Page 71 of A Million Times, Yes

“You can ask me anything”—she smirked—“but I won’t promise I’ll answer.”

“Fair.” I debated over how I should proceed. “Maya and I talked. I know everything. And I don’t know what the fuck to do. All I want is her, but I don’t know how to make that happen. As a Worthington, that seems like an impossible task.”

“Something tells me you have the power to heal her from that pain.”

I shoved my hands into my pockets. “How? She won’t answer her phone. She won’t make plans with me. She barely returns my texts. Shekeeps telling me she needs time, but what the hell does that even mean? What’stime?”

She bobbed her head while I made each point, then said, “You know, Maya’s always dated men who have needed her in some way. As a nurse and a healer, it’s in her nature to try and fix them. But it’s a cycle that broke once she met you.” She smiled. “My God, she went bananas over you, Jordan. And my girl doesn’t go bananas over anything aside from running and nursing and true crime podcasts.”

“Emily, I’m fucking wild for her.” I huffed out some air. “And I don’t go wild over any woman.”

She walked over to me and gently tapped my chest. “Then go get your girl.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s one thing you know how to do better than anyone she’s ever dated.”

I chuckled. “Emily . . .”

She smiled and blushed. “Notthat—but yes, I’m pretty positive you can addthatto the list too. I’m talking about fighting.”

“Fighting?”

“No one has ever fought for her before. You’re the first. What I’m saying is, don’t stop and don’t give up.”

I needed to prove that all it was was a last name. I needed to show her the man my grandmother had told her about, the one with a loving interior that was just covered in a hard, rough exterior.

I needed to make her fall.

As Emily turned to walk out of the room, I said, “Hey, Emily.”

She paused and looked at me over her shoulder.

“Consider it done.”

Chapter Twenty

Maya

I was just lifting my beer off the coffee table with my legs stretched across the empty couch cushions, my head re-sinking into the corner pillow, when there was a knock on our apartment door. “Emily,” I groaned toward the hallway, where her room was located at the end. “I think your food is here.”

“Will you get it for me?” she yelled back.

“Only because it’s you,” I replied, mostly to myself since I wasn’t loud enough for her to hear. “I swear, if it was anyone else, they couldn’t even pay me to get up.”

I pushed myself to my feet and wobbled to the door. Every muscle screamed from the thirteen hours I’d spent hauling ass around the rehab center today and the five arduous, personal-best miles I’d put in this morning. The one thing about angst: The second it got thicker than normal, I always seemed to hit new running goals.

Still holding my beer, I turned the knob and pulled the door open, prepared to grab the food.

Except there was no bag and no delivery driver.

The man standing outside our door was Jordan.

My lungs attempted to fill as I took him in. As the details of his presence hit me. As his scent slowly wrapped around me and wouldn’t let me go.

With his arm above his head, he gripped the top of the doorframe, his broadness taking up the entire narrow space.

Haunting green eyes behind black-framed glasses—which I’d never seen before—stared back at me.