I laugh, stroking my fingertips over Drake’s abs. “It’s fine. I have a sister, so I understand.”
“Thank God.”
Drake yawns. “Okay, that’s all you get of my girl tonight. We’re going to bed.”
My girl.I burrow my face against his side so he can’t see me beam.
“Fine,” she says. “I just wanted to yell at you for not telling me about Elodie. Now I’m pissed at you for this, too, you fuckhead.”
“Love you, too,” Drake says, laughing through another yawn.
“Ugh. Love you, too. It was so nice to meet you, Gianna!”
I laugh. “It was nice to meet you, too, Evie.”
Drake ends the call before Evie can carry on, then plops the phone on the nightstand. “Do you need anything before I turn this light off?”
“Nope.” I wait for him to roll back over, facing me, before I get situated at his side. One arm draped over his middle, I sigh. “Evie sounds fun.”
“She’s a giant pain in my ass.”
I chuckle.
Drake rests his chin on the top of my head and exhales softly. His shoulders sink into the pillows while his chest rises and falls in slow, even movements. I close my eyes and absorb his peace.
This is nice.
I’ve always been a night owl, mainly because my brain seems to turn on when the sun turns off. The nighttime hours are when I generally feel most creative, and I get my best inspiration sometime after midnight. But over the last couple of weeks, since I started spending nights with Drake, that’s begun to shift.
Drake is disciplined when it comes to rest. He says it’s a vital part of being an athlete, even more important than the work at times. Without downtime and sleep, thego hours, as he calls them, aren’t as successful. So it’s ingrained in him at this point to slow down in the evenings and be asleep by the time I’m usually just hitting the gas.
It’s been an interesting change to be in his world of routine. He never expects me to follow his schedule, but I’ve found a rhythm to it that I enjoy. Or maybe it’s just being with him that I love.
“Mario called me this evening before you got here,” he says softly. “He said that he expects them to decide who’s taking the true crime slot next week.”
I force a swallow, remembering that I promised Francine that I wouldn’t share with him what she told me—just in case she’s wrong. “I heard something like that, too.”
“We haven’t talked about that,” he says quietly.
I shrug, knowing we need to talk about this before it happens, but wishing it wasn’t right now. I haven’t sorted my feelings about it. We don’t even know for sure what the decision will be. Hopefully, we get a heads-up before it happens so it’s not awkward.
It’s not every day that you go head-to-head with your boyfriend for the biggest promotion at your company—and everyone you know, plus thousands of others, are watching.
“No, we haven’t,” I say. “But I think if we open that door, there are other things that we might have to discuss, too.”Like what will happen between us when this is over.
He hums sleepily. “Yeah. We have time,” he says, the words drifting off as he falls asleep.
I try to sleep, too, but can’t. My mind has been activated, and when it moves this quickly, there’s no stopping it. Not even with Drake.
I’ve been trying to live in the moment and not think too much about what happens when our experiment is complete. This last month has been the greatest few weeks of my life—and that’s a problem. It’s so great with Drake. It exceeds any dream I ever could’ve imagined. He’s all the things from handsome to intelligent to protective in a way that still lets me breathe.
He lets me be me.
But the problem with that is … I’m me.
I love who I am, and I like myself as a person, which I think matters a whole hell of a lot in the grand scheme of things. But I know from personal experience with people who were required to love me, who were genetically designed to have affection toward me, that I’m not lovable long-term. I’m too quirky. Too honest. I don’t always value the same things as everyone else, and that’s often a dealbreaker.
So even though Drake seems amused by my dumpster diving and ketchup-stained shirts, I must keep my expectations realistic. I’m fun, but I’m probably not forever.
