Fly With Me | ✓

22

Maverick staying one night had turned into a week and a half. Which, in turn, was a week and a half where they ignored that Everleigh was going to have to go back to her airline work the day after.

In that time, Everleigh had learned that Maverick could cook—no lost fingers yet—and that he'd made several trips down to the Tesco while she was at school because "Christ almighty, Everleigh, why don't you have any groceries?" Right. Because that was a conversation she still had to have with him. But there really wasn't an easy way to say hey, I hate myself and eating is hard almost every moment I'm awake. Instead, she managed a small, "I don't have the time" and waved him off before he could make any other comments.

"Everleigh?" A small knock at her bedroom door.

"Yeah?" Everleigh buttoned up her shirt.

"Breakfast is ready."

Everleigh walked over to her phone, checking the time. It wasn't that she didn't want to have breakfast with Maverick. It was that she'd been having breakfast with Maverick all week and that today made her feel like she was going to throw up, and not because of the food.

"Kingston, I might have to skip out on breakfast today."

"Are you sure?"

"I feel like I'm going to puke. Yes, I'm sure."

"Are you actually sick or nervous?"

Everleigh wasn't ready to say both. "Nervous."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"My entire academic career has built up to this one moment and it's not even graduation," Everleigh said. "I actually might be sick if I talk about it more."

"If you think you're not going to graduate, you're nuts."

"You're saying that without knowing anything about my grades."

"Are you on the honour roll?"

"The Dean's list—" Everleigh frowned at the door. "That's not the point."

"That's exactly the point." Maverick's voice was a little farther away from the door, evidently he'd gone back to minding whatever breakfast he'd made. His favourite that week had been an omelette with as many vegetables as he could fit into a basket. (She really could get used to him staying if he did all the grocery shopping and she didn't have to stand in the stores worrying about what the labels said.) (Maybe that could be how she approached the topic.)

"No, it's not."

"Only you would be a straight A student and be worried your school isn't going to let you graduate."

Everleigh flung her bedroom door open, tucking her phone into her waistband. "It's called anxiety, Kingston."

"I'm aware." Maverick looked up at her from the stove. "Everleigh, you haven't changed your pants."

Everleigh looked down. Cheetah print shorts stared back at her, definitely not the dressy trousers she'd thought she'd already put on. "For fuck's sake—"

"You're definitely eating breakfast if you're this scattered already." Maverick picked up two plates from the counter. "Sit."

"I brushed my teeth—"

"Please?" Maverick asked. "Your appointment isn't for another two and a half hours."

"What if they have time earlier?"