“Absolutely not.” She turned forward in the seat and looked away. “I need my phone back.”
Fabric rustled. The car slowed. She made the mistake of glancing back at him. His hair, still in disarray, alerted her to a new fracture in her heart, because it became a little deeper in that moment.
He held out the phone for her. “Thank you. Even though it wasn’t, it still felt like luck having you at all.”
She scanned his face, still incredibly handsome despite his lack of sleep, and took her phone. Out the tinted window, the familiar gates of her apartment complex came into view. When the car stopped, she gripped the door handle painfully hard.
“Lola.”
Don’t look back. Don’t look back. She looked back.
“Come here,” he said.
She hesitated, then leaned and met him halfway. He put a hand on her cheek to hold her there. “I have my flaws. I don’t deserve a yes from you,” he said. “There’s more to you than one night, though, and there’s more to me. He can have the money. We can have the rest of each other.” He kissed her. “I won’t change my mind. You know how to reach me.” He let her go and turned back to his window.
She stepped out onto the sidewalk. The car pulled away from the curb. Her feet had walked this path thousands of times—they knew the way home on their own. She willed them to move. Going home was the right thing to do. She and Johnny were forever altered, but he was waiting for her.
The car braked at a stop sign a second too long, and her breath caught.
The price of a million dollars was not her body. It was glimpsing what could’ve been and wondering for the rest of her life if she should’ve been in that car. It was the seed of doubt planted in her mind that could potentially grow many different branches.
The car turned and drove away. She glanced over her shoulder. She was out of time. The sun was just beginning to rise over the city.