Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Arousal floods me from the double meaning, and I both want the lunch to last forever and to end.
With a deep breath like he has to gird himself to not touch me, he gets out of the car and comes around to my side, opening the door. “I love this place. I can’t wait to show it to you.”
There he goes again, making it harder for me not to fall.
I don’t want to ever leave. The menu is full of fresh salads and inventive risotto dishes, gourmet sandwiches and yummy pastas. But the view. Oh, the view.
“I’ve never been at a place more…serene,” I say, drinking in the surroundings. Since it’s, as promised, sixty-five degrees, we’re sitting outside under a huge oak tree that canopies our table. String lights hang from the branches. A few feet away is a stone path that travels up a small hill, bursting with golden and maroon fall colors, and hardy aster flowers. There are only a few other patrons, and their tables are at least ten feet away from us.
It’s a secret hideaway and that’s not the glass of wine I’ve had talking. It’s the quiet, warm afternoon away from the madness of our daily lives. “This place is like an escape. Where we don’t have to think about the promotion or the image makeover.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted for you,” he says, then adds, “My parents’ friends—Soren and Theo—run this restaurant and have for a couple decades. I asked my dad to text them for a res today.”
I lift a brow, pleased with this bit of intel—the level of planning he went to. “Nice of them to fit you in.” Even though I want to say I kind of love you asked for your dad’s help for this date.
He laughs softly. “Yeah, I’m glad they had a table. It’s changed over the years but I love the feel of it.”
I look around at the quiet charm of this place. “Me too. It’s like I can…let go.” I relax into my chair with a sigh. “I guess I needed this.”
“I had a feeling,” he says, then leans closer, almost, almost like he wants to take my hand. He doesn’t, though, and I half wish I hadn’t told him the other night that we had to be cautious, because right now I want to feel what it’s like when he takes my hand at the table. But instead, he relies on words and says, “This place…it reminds me of a time before the cameras and media. When hockey was just my escape.” He tilts his head, then asks with real curiosity, like he’s been wanting to know this for ages, “What’s your escape, Everly?”
For a second, maybe several, I sit with that question. I know the answer. I want to give him the answer.
Even though there’s that worry in the back of my mind—what if he doesn’t receive what I have to give? What if he doesn’t want what I have to share?
But he’s opened up about his family, his grandfather, his sister. I need to give him more of me.
No. I want to. “This might sound…strange,” I begin.
“Try me,” he says.
“I escape into the studio.”
He tilts his head, clearly intrigued, but also surprised. Before he can say another word, I add, “It’s called Upside Down—the studio I go to. It’s a pole class.”
“Pole?”
It’s like his brain is reassembling what a lot of people think of pole—isn’t that what strippers do? And sure, it is.
“It isn’t just for strip clubs. It’s for fitness and for fun. And also for escape. I was there earlier on the night you came over. It’s…” I stop and compose myself, but it’s easier to say this than I’d expected. Maybe because I’ve needed to for a while. “It’s where I was going the night Marie died. The night I almost died.”
37
JUST IN TIME
Everly
Max’s face is ashen. “I knew the accident was serious. But I didn’t know it was that bad,” he says, then shakes his head like he’s mad at himself. “I should have realized.”
“Of course you wouldn’t know because I didn’t really say how bad it was,” I say gently, since I’m the one who held back.
He reaches for my hand this time. “What happened?” It’s said like he’s imploring me to tell him, but he doesn’t need to because now that I’ve started I’m not going to stop.
“You know how I told you she used to have this thing about saying yes?”
“I do.”
As a gentle fall breeze rustles the leaves in the nearby trees, I begin. “She loved to try new things and admittedly, I did too, so that was something we did together, but she took the lead. She’d leave Post-it notes in the apartment about different things she wanted to try. Pole dancing was one of them. I don’t know why. Maybe somebody came to her restaurant who was a dancer, but she got it in her head that we had to do it. She looked it up and found the studio through their online videos and signed us up for a class.” I pause for a moment. Max waits patiently for me to share more so I keep going. “So we were all set and I was running a few minutes late, which never happens, but it happened then. And I drove us.”