’d achieved his dreams.

He’d also encouraged me to go after my dream of becoming an author after he binged all of my books in only a few months. I resisted at first, convinced that no one would read my books, or worse, that people would read them and hate them, but with his encouragement, I went through the process of editing my manuscripts and getting covers made for the first three books in my fantasy series and self-published them.

I didn’t get a lot of traction on them at first, and I barely made any money. But the reviews I got were glowing, and with Dex’s encouragement, I published the rest of the series over the course of the year.

I’d pretty much given up on the dream that I’d ever be able to make it as a writer when the first book went viral on social media thanks to a book influencer who took a chance on my series and loved it. That had propelled me from not even breaking even on what it cost me to publish the series to having the entire series top the charts in multiple categories.

That helped me find the motivation to keep with it, and in the last two years, I’d published a science fiction series and my paranormal why choose trilogy. I wasn’t a household name, especially since I wrote in niche genres, but I was living my dream of being a published author, and it was all thanks to Dex and his unwavering support.

We stopped camming just before my book went viral, which was perfect timing. I didn’t handle public scrutiny well, and I wasn’t all that eager to find out how readers might react to mebeing a former sex worker. So far no one had put the pieces together and connected my pen name with my cam persona.

Things with our family had gotten better, but they still weren’t great. My mom and Dex’s dad eventually accepted that we were together, but my dad hadn’t, and he used it as an excuse to fully cut me off. Dex’s mom didn’t have a problem with us dating, but her husband and his family did, so things between her and Dex were still strained. I wished things could be different for him, but I had a feeling his stepfather was doing the same thing my dad did and was using our relationship as an excuse to finally get her to cut Dex off.

Our extended family accepted us after getting used to the idea, and as I’d suspected, our little siblings hadn’t even blinked when we’d told them.

Something I hadn’t seen coming was that Dex’s old friends had more of an issue with him dating me than with him dating a guy. They remembered high school Dex, who’d hated me as much as I’d hated him, so it was the stepbrother thing that tripped them up and not him being bi.

He didn’t really talk to any of them anymore and only saw them at major events like weddings, but he’d made new friends when he was in school and had become close with several of his colleagues at the hospital.

I still worked at Legacy Mechanics and had no plans to ever leave. Even if my books happened to take off to the point where I could stop working, I wouldn’t. I loved the family we’d created, and I liked being a mechanic.

It was crazy to think that four years ago I’d been on the verge of homelessness and convinced I’d never want a partner, and now Dex and I were planning to buy a condo together when we found a place we both loved.

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