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“He is,” I admit. “But you’re my very, very close number two.” Water runs in the bathroom, and then the door opens. I hold my breath, wondering if Maverick is going to come back in. Instead, I hear him open the fridge. “Callie,” I murmur, my voice so low she has to lean in to hear, “I think you were right. I love him.”
She gasps, nowhere near as quiet as I’d like her to be.
“Shh!” I hiss.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “But really?”
“Yeah,” I whisper back. “I—I was just overwhelmed with the feeling last night, and I almost told him. But I think he knew what I was going to say, because he told me to wait until I wasn’t upset.”
Callie clasps her hands under her chin excitedly. “Are you still going to tell him?”
“I don’t know. Nothing would ever be the same again.”
“The same as what?” she asks incredulously. “As now? The universe where you go months without speaking and are both so miserable without each other, you’re total duds to hang out with?”
I gape at her, offended. “What?”
“Sorry, but it’s true. Neither of you have been fun since that drunk dude had his say.” Callie bumps my shoulder with hers, presumably to soften the blow. “My point is, things have already changed majorly. Your lives are so different now than they were a year ago, and so is your relationship. You’ll never go back to the way it was before. It’s impossible.”
I drag my toes through the carpet as I mull it over. “Maybe you’re right.”
With a smug look, she puts her palms up as if to saySee?
Maverick’s footsteps start moving toward the bedroom, and I clamp my mouth shut. When he arrives in the doorway, he leans against the doorframe and takes a swig from a red Gatorade. I find myself transfixed with the way his throat moves as he swallows. “Are you guys done?”
Callie leans toward me and stage whispers, “Let me know how the sex is.”
“Callie!” I shriek, horrified.
Maverick looks unamused. “You can sleep on the couch if you want,” he tells Callie. “But it’s the middle of the night, and I’m going back to bed with my girl.”
My stomach flip-flops at the words and the casual way he says them. I’m frozen, feeling like I’m on the precipice of a dream I don’t want to end. After all that's happened, could it really be that everything is about to fall into place?
“Well, that’s just cute.” Callie stands up and makes a show of stretching her arms toward the ceiling. “I’m gonna go home. Glad you’re alive, Zale.”
Coming back to myself, I get to my feet and pull her into a hug. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”
With her chin on my shoulder, Callie murmurs so only I can hear: “You look happy. You’ve got to go for it.”
Then she’s gone, turning on her heel and waltzing right out the bedroom door. She says something to Maverick as she passes, and he flicks his gaze at her but doesn’t respond. He and I look at each other as we listen to her steps recede, the front door opening and closing, and then the echoing silence of the apartment.
“What did she just say to you?” I ask him.
“You first. What was all the whispering about?”
I raise my chin in a challenge. My voice comes out in a nonchalant, taunting tone that I almost don’t recognize. “You told me you didn’t want to hear about it until the morning.”
His eyes flash, first with surprise and then with a dark hunger that sends a chill down my spine. “I did?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Well, it’s morning now.”
I can feel my pulse thrumming in my neck as we stand there, each daring the other to break first.
It really should be him. He’s the one who didn’t want to talk for five months. He’s the one who didn’t even think he could handle beingfriendswith me, much less more.
But he’s also the one who rushed to my side the second he heard that I needed him. Who didn’t even hesitate to jump in his car and drive to another state for an ill-fated meeting with a stranger. He’s the one I never truly thought was done with me, because it’s just not possible. It’s notpossiblefor us to exist on this planet together and not be in each other’s lives.
