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“Yes.”

“You can still⁠—”

She grabs my face in both hands. “Maverick Kane. I swear to God, if you ask me one more time, I’m going to file a formal grievance.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. I laugh into her mouth, and she laughs too, and it’s the strangest and best thing I’ve ever felt, laughing with a woman who’s about to⁠—

Then I go still.

“Shit.”

Her eyes snap open. “What?”

“I don’t have—” I close my eyes. “I didn’t plan for this.”

“No expectations,” she says slowly.

“Exactly.”

“Section seven.”

“Don’t.”

She presses her lips together. Her shoulders start to shake.

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

I drop my head against her shoulder and groan.

And then I remember. Bryant. The day we signed. The way he’d handed me my copy of the agreement in a manila envelope, grinning like an idiot, and said, “There’s a little something extra in there. You know. For the infidelity clause.”

I hadn’t opened it. I’d tossed it in the top drawer of my nightstand and forgotten about it out of pure spite.

I lift my head.

“Hold that thought.”

I roll toward the nightstand, yank the drawer open, and dump the envelope out on the mattress. The contract slides out. Twenty-three pages. And on top of it, still in its plastic wrap, a box with a bright yellow sticky note attached.

In Bryant’s handwriting:

For when you figure it out. You’re welcome.

Noelle reads it over my shoulder. Then she buries her face in my pillow and laughs so hard the bed shakes.

“I’m going to kill him,” I say.

“You’re going to send him a fruit basket.”

“I’m going to fire him.”

“You can’t fire him. He’s the only reason we’re not having a very awkward conversation right now.”

I look at her.

At her bright, wet eyes and her messy hair and her bare shoulders shaking against my sheets.