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I leave Lucky’s apartment with a promise to return in a few hours with food and shuffle to the elevator, wrapped in his coat.It’s thick and luxurious, and it smells like him.A small mercy after my actions today.
There’s already someone waiting, likely from the viewing, and I stop beside them, my nose buried in my collar, eyes on the floor.It’s only when I hear my name that I look up.
“Sterling?What are you doing here?”
Clearly, it’s for an article—he’s in his work suit, with a thick black coat over the top—but he looks so good that he might as well have stepped out of a photo shoot.Even the curl that’s dangling over his eyebrow looks perfectly placed.
He takes his time getting a look at me.The oversize coat, the soaked pants, the shame.I shiver under the scrutiny.
“Checking in on a source I’m interviewing—or attempted to before a pipe burst.”
Ah.“Sorry the interview didn’t pan out.”
“It was a long shot.”
The elevator arrives, and Sterling holds the doors open for me.“I’m sorry about what happened with Monica.Had I been there?—”
I cut him off with a gesture.In the past week, I’ve been yelled at by my boss, hit on by a rock star, and waterlogged by my own envy.Now Sterling is eager to have a conversation?
It’s too much.
“That’s nice and everything, but?—”
“Let me make it up to you.”
If I wasn’t standing here, water seeping from my scuffed sneakers onto the speckled tiles, I’d swear I was dreaming.Heck, maybe I am.Maybe I slipped in that water upstairs and hit my head and I’m actually hooked up to seriously good meds right now because what is happening?
“Dinner,” he says, and he isn’t joking.He’s serious.
“I …” I don’t know what to say.Yesis the obvious answer, the one every atom in my body is screaming at me right now, but … I made plans with Lucky, and I want to honor them.“I already have a date tonight.”
“Tomorrow then,” Sterling says.“I’ve waited a long time to ask you out, Mia.One more night is nothing.”
Two years ago, I packed up my bags and told the most important people in my life that Chance was where I wanted—no, where Ineededto be.If the future burned with possibilities, then surely, the spark had to be lit here.
I’ve waited two long years for that to be true.
Something tells me I’m about to find out.
“It’s a date,” I say, overwhelmed with déjà vu.I know I shouldn’t complain here, but how is it fair that two great guys asked me out on the same day?Am I supposed to hope one of them is secretly awful so it’s easier to pick between them?“If only I could have two boyfriends,” I joke.
Sterling’s gaze lingers on my lips.“Who says you can’t?”
There must still be water in my ears because there’s no way Sterling just suggested that.“I don’t know if you’re joking or not.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me—yet.But you will.I’m done hiding from you, Mia.”
My clothes are sticking to my skin, and there’s a blister on my pinkie toe from walking in wet socks, but Sterling catches my hand in his, and I’ve never felt more beautiful.
First Lucky and now Sterling.Is Fate trying to tell me something?I don’t want to be forced to choose between them.
The elevator reaches the ground floor.
“Can I walk you home?”Sterling asks.
I nod.
