What the fuck does that have to do with the fan experience?

  “Me too,” Jenna says.

  And I feel like I’m on the ice and a tough team is taking shots left and right, and I don’t know who to block next.

  With a happy shrug, Zaire turns to Everly. “It’d be great for them to see how you pulled this off. Does that work for you?”

  Everly’s eyes flash with confusion or maybe mistrust, but she blinks it off a second later. “Of course.” She turns to me, swallows, then says, “And congrats, Max. I should…go sit in…on this Zoom call. Good luck.”

  She heads off before anyone else. We need to move up the timeline on our convo real fast.

  Because this potential deal has the power to trip us up big time. It’s a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t kind of problem.

  44

  OUT LOUD

  Everly

  When Max buzzes that he’s at my place later that night, I hit the open button on my app so fast. My nerves are frayed thin after this morning.

  I swing open the door to my home in record time and he’s bounding up the stairs two by two.

  I peer around the hallway cautiously, even though my building is small and I never see my neighbors. But there are cameras everywhere. What if someone sees us hanging out? My stomach churns. How long can we get away with this? This morning wasn’t even a close call, but I hated myself for standing there and patently lying by omission.

  I wiggle my fingers, urging Max inside my home. When I lock the door and shut out the world, I breathe a bigger sigh of relief than I want to feel. “Hey.”

  “Hey, you. You okay?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know,” I say. We texted during the day, but I was busy with meetings and couldn’t let myself get distracted by spiraling too far into a relationship funk. I really can’t do that. I can’t risk being distracted. Well, any more than I already am. “Are you going to take it?”

  He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he tilts his head, studies me, then takes my hand and leads me to the couch. “You jealous?”

  “Yes!” I say, aggravated.

  “Is that why you’re asking? Because I hope you know there is no other woman in the entire universe who could interest me. You have ruined me for everyone. So there.”

  My nerves settle but only somewhat. “I’m still jealous.”

  “Why?” He sounds amused. Maybe delighted.

  I groan, frustrated with the way we’re hamstrung. “Because I want to stake my claim on you and I can’t,” I blurt out. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to stand there this morning and just listen to all those dating suggestions? I wanted to drape an arm around you and say, he’s taken, back the fuck off.”

  His smile is the biggest cat-who-ate-the-canary grin ever. “That is the hottest thing you’ve ever said, Everly.”

  Maybe it is, but I can’t enjoy it. Because I can’t enjoy him the way I want—out loud. I want him to be mine. All mine. So I ask again, “What are you going to do about the deal?”

  He sighs heavily, his smile burning off. “This deal is a big problem.” He takes a beat. “If I turn it down, it looks like I have something to hide. If I say yes, what if someone figures out we’re together? And then I look like a liar.”

  I recoil at the prospect. “That’s bad. It would ruin all the work we’ve done.”

  “Exactly. That’s not good for my rep. But if I turn it down, then it looks to the team and my agent like I’m not playing along. Then Clementine might think about not renewing me.”

  My gut churns harder. I don’t want him traded away. I want him to stay. But the powers that be want him to take this deal. “But do you want to take it? You didn’t answer when I asked earlier,” I say evenly. Well, as evenly as I can. The thought of Max being the face of a dating app makes me want to claw things.

  He sneers. “I thought I made that clear. In case I didn’t—fuck no.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask, but this time I’m asking because I like this one-track mind side of him.

  He grabs my jaw. “Sunshine, you are the only woman I want. Full stop. Me promoting a dating app is like you promoting a butcher.”

  I can’t help but smile, but it doesn’t last since I can’t figure out how to solve the problem. “So what happens next? I don’t want to make more complications for you.”

  “You’re not making them.” He drags a hand through his thick hair. “I just wish it were coming to me next month, once everything is done, and the doc is about to shoot. Right now if I turn it down, I look like a jackass to management,” he says, frustration in his tone.

  I sigh heavily, racking my brain. “Well, is it the worst thing if you just make a profile?” The question tastes bitter on my tongue.

  He narrows his eyes and inches away from me like he needs some distance. “You want me to do that?” He sounds offended.

  “Max, I don’t want you to. I’m just trying to figure this out.”

  “Is there a reason you want me to?” He’s tense everywhere, his muscles tight.

  Oh god. This is a man who has major trust issues. “No,” I say, meaning it from the bottom of my heart as I rope my hands around his neck. “I’m trying to weigh all the options, but you have to know—I meant what I said earlier. I don’t want anyone else to even think they have a chance with you.”

  He presses his forehead to mine, relaxing again. “Good. Because no one does. You have me, Everly. You fucking have me.”

  I feel his certainty in my bones. It gives me the courage to even think about doing something risky. I pull back to meet his face. “Max, let’s get through the next event, but once we do, I could try to talk to my boss.”

  His eyes light up like a thousand sparklers on the Fourth of July. “Yeah?”

  I nod, even though the prospect is terrifying—like offering my job for the chopping block. “There’s not really any other way around this than for me to ask Zaire if I can keep my job, while…”

  “Being with me?” he supplies.

  I love that he says being rather than dating. Being feels deeper. A promise. A commitment.

  “Yes. But I don’t know how to say it to her or when exactly. And I don’t want to organize it while I’m still working on this makeover. I just need a little more time to plan out how to do it. Can we figure it out once we finish the project? In a week or so? Does that buy you enough time without giving Date Night an answer?”

  His smile isn’t disappearing. It’s growing. “I can buy all that time for you. You’re worth it,” he says, then he kisses me like we’re together.

  Except the clock is also ticking, and it sounds a little more foreboding than it did before.

  In the morning, he takes off early to work out with the guys while I get ready to meet up with my friends for a Saturday morning pole class. Before I leave, my camera app shows there’s a delivery for me. Curious, I head downstairs and grab a soft padded envelope.

  From Lace and Wishes.

  Huh. I’m not familiar with that shop. I don’t remember ordering from there. I trot back upstairs, anticipation crackling under my skin. Before the door even closes behind me, I rip it open.

  When I take out the soft seashell pink tissue and unwrap the gift, my breath catches. He sent me a pair of panties. Again.

  They’re royal blue again—team colors. Again.

  But this time they’re custom-made. With his number stitched on the front.

  45

  INESCAPABLE THINGS

  Everly

  I’d thought this trick would be hard. But after I invert to a leg hang and drop my right arm, it feels smooth and easy enough to release my back leg.

  “Yes! I knew you would get your butterfly on the first try,” Kyla says as she spots my hips.

  I swear her faith in me before I had my own has helped me pull this off. I’m smiling stupidly, even with my nose against the pole since I’m fully upside down. Or maybe because of it—I didn’t expect to see this view. I like this view.

  After a few seconds, I flip back over, releasing from the move I didn’t truly expect to nail on the first try. “I didn’t think it would be that easy,” I say, kind of amazed. “But thank you—for everything.”

  “You did it all. You’ve been doing inverts and you’re strong,” she says and there’s that word again—strong—one I’m trying to step into more and more. I feel stronger every day.

  “We knew you’d get it too,” Maeve says proudly, clapping from a few feet away.

  Josie’s cheering too, and so is Fable. The whole class is, actually, including the woman with the blue hair who nailed this move a few weeks ago—when I longed to be like her.

  I still feel self-conscious walking around the Upside Down studio in only a sports bra and shorts, my scars on full display. I’m still hyper-aware of the ways my body is different. But one look around this place with women of all shapes and sizes—tall, short, pear-shaped, plus-size, rectangular, thin, athletic—and I should have known no one would look at me differently. But some things you just have to experience to believe.

  When class ends, we leave and for a brief second, I imagine Max waiting for me after class—well, when I don’t go with my friends. I picture us grabbing a bite to eat, doing life together like that.

  It’s such a lovely image it makes my chest ache. Because I know it’ll be hard to get there.

  On the street, Maeve declares, “We need to celebrate your butterfly with lunch.”

  I put Max out of my mind. But that’s easier said than done since once we’ve ordered at our favorite diner, Josie turns to me and says thoughtfully, “Your makeover project is almost over, and it looks like you’ve pulled it off. The perception of Max is way more positive lately.”

  “You’ve been checking?”

  She gives me a look like what did you expect. “I’m a librarian. I like information. I like understanding things. So yes, I did a little poking around into how the Max image makeover was going.”

  “I love you,” I say with a laugh.

  She preens, then says, “I know.”

  Fable looks my way. “Maybe that makes you the kickass movie heroine who takes down bad images in a single bound.”

  Maeve shrugs happily. “Whatever you’re running for, Everly—you have my vote.”

  Their support, both of my efforts in pole, but also with work, lifts me up. Makes me think I really can take the next step. And because they are such unapologetic friends, I don’t need to call upon Herculean strength to say the next thing. In fact, it’s really easy to tell them what I told Max last night, “I think I’m going to try to talk to my boss about that whole unwritten rule.”

  Maeve’s hazel eyes sparkle. “And you’re going to smash it,” she says excitedly.

  “We’re here for you,” Fable says, and I think that’s exactly what I needed to hear.

  “Yes, we are,” Josie seconds.

  “You’ve got this,” Maeve adds. “Because you two have that no-question-about-it love.”

  I pause, tilting my head. “I didn’t use the L-word.”

  Maeve smiles. “My sweet summer child, you didn’t have to.”

  “Is it just that obvious?”

  Josie snort-laughs. “Like an open book.”

  But Maeve sighs contemplatively, her eyes a little dreamy. “With love, I don’t think you handle it. It handles you. It’s like a painting you’re working on, and you think you’re making the art but really the art’s making you.”

  I let that soak in—the idea that there’s an inescapability to love. With Max, I feel like there’s a riot in my heart, and I can’t do a damn thing to stop it. Still, I want to be prepared. “So what happens next in this inescapable love story? When I go into the office and talk to my boss?”

  Maeve reaches into her bag and takes out her tarot deck. “I could ask Tatiana?”

  Fable stares at her, too amused. “You named your deck?”

  “Of course I did,” she says, then shuffles and proceeds to draw—rather deliberately— the Three of Cups, an image of three maidens holding up three chalices. There are four of us here, but it feels like Tatiana knows something. “Tatiana says we’re here for you, babe,” Maeve says.

  “We are,” Josie and Fable echo.

  Maybe that’s some of the strength I needed too.

  After I shower and get ready for a game night, I slide on the panties Max sent me, admiring the way I look in them. Claimed. Then I take a very sexy selfie.

  Everly: Some pre-game inspo.

  Max: I fucking love them. And I have never been more inspired in my life.

  That evening I’m watching from the press box as Max maneuvers a puck around the trapezoid, flipping it to Miles, who tears off down the ice. For a few seconds, I think Max might get another assist, but New York blocks Miles’s shot and one of their forwards gets the rebound.

  The New York forward flies down the ice, trying to score on a breakaway. But my sexy beast of a goalie drops to his knees, leg pads spreading out to the sides, saving the goal.

  I gasp audibly. “Yes,” I say with a quiet fist pump.

  Someone gently nudges me.

  It’s Jenna.

  Oh, shit. Maybe I wasn’t so quiet. I’m not supposed to show favoritism, even though of course I want us to win.

  She smiles my way.

  I whisper a quiet thank you.

  I bite my tongue the rest of the game, but it’s getting harder to swallow this four-letter word.

  After the shutout, I’m waiting by the tunnel when Max emerges, sweaty and victorious. “Want me to get you a yacht tonight to talk to the press?”

  “Yes, sunshine, a four-hundred-footer,” he says.

  I freeze. But then I remind myself he’s called me sunshine in front of people before. At least I think he has? I rack my brain. Yes, he has. I breathe again.

  But working with him is starting to feel like watching my own back all the time and that’s a tall order. I ask, as professionally as I can, “Can you talk to the media? Shutout and all.”

  “Yes.” His eyes sparkle when he says that one word, and I bet he’s thinking of our say yes mantra. But that’s a problem too. Everything between us means something else. Everything could trip us up.

  When he finishes chatting with the press and strides back into the corridor with me, he nods toward a man with a similar jawline to his and a woman with cool blue eyes, who are waiting there along with Max’s cutie-pie nephew.

  I home in on Kade. “Did you see your uncle save all those goals tonight?”

  The kid beams. “I did and he blocked alllll of them.”

  “He’s very good at that,” I say, then come face-to-face with the parents of the man I’ve fallen for. I stick out a hand to shake with his mother, then his father. “So great to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert.”

  “It’s lovely to meet you, Everly,” his mom says, and her smile is knowing.

  “Max raves about your work,” his dad says, his eyes twinkling with a secret.

  My throat is tight with emotions from this simple fact—that his parents are playing along. But I wish none of us were. I wish this were real. I wish I were telling them how hard I’ve fallen for their son. What a good man they’ve raised. What a wonderful person this grumpy, broody, storm cloud of a goalie turned out to be.

  But I can’t here so I smile and say, “I’m so glad. Max is great to work with.”

  And I’ve never felt like more of a publicist, spinning a story, than right now.

  “What’s wrong?” Max asks me later that night at his place.

  “Nothing,” I say flatly as I play with the kitten, dangling a feather toy I bought Athena.

  “Something’s wrong,” he says, setting a big hand on my thigh.

  This man can always read me, so I sigh and let go of the toy. “I loved meeting your parents but I wanted to tell them how amazing you are. I wanted to say your son is incredible and he takes care of me and adores me and I adore him, and I couldn’t say that. I just couldn’t.”

  His lips quirk up. “You adore me.”

  I roll my eyes. “As if you didn’t know.”

  “Say it again though. I like the way it sounds on your lips.”

  “I adore you,” I huff.

  “Still like it even when you’re irritated.”

  “I just…I want to speed up time,” I admit. And I want to tell him how deeply I feel. But I don’t want to say I’ve fallen in love with him while we’re only together in the dark. I want to tell him outside, under the sun, when I don’t have to hide. I’m tired of hiding. I’ve stopped hiding my scars in pole class. I’ve stopped hiding them from him. I don’t want to hide us any longer.

  “Me too,” he says with a sympathetic smile, then he runs a hand down the buttons of my blouse. “But until then, I know how to pass the time.”

  I’ve learned how to not slide back into the past thanks to my grounding exercises. Surely, I can root myself in the present. In his touch, in his scent, in our…inescapability. I hold all that close as we head to the bedroom. I undress to my bra and panties, and while it’s obviously not a pole I grab hold of the doorway like I’m doing a trick, strike a sultry vixen-like pose, then toss my hair back.

  From the bed, he growls as he sheds the rest of his clothes. “Get over here in my jersey.”

  “Oh, these?” I ask, hooking my thumb in the waistband of my very sexy panties.

  “Yes. Been thinking about them all day.”

  I undo my bra and drop it to the floor as I walk over to him, teasing at the waistband of the lace as I do. Running my fingers down the thirty-three on the front. “So what exactly were you thinking about?”

  “That you had my number against your very pretty pussy. Now why don’t you put this gorgeous pussy on my face,” he commands. “Because I’m really, really hungry.”

  I take my sweet time, sliding off the panties, then tossing them to him. Because my man’s addicted, he brings them to his nose and inhales before he lets them go. “Now, sit on my face. Since what I’ve really been thinking about all day is eating you. You’re mine, Everly. All mine.”