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“I’ll text her.”
I exhale shakily, and Maverick starts moving us toward the exit. I shuffle along, too tired to argue or even wipe away the tears that won’t stop coming.
AssoonasMaverickopens the door to my apartment, I throw myself on the couch, fully clothed.
“Do you realize you just walked across the carpet with your shoes on?” Maverick asks.
“I’ll vacuum tomorrow,” I mutter, hugging a throw pillow to my chest. I stopped crying at some point during our Uber ride; now I’m just depleted, using my last dregs of energy to answer him.
Through my one cracked eyelid, I watch as Maverick toes his shoes off by the door like I should have.He’s hot,I think, surprising myself. It’s not like I don’tknowthat Maverick is attractive—there have been a few instances where he crawled into my mind atveryinappropriate times, such as when I was in bed with my ex-boyfriend. I’ve always thought of these incidents as one-offs, a natural straying of thoughts.
But right now, something about the way the dim light is hitting his profile, highlighting his sharp jaw and blue eyes and the curve of biceps under his t-shirt, has me entranced.
“Hey,” he says, going to the window and opening the curtain to let in a little more light. “Go to bed. You’ll be more comfortable there.”
I let my eyes fall closed again. “No thanks. I’m fine here.”
“Don’t you want to put on pajamas?”
“No.”
“I’m going to take off your shoes, at least.”
I hear him walk over to me, and then his hands close around my calf. I’m wearing jeans tucked into ankle boots, but I can feel the heat of his touch through the denim. It comforts me, and I focus on that warmth as he unzips one of my boots and works it off my foot. As it hits the floor with athump, I blurt out, “Do you think I’ll ever find her?”
There’s a short pause. Then I feel his hands on my other leg. “Who? Your mom?”
“Yeah.”
“Honestly, I don’t know, Zale.” He unzips my right boot. “I don’t know how all that genealogy stuff works.”
“I still haven’t gotten any genetic matches on that test I did.” My eyes are half open, and I’m lying on my side. I stare at the carpet until all the individual strands blur. “She probably doesn’t even want me to find her,” I say softly.
“Why do you think that?” Anotherthump.
I wiggle my toes inside my socks. “Because she walked out on me and never came back.”
A moment later, Maverick is lowering himself to the ground beside the couch. Something pops and he grunts, but still arranges himself to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of me. He leans back against the coffee table. Our faces are a foot apart, and I find myself staring into his blue eyes, searching for something I can’t name. “You know there might have been a reason.”
I laugh humorlessly. “There was no reason. Not a good one, anyway.”
“I remember you saying that you wonder if there’s something your dad is hiding from you,” Maverick says. “Maybe it’s something that would explain why she did this. Something understandable. Maybe she didn’twantto leave you at all.”
My eyes are desperate to close, to hide from what he’s saying, and I let them. I hate this possibility—that Marie did the right thing. That maybe my dad drove her away.
And at this moment, I’m not prepared to think about it. Not with sleep calling my name.
The silence sits between us for a moment, and then Maverick sighs. “I know you’re tired, and I’m going to let you sleep. But listen to me for a minute.”
“I’m listening.”
“Look at me.”
I do, reluctantly, and he gives me a gentle smile. He leans forward, resting his chin on the cushion next to me. Our faces are close now—an inch apart, maybe two.
“Listen,” he says again. “You are more important to me than baseball. If I had to choose, it would be you. Every time.” He drags the backs of his knuckles across my cheek. Something about that touch, tender and reverent, sends a shiver down my spine. I shut my eyes again, unable to take the intensity in his. “I promise, Azalea. You are never going to live in a world without somebody to love you.”
His words wrap around me like a hug, warming me from the outside in. I’m drifting into pleasant semiconsciousness, and only when I hear Maverick sigh do I realize that I haven’t answered him.
