Page 72 of More For Me

Bodhi

Iknow I’m not in the right frame of mind for this. I’m in a shit mood and my hangover won’t fucking go away. It doesn’t help that I spent most of the day driving around, looking for a woman who refused to answer any of my calls or texts. She wasn’t at her store. Wasn’t at Alex’s. Wasn’t at her parents.

I felt stupid when I thought about the office. Of course that’s where she would go. Everly needs to be busy when she’s overwhelmed and nothing helps her chill out more than working on her clothes.

I wait less than half an hour for her to show up. My stomach flips as I watch her climb out of her car. You’d have no idea she had a rough night by looking at her. She’s so overwhelmingly beautiful. But I know her well enough to notice that she’s more pale than usual, her eyes duller than they should be. I have to clench my hands into fists as I join her on the pavement. She’s upset and I hate it.

“Hey,” she says, not meeting my eyes.

“You didn’t answer my texts.” I bite back a groan.Great start, Bodhi, you idiot.I try to soften my tone. “I was worried about you.”

She looks extremely guilty. “I’m sorry. I…I had breakfast sent over. I figured you would know I was, you know, okay.”

“Areyou okay?” I take a step closer, studying her face. “You’re pale.”

“I’m fine.” But she’s still not meeting my eyes.

“Where’d you go?”Stop fucking interrogating her.

She brightens a little. “I spent the morning with my sisters. Mom and Dad were out of town overnight.” Then her shoulders slump, whatever brightness I saw on her face disappearing, her expression turning troubled. “Anyhow, I thought I’d get some work done.”

“Can we talk first?”

She raises wide, freaked-out eyes toward me. “Um, sure. You want to come up?”

Not really,I think as I nod.Pretty sure you’re about to rip my heart out of my chest.

But I need to know. Leo and the guys are right. I can’t keep going like this.

The building is empty and quiet when we go upstairs. I follow her into her office, looking around at the familiar space while she takes off her jacket and hangs up her purse. Everlylovesthis office. I’ll never forget the day they toured the space for the first time. Everly, Alex, and Fox had started their line out of their childhood bedrooms at their parents’ houses. Once they got investors involved and opened the store, they moved most of their work there, Alex and Everly doing the sewing in the back room while Fox worked the website from a desktop squeezed into a tiny corner of space.

When they outgrew the backroom, they leased these offices. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of anyone. They created something big and successful enough that they needed legit office space. She’d been so happy that week, smiling endlessly while I helped her shop for office furniture and decorations.

“That seems like forever ago,” she says softly, joining me in front of the glass shelf by the window. There’s a picture of the three of them, arms around each other, disheveled and grinning on the day they moved into the store.

“It does.”

She stares at the picture for a long time, something changing in her expression. She’s closing up, backing away.

“How were your sisters?” I ask, wanting to distract her from whatever troubling thoughts the picture of her business partners seemed to have instilled. Instead, she goes even more rigid.

“They’re good. Annoying as ever, but good.”

I nod, stuffing my hands into my pockets. I want so badly to take her shoulders, to shake her until she tells me what the hell is going on in that head.

“So,” she says in a strangled voice, half turning away from me. “Last night was pretty crazy, huh?”

“I don’t know that crazy is the word I would use.”

She laughs, the sound too high-pitched, unnatural. “I can’t believe I got that drunk. I hardly remember anything.”

Everything seems to still around me, the sound of Everly’s office clock suddenly loud in the silent building. I stare at her, trying to make those words make sense. Trying to make them into anything other than what I think she just implied.

“You…don’t remember?” When did my voice get so strangled? I sound like I’ve been gargling with gravel.

Her cheeks are getting redder by the second. “It’s all kind of a blur, you know?” But she won’t meet my eyes and a glance down at her hands show her fidgeting with her sleeves, a sure sign that she’s nervous.

“You’re a really bad liar,” I say, a strange numbness settling over me. I have a feeling if the facade starts to crack I’m going to lose it.