Page 95 of Trade It All

She’s sitting bent over her phone reviewing clips while Jasper hangs halfway over the seat behind her trying to insert himself into whatever she is doing. Like always.

“Come out with us tonight,” Jasper begs for probably the fifth time.

Maddie doesn’t even look up. “No.”

Jasper clutches his chest dramatically. “You wound me.”

Luka yells from the back, “Stop asking her, she never goes!”

“One day,” Jasper insists, twisting around enough that I can see the grin on his face, “one day she is going to realize I am the fun friend.”

Maddie finally glances up and deadpans, “No.”

The bus erupts in laughter. Mine stays trapped in my chest because all I can think about is how badly I want her in the empty seat beside me. How badly I want to drag her to my side, tuck her under my arm, and stop pretending we aren’t doing this.

But I can’t. So I settle for the little things. The way her eyes flick to mine over the seat when Jasper starts in again. The tiny hidden smile she gives me before looking away. The fact that her foot taps twice against the aisle—the silent signal we somehow made up without ever discussing it.

The whole damn bus is loud by the time we pull into the hotel. The guys are already making plans for casinos, bars, expensive steaks, and whatever other trouble Vegas offers. Maddie slips off with the media crew while I get dragged into a quick rundown with assistants and trainers.

By the time I finally make it upstairs and into my room, I’m exhausted in that wired kind of way where sleep isn’t even remotely possible.

Especially not knowing she is one connecting door away. The adjoining rooms were nonnegotiable after Denver. I arranged them before we ever landed in Washington and have no intention of giving them up for the rest of this road trip.

I need access to her. Need to know there isn’t a hallway or elevator or locked hotel corridor between us.

A few minutes later I hear her laugh through the wall. Soft. Faint. Enough to make me smile like an idiot.

Then quiet. Then footsteps. I head through the connecting door and find her standing at her windows, the entire Vegas Strip lit up beneath us.

She doesn’t hear me at first. She’s just staring out over the city, in one of my shirts and leggings, blonde hair falling down her back.

God she is beautiful.

I cross the room and slide my arms around her from behind. She melts into me instantly. Like this is where she belongs.

Maybe it’s Vegas. Maybe it’s the win. Maybe it’s the fact that I am so deeply in love with this woman I don’t know how to function around it anymore. But holding her there while the city flashes below us feels dangerously close to forever.

“This is nice,” she murmurs.

“Mm.”

“No,” she says softly, leaning farther back into me. “Like really nice.”

I smile into her hair. “Me in your room?”

She elbows me. “You know what I mean.”

I do. God, I do. This. The last few weeks of this. Her editing clips at my table while I pretend to watch game film. Her stealing my fries and denying it. Falling asleep with her tucked under my arm. Waking up with her hair all over my pillow and wondering how I ever slept without her there.

Maddie turns in my arms and looks up at me. City lights dance in her eyes. “I’m happy,” she says quietly. My chest tightens. “I’m really happy.”

I swallow. Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt. “I wish it could stay like this forever.”

That’s it. That’s the exact second every thought in my head narrows to one unavoidable truth. I do not want temporary with her. I do not want someday. I do not want to spend another second pretending there is a version of my future that doesn’t have her in every corner of it.

I grip her in my arms tighter before I can overthink it. She lets out a surprised little laugh and grabs my forearms.

“It can.”