Page 140 of The Wild Card

“You broke my heart, you know.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Good.” She kisses me again, softer this time. “You have a lot of making up to do.”

“Tell me how. I’ll do anything.”

She pulls back just enough to look at me, and what I see in her eyes makes my chest crack open.

Despite everything I put her through.

“Just don’t leave,” she whispers. “Don’t shut me out again. Even when it gets hard. Even when your brain tells you to run.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

She smiles—that bright, beautiful smile I’ve been missing for months—and pulls me back down to her.

When we finally step out of the bedroom—flushed, disheveled, her hand in mine—Foster takes one look at us and whoops.

“About damn time!”

Sadie just grins. “I expect to be maid of honor. Non-negotiable.”

But I don’t care. Let them celebrate. Let the whole world know.

I’m done running.

I’m done being scared.

I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Cabin Fever

Crew

Lunch is torture.

Not the food—Emmie made sandwiches with some kind of fancy aioli, and they’re incredible. The torture is sitting across from her at the small kitchen table, with Foster and Sadie on either side of us, pretending I don’t want to drag her back to the bedroom and finish what we started.

She’s not helping.

Every time Foster looks away, her foot finds mine under the table. A brush of her ankle against my calf. A press of her toes against my shin. When I pass her the chips, her fingers linger on mine a beat too long.

“So,” Sadie says, grinning like the cat who caught the canary. “You two seem… better.”

“We’re fine,” Emmie says, the picture of innocence.

“Fine. Sure.” Sadie exchanges a look with Foster. “You were in that bedroom for twenty minutes.”

“The dresser was heavy.”

“Uh-huh.”