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“Even better. They have a few more auditions to get through, but the casting director basically said I had it in the bag.”
“That’s incredible,” he said when he got in on the driver’s side.
I sagged backward. “I’ve worked so hard to get to this point. I can’t wait for Academy to be over, so I can step into this new role.”
“All the possibilities.”
“And you,” I said, turning his face toward me.
“What about me?”
“I want this to work this time, Maddox.”
He drew my face toward his. Our lips sealed together. The promises neither of us had been able to utter all those years before. The ones we’d hoped for and broken time and time again. It was all spread before us on a platter.
“Maybe we should get a room tonight,” I said baldly.
He grinned. “Now who can’t keep their hands to themselves?”
I groaned as he pulled away and started the car. “Not fair.”
And despite the levity, I could see the shadows of fear in his irises. We’d been here before, and as wonderful as it was, there was always the fear that it wouldn’t work out. That I’d go back to LA and forget him. I refused to let that happen this time.
“Fine. What’s the plan anyway?” I said with a pout.
“We’re meeting Lila, Cole, and Marley for lunch at Centennial.”
“That’s a choice,” I said with a laugh.
Centennial Olympic Park was at the heart of downtown Atlanta with water shooting out of the iconic rings that kids ran through all summer. It was also tourist central and not really a place we’d casually go to when there were a million other places to do lunch.
He shrugged. “I haven’t been in years.”
“All right. Are we going to eat in the CNN Center, like real tourists? Or walk down Peachtree?”
“Which Peachtree?” he asked with a laugh. “They still confuse me.”
“Oh, poor thing. You really are a tourist.”
Sometimes, I forgot that I’d grown up in Atlanta and not Savannah. The coastal city had always felt more like home even though I’d spent nine months out of the year in the ATL until my eighteenth birthday.
Maddox squeezed my hand and drove through the weekend Atlanta traffic, finding parking near the giant Ferris wheel, which lit up the streets at night. I took his hand as we headed into the park and found Cole, Lila, and Marley already seated at a table, eating a huge array of food from The Varsity.
“There are my girls,” I said, crushing my two best friends to me. “I missed your faces.”
“How’d it go?” Lila asked.
“Excellent!”
“You got the part?” Marley asked.
“Well, I won’t know for a few weeks, but I think I have it in the bag.” I hugged Cole next. “Hey, handsome.”
“Hey, Josie. We didn’t know what you wanted. So, we got a bit of everything.”
I realized the spread before us was way too much food for just the three of them. “Thanks. There’s a reason you’re my favorite.”
Cole smirked. “The food is the reason?”
I took the seat next to Lila, and Maddox sat next to me. “Nah, probably because I was there when the two of you started. I was responsible for those viral pictures of y’all at the UGA game,” I said, putting my hand to my chest. “I had to be right.”
Lila smacked me. “Shush you,” she said with a laugh.
Cole put a possessive arm around her shoulders. “Hey, we like her to be right, don’t we, Sunflower?”
Marley gagged. “You should be glad Derek isn’t here. He’d be making fun of y’all so bad.”
“Where is the lovely Derek Ballentine?” I asked.
“Work. He said he’d meet up with us later,” Mars said. She looked between me and her brother. “And you two? Holding hands?”
Lila squealed. She flipped her blonde hair off of her shoulders and leaned forward. “Is it official? Are y’all back together?”
Maddox and I shared a glance. We hadn’t defined anything, but I couldn’t deny that I wanted that.
“Leave them be,” Cole said, tugging his girlfriend back to him.
“Well?” Mars asked her brother. “I can be annoying and persistent. I don’t have my other half telling me to be less annoying.”
I snorted. “Derek would encourage it.”
Marley grinned. “True.”
Maddox’s gaze swept back to mine. “Yeah, I guess we are.”
My body melted at those words. It had taken cajoling from his sister for him to even admit it. But fuck, what else were we doing? I wasn’t just fucking around here. I wanted this. I’d made myself clear. It was him that I’d thought I’d have to convince.
“Oh good,” I said, planting a kiss on him. “That clears that up.”
Maddox rolled his eyes at me and draped an arm around me. “You dragged me out here just to get me to admit it.”
Marley snorted. “As if you needed to be convinced. You’ve been obsessed with her since you were fifteen.”
