Waiting outside the restaurant where she worked wasn't probably the greatest idea. I knew how much Evelyn worried about others spotting us together but I was a little more than desperate to set things straight to pay heed to that.

Yesterday, for the first time Evelyn showed a sliver of her true feelings about me; about us. And then I had to abruptly leave, ruining everything. But I'd be damned if I didn't at least try to salvage the situation.

I was sure she would understand why it was so important for me to leave. I just...wasn't sure how much I was supposed to reveal. After all, it wasn't something great nor did it only involve me. The entire situation was way too complicated for me to explain it to her.

With a groan, I banged my head on the steering wheel. Why was everything so complicated?

Suddenly, the paper bag sitting on the passenger seat didn't seem like a good idea either. In the morning when I'd placed an order for a box of Hello Kitty-themed cupcakes at the bakery, it had felt like the greatest idea I'd ever come up with. Now? It felt childish and presumptuous. As if a box of cupcakes was going to earn me forgiveness for leaving right after kissing her. That too without a proper explanation.

But there was no time to make new plans. Evelyn was already stepping out of the restaurant with three other people. I stepped out of my car and shot her the text I'd written five minutes ago but hadn't sent in fear that she would ask me to leave.

As soon as her phone pinged with an incoming text, she looked at the screen before looking around. I raised my hand to wave at her and to my utter relief, she waved back. She quickly bade goodbye to her friends and walked over to me, a bright smile on her face.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, pulling her long coat tightly against her body.

"Came to pick you up. Let's get you inside the car first. Then we can talk," I said and Evelyn was quick to agree. Opening the passenger side door for her, I picked up the paper bag and let her slide in first before handing it to her. "For you."

"What's this?"

"Why don't you open and see." I shot her a smile and closed her door. By the time I walked around the car and got inside, Evelyn had already taken the box out and was struggling to remove the shiny tape the bakery had used to seal the box shut. When she finally got the box open and saw its contents, she let out a gasp.

"Oh my gosh! This is so cute!" she exclaimed, peering at the tiny cakes as if they were the most precious things in the world. She then looked up at me, her pretty eyes as big as saucers. "My birthday isn't for at least two more weeks. Why this so suddenly?"

"I wanted to apologize. For yesterday," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "I shouldn't have left without an explanation. It was a family emergency."

Worry filled her eyes at my words. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. It's fine."

Well, as fine as it could be at least. Things were so difficult at times that we were taking each new day as a win but I wasn't going to tell Evelyn all that. No need to ruin things again with my problems.

Evelyn looked at me as if she was still skeptical but didn't push further. Instead, she picked one cupcake and took a bite. Her eyes closed shut and she released the most erotic moan I had ever heard. I would have given her cupcakes sooner if I had known it would get me such a reaction.

"This is so good!" Evelyn said with her mouth full so that it sounded more like 'sho ghood' instead. "Thank you so much for them," she said, popping the remaining in her mouth and then turning to face me, her eyes wide. "I should have taken a picture before eating that."

I couldn't help but throw my head back and laugh. She was adorable. "You can still take a picture. Maybe adjust the rest a little."

"Yeah, but I'll do that later." She closed the box, sealed it, and placed it in the paper bag again before turning around to put it in the backseat. "I need you to drive extremely carefully and not mess up my cupcakes."

"Yes ma'am," I said and started driving. From the corner of my eye, I watched Evelyn take off her long coat and neatly place it on her lap. She then proceeded to pull out the pins securing her bun and let her long tresses loose. "You are growing your hair out?" I asked, noticing how her hair was longer than before.

She looked at me with a sheepish smile. "Does it look bad?"

"No," I answered immediately. Nothing could ever look bad on her. "It looks great. Just different. But in a good way."

Evelyn chuckled. "That's relieving. But I feel like if I keep tying my hair up in a tight bun, I'm going to start getting bald spots."

I shrugged. "Then don't do it."

Evelyn pursed her lips as she started massaging her scalp. "I wish it was that simple. It's the restaurant's rules. As long as I'm working there I have to follow the dress code."

"I thought you were only working there for a little while instead of your friend. Wasn't that the case?" I asked as we got to the main street.

"It was but there was a vacancy and they offered the position to me..." she trailed off before turning in her seat to look at me. "How did you know I will be working there tonight?"

"I may or may not have begged Veena to tell me when and where you worked today," I replied, feeling the heat rise to the back of my neck again. It wasn't the brightest moment of my life but I had to do what I had to do.

Evelyn chuckled again. "Veena must have enjoyed that a lot."

She in fact had. But I wasn't even bothered by it. As long as Evelyn was at the end of it, I was ready to do it all.

Instead of commenting on it, I grabbed her hand and intertwined our fingers together, placing them on my thigh. "That just tells me we have a lot to catch up on," I said.

"We do," she replied, squeezing my hand.

"A sleepover could fix that. After yesterday, we have a lot to talk about," I said, cutting a discreet glance in her direction before staring straight ahead. Was I getting a little too ahead of myself? Absolutely.

But I needed to know what was going on in her head. This ambiguity of whether things were good between us or not was killing me. "We could go to your place or the penthouse," I suggested.

Evelyn stared out the window, not saying anything. Her silence filled me with panic and I was about to take back my words and apologize when she sighed and reclined in her seat. "The penthouse. It's closer and I just want to lie down as soon as possible."

"Penthouse it is," I said, grinning.

"I hope you still have the pack of tampons I'd stashed in your bathroom. I'm feeling extra bitchy today which means my periods are close," she said.

"Of course. It's not like I'm going to use them," I replied, chuckling. "And I have seen your bitchy. You're a ray of sunshine today."

She snorted. "That's because you gave me cupcakes. You should have seen me at work today. Almost got myself fired."

As she recounted her "bitchy" incident to me on our drive to the penthouse, I couldn't stop smiling. I had missed this. And now that I had it again, I was ready to do anything to keep it that way.

***

Evelyn placed her head on my chest and snuggled closer. It had been too long since I had held her in my arms and I was relishing every second of it. Once we had reached the penthouse, we immediately dressed for bed and got under the covers. When I'd said we needed to catch up on things, I had meant it. And that's exactly what we were going to do.

"About yesterday..." I started as I ran my fingers through her hair. "What changed your mind?"

"The realization that I needed to live in the moment before it passes away," she replied. "I guess I was so in my head that I lost sight of what made me happy right now."

"So we are good?"

She hummed. "We are good."

As relieving as it was to hear that, I wanted to know more. Ask for more. But for that, I needed to be sure of my feelings.

How far was I ready to take this? Was it even possible for us to have something more than physical chemistry? And what about after graduation? What would we do then?

Evelyn snapped her fingers in front of me, snapping me back to reality. "Where did you go?" she asked, smiling.

I pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Nowhere." I could think of all that later. Right now I needed to be present here. That was more important. "What were you saying?"

She chuckled, shaking her head. "You said we needed to catch up on things. Tell me everything I missed."

"There's nothing great on my end. Just a series of bad decisions and sad stories," I said.

"Still... I want to know. Tell me."

I heaved a sigh. "That day when you and Veena had been here, Everett told me that my agency contacted him for a contract as well. And then my agent confirmed that it was in the works."

"So what now? What does that mean to you?" she asked, her eyes wide with worry.

"Henry said that the agency could sign both of us. It wasn't unusual for the same agency to represent two players but..."

"But?"

I turned to look at her. "There's also a chance that they will drop one for the other. With my luck, I'll be the one getting dropped."

She shook her head before cupping my cheek. "Don't say that. You never know. You shouldn't give up like that."

I just smiled back at her because I didn't have it in me to be optimistic about anything at the moment. "And I already told you about what happened with my sister. We met each other yesterday and I said sorry but I don't know if I'm forgiven yet."

"She will forgive you eventually," she said, rubbing circles on my cheek.

I learned into her touch, feeling much better than I had felt in days. "Now your turn. How's everything?"

"It's the worst," she groaned. "Derek is being extra bitchy to me. I acknowledged his ideas once because they were genuinely great. But now he wants everything to go his way. Whenever I propose something he opposes it and tries to make me look like an idiot."

She sat up, clearly riled up about the topic. "Sometimes I wish I could just strangle him and get rid of that stupid, arrogant smirk," she said, twisting her end of the duvet as if it was Derek's neck instead.

"But I can't!" She flopped back on the bed defeated. "That would be a felony and my life is too precious to waste on someone like him."

I chuckled and kissed her cheek. "True that."

She sighed. "I'll just have to come up with an idea that would be unbeatable. Like something big."

As I let her words linger between us for a while, an idea struck me. "I may be able to help you with that."

"How?" Evelyn asked immediately as she rolled on top of me, looking at me expectantly.

"How about the team doing volunteer work? You could make a lot of great content with that sort of thing," I said.

"Yes but what kind of volunteer work?"

"My dad and uncle had founded a non-profit organization years ago that helped underprivileged children pursue and develop their interests in arts and sports. It's the place where I played hockey for the first time," I said, feeling my chest fill with pride and nostalgia.

After my dad's hockey days ended in college, he devoted himself to the family business and helped my uncle scale our company. But his love for sports, especially hockey remained intact and being the good hearted man that he was, he wanted to do something to give back to the society. The result was The Brighter Tomorrow Foundation that still carried on his will after his passing.

"Basically, it's like an arts center where courses are run on a day to day basis on various forms of arts and sports. Initially, it was hockey, swimming, and basketball for sports and a couple of art and music classes," I explained. "We had to downsize the activities when the company was going through a rough time a few years back but now we are trying to upscale it again. If the team volunteered to teach the kids and the media team covered that, it would be a great help to the foundation as well."

I felt like a salesman pitching the idea to her but it really would help all. The foundation could use some media coverage, no matter how small, and volunteer work always looked great on athletes' profiles.

Evelyn stayed silent, seemingly deep in thought as she worked things out in her head, nodding to herself. "Okay, yes," she said finally. "That would be amazing. I'll have to talk to the guys on the team first to see how many were willing to volunteer, then contact the administration of the organization, and also talk with the Dean since we'll be using the department's social media channels."

"I can ask the guys on our group chat and connect you with the administration. It'll be faster if you go through me."

"Atlas Griffin! What would I do without you?" She cupped my face with both hands and planted a kiss on my lips. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She started peppering my face with kisses. "I'm so excited! This is going to solve everything!"

I grinned at her. "Happy to help."

She stared at me with a soft smile on her lips, her eyes filled with joy. With her hair loose and the soft glow of the moon lighting her features, Evelyn looked ethereal. So beautiful that I could barely remember to breathe in her presence. She caressed my face as her gaze danced from my eyes to my lips before jumping back to my eyes. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Atlas Griffin," she whispered.

And then her lips were on mine. A soft, gentle caress that made my heart soar and calmed my mind. That moment answered all my questions. I would do anything for her. Anything to make her happy, to see that smile. I didn't know when or how but I had fallen irrevocably in love with her. And I was ready to take a chance on us even though there was so much uncertainty. I could manage it all as long as she was with me.

"I thought we were going to just sleep today," I said when she pulled back, my voice coming out hoarse.

She hummed in response. "I changed my mind," she said and kissed me again with more fervor than before.

The three words sat heavy on my tongue, wanting to be heard but I knew I needed to wait. Although I could tell that Evelyn did feel something for me, something more, I couldn't spring my feelings on her. She would get overwhelmed and try to run away from me. So I needed to wait for her to get on the same page as me.

And I was ready to wait for as long as she needed me to wait. If at the end of it I got to be at Evelyn's side for the rest of my life, I would wait.