Page 27 of Over the Limit

“Huh. I never thought of it that way.”

“Change in perspective is sometimes good,” I say.

That shy smile of his returns. The one that makes me think he has a secret he’s not telling me. The one that keeps my feet rooted in place because I want him to tell me.

But laughter in the lobby tells me not this time.

Not now.

He holds out a peppermint to me. I smile and think of how I ate the last one and thought of him. How every time I smell peppermint I do.

Who am I kidding? I think about him even when I don’t smell it.

“For you to remember me by,” he murmurs, his hand out. Like I could forget him. It seems like there’s so much more than a mint at stake when I reach out and actually take it.

But I do.

“Good night, Mr. Evans,” I say and take a step back.

“Change the perspective.” He reaches down and picks up my phone and paperback and hands them to me. My fingers brush over his, and it feels like the touch is so much more than that. “Good morning, Miss Carmichael.”

He turns on his heel and walks out of the lounge area with me left staring after him. But my stare is short-lived when I see Rossi’s tire gunner, Beto, studying me from across the lobby. He looks to where Lachlan is retreating and then back to me in my pajama pants and slippers with a puzzled look on his face.

I smile and hold my paperback up like it’s an explanation as to why Lachlan and I are parting ways this early in the morning. It makes no sense, but then again, nothing seems to right now.

The elevator ride feels like it takes forever. The walk down the long hallway to my room even more. But the moment I close my door behind me and am out of sight from anyone else who might make the wrong assumption, I hold my arms out and dramatically fall backward onto my bed. My cheeks are sore from smiling and my stomach has the weirdest, fluttery feeling in it.

One I haven’t felt in the longest time.

But it’s nothing. I know it’s not. I know they are a result of just feeling seen in general. Of being listened to. Of being heard. Of being made to feel like I’m just as important as the racing and career that owns his life.

And maybe until now, I never realized how much I didn’t feel listened to. Or how much of a back seat I’ve taken—and allowed myself to take.

Is it so much to want to be the center of someone’s world? Not the whole time . . . but at least for a little bit?

The cork.

I shove my hands in my sweatshirt pocket to touch the unique texture of the champagne cork. The one I pocketed long before the bar closed for the night. Way before I stayed up all night getting to know a man who I still want to know more about.

You took it because you knew something about it was going to be important. Because you knew you wanted to remember this night. The moments within it. And the way I mattered to a man I now considered a friend.

Or maybe I simply took it out of habit. Because I confessed my silly collection to Lachlan and on the off chance he saw me pocket it, wanted to make him feel like he was important too.

Even I don’t buy my own lie.

I yawn. Clearly, my body is tired, and I should be worried about how I’m going to function the rest of the day for work—but I’m not. I’m still riding the high that Lachlan created. That we created.

You sound pathetic, Blair.

No. I don’t. I sound . . . satisfied. Giddy. Alive.

More like a dog who was excited that a scrap of attention was thrown her way.

Dramatic much?

But . . . isn’t that what and who I’ve been as of late? Waiting and wanting attention from the man I love and who I thought loved me? Waiting and wanting when I’m a woman who never waits and wants or takes that back seat? When I’m one who never thought she’d be with a man who let her do just that.

But Rossi has.