Would she even let him in the door?
It was the last one that scared him the most, and honestly, he wouldn’t blame her. She had come all the way to Ann Arbor, made an attempt to start patching things up between them, and he had turned her away.
He was a fool, and he hoped like hell she was willing to overlook it.
By the time he pulled into the parking lot that wrapped around her building—some new construction clear across the city from where her old place was—his palms were clammy and nervous sweat beaded his hairline along his forehead and the nape of his neck.
“Alright, Frambough,” he said out loud to himself. “Game time. Go in there and get your girl back.”
And so, he stepped out of his Suburban and made his way into the lobby.
Brent had told him she lived on the eighth floor, so he pressed the UP button at the elevators and impatiently waited for the car to reach the main floor. When it did, he stepped inside and shifted the weight of the massive bouquet to his left side, pressing the eighth-floor button with the shaky fingers of his right hand.
When the elevator reached Lexie’s floor, and the doors slid open, Mitch stood frozen in place.
He loved Lexie, and every moment of the last year spent away from her had been akin to living with half of his heart missing. Now was time to fight for her.
Except he was scared—terrified. If she told him to fuck off and slammed the door in his face, he might never recover.
But if he didn’t try now, didn’t show her he was willing to fight for her, then nothing would ever change. He would never know how she felt, if that spark between them was still there, simply waiting for one of them to reignite it.
With a deep breath, he strode into the hallway and toward Lexie’s door.
Tuesdayafternoon,Berkleycalledand invited herself over, saying she was lonely with Brent out of town and wanted to watch his game with Lexie at her place.
Lexie obliged, if only because she was about to head out of town for a week. This time, she was heading to sunny Florida, specifically 30A. It was an area that had been garnering a lot of buzz from the major Instagram influencers, and she and Amelia both agreed it was time to check it out for themselves.
Lexie had to admit, she was excited to see what all the fuss was about.
Ever since the month before, when she and Amelia had agreed to give this blogging thing the old college try, Lexie’s life had changed drastically in some ways and stayed exactly the same in others.
She was still traveling all the time, now to places shewantedto go instead of spending a week in Cleveland trying to sign some nerdy college dropout who was apparently the next Steve Jobs, or four days in some backwoods town in West Virginia recruiting an agricultural whiz kid for a new sustainable farming outfit in Indiana.
Although that trip to West Virginia hadn’t been all bad. She’d met the most wonderful older couple—Jack and Alice—who spent half their time on the farm they owned and the other half in Charleston, South Carolina, where Alice owned a renowned restaurant.
The two were so clearly in love it nearly made Lexie’s heart clench with jealousy, and when she discovered that they had been separated for thirty years before finding their way back to each other, well…Lexie couldn’t help thinking that maybe all was not completely lost for her and Mitch.
Some of the drastic changes had come in the form of the excessive amount of brand partnerships she’d been offered.
However, the first person to reach out, and the one person she didn’t even have to think before saying yes to, was Brent.
Berkley’s fiancé rarely called her, so the month before, once he’d heard about her and Amelia’s decision to quit their jobs and make blogging a full-time gig, Lexie answered his call with shaky hands, and said, “What happened to Berk?”
Brent laughed. “Nothing happened. She’s fine. Currently in her office studying for some final she’s got next week. I offered to help, but she told me I’m too distracting.”
Lexie heaved a sigh of relief and sat down on a barstool at her kitchen island. “So why are you calling me, then?”
“I’m formally offering you a job as a brand ambassador for FLEX.”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t even let me lay out the terms!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lexie said, pulling her phone away from her ear and tapping the speaker button so she could text Amelia. “We’re in.”
“We?” Brent asked.
“You don’t think I’m doing this without Amelia, do you? She’s the one opening a gym, after all.”
