Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Weird Science

HOLLY

Evan Kazmeirowicz is blushing. He's just told me he replaced his whole bed in the past week, and he's blushing about it.

I reach up and rub my thumb over the pink that has bloomed high on his cheeks. "Are you embarrassed? Why are you blushing? That's my thing."

"I just needed to shed the past," he says earnestly. "I wanted to bring you here and have you know this is our space - only for us."

"I am over all of that, truly. Your past - it was who you were then, but it's not who you are now. I trust you." It feels wonderful to say those words to him and to really believe them with my whole heart.

"I know." He cups my face with both of his hands, his thumbs caressing lovingly over my cheekbones, and insists, "But it was important to me. I believe you'll be the last woman I ever invite into this bed. It's important to me that you know you are also the first."

The first and the last.