Page 66 of What If It's You?

“I am,” I murmured. “And Drew…I hope you know that in all the worlds, no matter what, I care about you. A lot.”

“Me too, Laurel. Hell, maybe there’s another universe out there where we wind up together and don’t make it complicated with all these stupidwhat ifs,right?”

“It’s not only possible, it’splausible,” I replied. He sniffed out a laugh.

“Alright. I don’t know how you prep yourself for this, but I’m opening the user profile right now and renaming it to you. When I log it off, you should blank out. I’m doing that…now.”

For a second nothing changed, the vertigo didn’t hit me, and I groaned, frustration deep and dark as oceans swirling through me, dragging me into the depths.

Then, in a wave so huge and hard I couldn’t even catch my breath before it slammed into me, the world went dark.

What could have been minutes or hours or years later, I opened my eyes.

I was back in my apartment, myrealone, the morning light just starting to seep in around the curtains. Ollie tossed in his sleep at my side, as though he could sense the rush of me reentering my body.

This was it. One shot to get it right, or else…well, I didn’t want to think too hard about theor else.

I reached out and took Ollie’s hand, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat that formed the minute his fingertips curled around mine, like even in sleep he knew it was me, knew that he wanted me nearer. I watched him breathe, our hands clasped lightly, until he slowly blinked himself awake.

“Hey, you,” he said, smiling softly at me, dark eyes heavy with sleep, curls a riot on the pillow.

“Hey yourself,” I said back, squeezing his hand once. “How’d you sleep?”

“Okay. I was having weird dreams…”

“Oh yeah? What kind of dreams?”

“Like I was…this big rock star? Which, I know, it sounds silly, but it was so…boringif that makes sense? Like most of the dream was me talking with my manager about tour date logistics. It felt real in the most unexciting way possible.”

“Listen, Ollie, rock star life can’tallbe cocaine and groupies.”

“Dammit, why am I only learning this now?” His smile curled a little higher, then he rocked himself up to a sitting position,dropping my hand and kicking his legs over the side of the bed. As he rooted around on the floor for a T-shirt, he half-turned, not meeting my eyes. “Did you…want to talk about last night?”

“What about it?” The sunlight catching the curve of his jaw, scattering over the stubble like a wave on a rocky beach. He was so beautiful it made my lungs ache.How had I let myself stop seeing this for so long?

“Do you know what you’re going to do?” His shoulders tensed up around his neck.

“I already did it. Emailed Maren to tell her to ignore the application, I mean.” Tentatively, I reached out, laid an arm on his back, exhaled relief when he didn’t flinch away. “I’m sorry. For not asking first, I mean. That was incredibly selfish.”

“I mean…I know it came from a good place.” He turned to flash me a tired half-smile, then shrugged into a T-shirt.

“Yeah, but intentions aren’t the only thing that matter. Hell, they might be the least important thing. I should have told you.”

“Thanks, Lo…and anyway, it’s not like we tell each other everything the second it happens. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do think moving cross-country is something we should at least, like…discussfirst. But I could have reacted better.”

“I think maybe that was about more than just the application,” I said, heart twisting preemptively. He glanced down, eyes narrowing slightly, the look I’d come to recognize as him carefully sorting his words, finding a way to form his thought clearly but gently, so it wouldn’t feel like an attack. I gulped as my heart twisted another degree. I’d missed all of this, taken it all for granted, and in just a few minutes it would all be gone. It had to be gone.

“You’re not wrong. I think…no, I know. I’d be willing to follow you anywhere. That’s been true from minute one. But I guess…I thought that the trade-off was that you’d do the same for me. That you’d take a big risk on me, too, when it really mattered.”

“Like marrying you,” I said. Ollie nodded slowly.

“Sure. I mean, you know I want that. But really…it doesn’teven have to be that. We could…I don’t know, move somewhere new just because wewantto. And talk about it, obviously. Or…I don’t know, go off-grid and see if life’s better hacking it out as artisanal maple syrup makers. Or you could be okay with cutting back or moving somewhere cheaper so you could do the writing thing. But we’d be in ittogether,you know? Not you doing a thing and I follow, or I do a thing and you tolerate it, we really do something asus.”

“Those all sound like things that could only happen if I wasn’t working for Pixel anymore,” I started tentatively.

“I mean…not necessarily.” Ollie’s brow furrowed, jaw jutting slightly. “But…do you even like that job? And before you answer, I know you like killing it. I know you’re a fucking boss. But you’ve been throwing around this idea of writing romance novels for years now and like…what’s stopping you from doing it?”

“Fear,” I whispered. Because why pretend anymore? What was the benefit of refusing to see the things I knew were there? “I think…I think there are a lot of things I’ve been afraid of, Ollie. The writing, sure, but really…me and you is the biggie.”

---