Page 67 of The Probability of Us

I laugh, I’m not explaining this well. “Right, but he offered me a promotion I guess?”

“Oh my god,” she exclaims, and I jump from the volume of her words. “Analise, that’s incredible.”

“I’d have to move to D.C.,” I add, and her excitement fades fractionally but she smiles.

“You and Warren could be together then.”

My lips tremble at that, falling into a frown. “The position reports directly to the CFO.”

I wait for her to realize who the CFO is because I can’t bring myself to say his name in that sentence. Her face falls when she remembers.

“No,” she breathes and all I can do is nod. “What did you say?”

“I said I needed to think about it, because I didn’t want to say no right away.” I know she doesn’t need a reminder of why I’m hesitant to take this. That to me, this is setting us up for ruin again when we just mended the fractures between us.

“Did Warren say anything about it?”

I shake my head. “I haven’t let him yet. They offered it to me yesterday after work and when we got home, I cried, and he just held me. I think he knew I couldn’t talk about it then, but he knew what I was thinking too. I’m going to talk to him tonight, but I can’t take it, right? They didn’t know we were together when they offered it and telling them would only make it more complicated.”

“Ana.” She only uses that nickname when she wants me to listen, when Ineedto listen. “Technically, he’s your boss now anyway, there’s just a few people in-between. I think this is something you’re going to have to face regardless of if you take the job or not.”

Shit.She’s right. I hadn’t really thought about that since this acquisition is so new, but actuarial departments report up to the CFO.

“But if you don’t take the job, are you just going to stay here while he goes back? When does the long-distance end? When do you get to be together?”

I look down and twist the sole of my sneaker into the ground, thankful to not be in heels. I wear those far too often and my feet are glad for the break tonight. “I thought we’d figure that out at some point,” I mumble, knowing exactly what her response is going to be before she says it.

“You thought that last time too.”

And there it is. My greatest fear. That this time will end exactly the same, that we’re doomed to be an almost and not a forever. I want to do this differently, but what if it doesn’t matter in the end?

I finally look up to meet her eyes and give her a small, grateful smile. “I’ll talk to him. I don’t want this to be the same as last time.”

“Good.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes. “You guys deserve a happy ending after everything you’ve been through.”

We head back to the table, arm in arm. The trivia host looks like he’s just about ready to start asking for team name submissions—perfect timing. I slyly glance at Trent and he gives me the smallest nod but it’s enough. I smile as Ali takes her seat beside him.

Little does she know she’s getting her happily ever after tonight.

“Do we have to go get our sheet?” Warren asks when I sit down, and I laugh.

“You know there was this magical discovery that happened in the past six years.” I’m smirking as I pull out my phone and hold it up for him to see. “It’s called technology, maybe you’ve heard of it.”

Back when we won it was still a paper and pencil process, but about two years ago it switched over to a fully electronic process that’s so much easier, and makes the games go by faster since there’s no reading of answers or manual collection process.

The corner of his mouth quirks up even though his eyes try to glare at me. He takes my phone and looks at it with a puzzled face. “How do I use thistechnologyyou speak of?”

My grin grows, and I lean in to kiss him as I take my phone back. I unlock it and lean into him as I pull up the website. “What’s our team name?”

He doesn’t answer so I glance up at him and he’s looking at me like I’m insane. “You better be joking.”

I laugh as he takes the phone and entersThe Summersand adds a sun emoji next to it, but before he can hit submit, I take it back and add a heart emoji—so it’s just like the one we wrote up on that scoreboard all those years ago.

After I submit it, I look up at him and his eyes are glassy. His hand comes to rest gently on my cheek and holds me like I’m the most precious object he’s ever touched. He leans in so slowly it’s like time keeps pausing to let me soak in each second of him looking at me this way.

He pauses when his lips are just touching mine. “I’m still taking your last name.”

“I’ve heard all this before,” I whisper even though my heart flutters and my hands want to reach out and pull him closer.

---