Page 198 of Zero Chance

Pulling back, Waverly looked into my eyes with concern.“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

I bounced my eyebrows suggestively.“I mean, I have a couple of really good ideas of how you can help me cope, but yeah…eventually.”

Faith groaned.“Oh my God, Keene,really?”

Ignoring her, I touched Waverly’s cheek.“I have you now,” I whispered.“I’m gonna be just fine.”

EPILOGUE

KEENE

August 2025

“This is the last box,” I announced, lugging the cardboard carton into my bedroom and dropping it heavily on top of a dozen other boxes that littered the floor.

Waverly poked her head out of the closet, where she was hanging up slacks and dresses, and my heart pounded with delight.

I still couldn’t believe she’d finally agreed to move in with me.It had taken me four damn months to talk her into it after she’d left her parents’ house and found a way-too-expensive, way-too-cramped, way-too-shitty one-bedroom apartment to live in.But finally, I’d won her over and drawn her to Archer House.

Or maybe it’d been Damien’s cheap-as-fuck rent and big, spacious kitchen and not the fact that she could wake up each morning with me wrapped around her that had actually changed her mind.But I was going to continue to believe it was all me.

“Did you find Bessie?”she asked.

That damn cow.

First of all, it was a stuffedcow.Weird.But aside from that, someotherguy had given it to her.I know, I know.It’d been a gift from her babysitter back when she was fucking nine, and there’d been no romantic undertones around it at all, but still.I got jealous over stupid shit, alright?And I didn’t like knowing some other dude—whether he was currently unalive or not—still owned a piece of her affections enough that she wanted to keep a present from him.

Plus, I had serious issues about havinganykind of stuffed animal on my bed—or even on what Waverly’s mother had reminded me would now beourbed.That had been my limit.No fucking stuffed animals.

Her dad—who had thankfully reconciled with her mom—had commiserated with my plight and offered to take the ugly-ass cow back home with them and leave it on Waverly’s childhood bed, but Waverly had blasted me with her big brown eyes, and her vagina powers had kicked in until I was throwing up my hands in defeat.

“Fuck.Fine.The cow can stay,” I muttered moodily.

But I guess she still hadn’t trusted me not toaccidentallylose Bessie in the move because she’d looked for the fucking thing in each new box I carried inside.

Which meant I was totally prepared for her question this time as I dug my hand into the open top and said, “Oh, you mean…this guy?”

“Bessie.”She sighed gratefully and opened her arms as I tossed him to her.

Catching the black and white blob to her chest, she closed her eyes in contentment and hugged it lovingly to her chest—making my teeth clench becauseIwanted to be the only thing lovingly smashed to those breasts—and she sent me a grateful look.“Thank you.”

Her smile made all the heat I was going to catch from my buddies for having a damned stuffed animal on my bed worth it.And I plunged my hand back into the box, saying, “It was just hanging out in here with its new…roommate.”

And I pulled up a second animal.

Waverly paused in the middle of setting her cow in the center of the pillows at the head of the bed and looked over.

Her eyebrows shot up in question.“What isthat?”

“This is Xaden,” I answered happily.“I got Bessie a buddy.”And tossing him onto the mattress, next to the lame cow, I checked them out together, sitting next to each other before nodding my approval.

Waverly, on the other hand, shook her head in confusion before she turned to face me with both hands on her hips as if outraged.“You made such a stink about havingonestuffed animal on the bed that you had to go out and get asecondone?”

“I mean…” I shrugged.“If there’s going to be a stuffed animalat allon our bed, it at least has to be something badass, like a dragon.”I motioned pointedly to Xaden.“You know, to make the cow look cooler.So… They kind of need each other.Don’t you think?”

Waverly blinked at the lime green dragon that made poor Bessie look very monochromatic and boring.Which had basically been done on purpose because my stuffed animal gift had to stand out way more thanZane’s—may he rest in peace.No offense, bro, seriously.But suck it.My presents were better than yours.

“That thing’s adragon?”Eyebrows furrowed in doubt, Waverly glanced at the pair, only to turn back and smirk knowingly.“And you named it Xaden?Really?”

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