Page 67 of Save Your Breath

That made him pause, the muscle in his jaw flexing hard as his gaze shot from my mouth to my eyes. He searched them, looking for… something.

And then the sliding glass door flew open.

“Oh! Look at you two, committing to the cause,” Isabella said, stepping onto the balcony barefoot with a bottle of champagne in one hand and two flutes clutched in the other. “You can ease up. I made sure no one can see us up here.”

Giana stepped through after her, holding two glass flutes of her own.

“Which is a good thing, since I’m pretty sure your publicist is about to shake this bottle of champagne and pour it over your tits like you’re in a rap star video,” Gsaid on a laugh.

Aleks let out a strained breath that rumbled softly in his throat as he released me, stepping back so far I felt chills sweep over my body as if we were in the icy tundra instead of California.

Giana handed a glass to him as Isabella handed one to me, and she popped the bottle, pouring bubbles to the top for each of us.

“You fucking did it, bitch,” she said, shaking her head on a drunken smile. “The streams are insane. Social media is spiraling. It’s only been an hour and a half since the album dropped and I can already confidently tell you that this is the one.”

“People arecryingdownstairs,” Giana said, pausing a moment and blinking a few times to let that settle in. “Crying, Mia.”

As if my heart wasn’t unsteady enough, it now felt like a wobbly wagon on one precarious wheel, like it was about to fall out of my body and splat onto the floor at any moment.

People loved the album.

Was Aleks about to kiss me?

They were crying. The Internet was exploding.

Was Aleks about to kiss me… when he didn’t have to, when it wasn’t for show?

“See?” Aleks said, knuckles tapping my chin. I blinked up at him, feeling like I was living an out-of-body experience. “Told you so.”

His eyes held mine in the softest caress, like he didn’t just have me ready to mount him had we been left alone for even a second longer.

Was that what he wanted, too?

Did he want… me?

Or was it all still pretend?

“I think it’s time for our second act,” Isabella said, chugging half her glass of champagne before she tilted it toward me. “The rising action, if you will.”

Giana bounced a little on her toes, wearing her excitement in her wide gray eyes as Aleks and I shared questioning glances.

Isabella chuckled a bit at our discomfort, waggling her brows as she slid up next to Aleks and patted him on the chest.

“Hope you’re ready to go ring shopping, bad boy.”

Her gaze turned to me next, playful and yet as serious as a heart attack when she added three words that finally did my shaky heart in.

“It’s proposal time.”

So Weird

Aleks

A week later, eight of the top-ten songs on Billboard’s Top 100 were from Mia’s new album.

And of course, she held the number one spot.

The album streams were outrageous, the kind of numbers that had every radio and television show host talking about Mia Love and her particular kind of magic. She was days away from announcing her tour, and as if the fans weren’t already going wild wondering what cities she’d be in and how they would get tickets, we were about to give them all fangirl heart attacks.