Chapter 32
EVERLEE - NDA for an NDA
Ten minutes.
That’s how long I have until Lizzy gets here. It’s been a week since I’ve seen her after I holed myself up in the apartment, and she’s getting antsy, and an antsy Lizzy is not a good Lizzy.
I spent most of yesterday scouring the internet for a non-descriptive NDA.
I’m going to make her sign it, then tell her everything.
I need to talk to someone who is local to me and my best friend.
Sophie and I have grown pretty close over the last several days as she was there to tell me the reasons this was good for me, while also playing go-between with the boys.
When they showed up the day I left, I thought I was going to die of a broken heart. I wouldn’t say I loved them, but I definitely loved the way they made me feel. The confidence they gave me. I loved being around them and seeing their smiles, their looks of desire.
They didn’t try to convince me to come back, and if they had, I probably would have said screw it all and left with them, but in the weeks, months, or years to come, there would be problems. I’ve been lying to my best friend, and it’s killing me.
What about the holidays and my parents? It’s unfair that I have to choose the guys over my family, and fortunately they didn’t make me choose.
Emmett promised me a standing reservation every Monday at Bo’s, but I can’t go. I would see them there and I would find some reason to go back to them. The look in their eyes, the dimples on their cheeks. I would melt for them.
They’ve given me so much more than they’ll ever know.
After Dick, I didn’t feel like the same person.
I felt like a fraction of myself. I felt less than worthy.
Dick was a… well, a dick, an asshole, and if someone like that didn’t think I was good enough, then it made me second-guess myself.
Near the end, when I asked him why he never complimented me, he said it was because he didn’t want me getting a big head and leaving him.
I should have known then, but I didn’t. I think by that point he’d already pushed all my friends away, so he was my life, my breath.
I’d broken up with him several times, but he would always apologize, and I always went back because I was an optimist. I wanted to believe he had changed, or at the very worst, could and would change for me.
But I always got my answer a month or so later.
He hadn’t changed, and I was left feeling worthless and unlovable again.
The last time Lizzy stepped in. She didn’t let me go back, and I have thanked her a thousand times since then, but there was still a hole. No matter how hard she tried to fill it, she couldn’t. My confidence was less than non-existent.
That was until Callum stared at me in a bar. The look in his eyes, the way he watched me… the way Emmett flirted with me. It reignited a fire within me. A fire they continued to add fuel to minute by minute, hour by hour.
With them, I felt like my old self. I felt attractive. I felt worthy of love. I felt confident.
That is what they gave me. That and the most orgasms I think I’ve ever had.
I don’t want this to be the end of us, and I hope it’s not.
Hopefully, I can find the courage to explore what this lifestyle is and figure out a way to have it all.
Them and my parents. My head wanders down paths, trying to figure out how I can convince my parents to love and accept me.
They did with my brother when he came out to them, so maybe there’s hope for me.
My doorbell rings, bringing me back to the present.
Filled with excitement and trepidation, I race over to the door and see Lizzy standing there with a box of discounted Valentine’s chocolate, a bottle of moscato, a new vibrator, a movie, and a large clothing box. I laugh out loud, pulling her in.
“You don’t have to always buy me a vibrator.”
“Is that weird? I was in the store getting myself a little something something and this caught my eye.”
“You could have bought it for yourself.”
She bats the air. “I did, and then I bought one for you. Twinsies.”
“You’re too much.” I smile.
“But you love me.” She touches the tip of my nose. “Now go plug him in next to your other boyfriends while I get us some wine glasses.”
“I love you,” I say, grabbing the vibrator from her and giving her a hug.
“I love you, too.”
“Before we watch the movie, though, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Are you a lesbian? Because that would explain a lot.”
“What? No. At least I don’t think so.” I grab the NDA and a pen off the counter and hand them to her.
“What’s this?”
“An NDA?”
“A what?”
“Non- Disc-”
“I know what it is… are you a spy? Do you work for the government?” Her face draws very long as shock spreads over her. “Oh my God. Is Everlee really your name?”
“Will you shut up! No, I’m not a spy. No, I don’t work for the government, and you have known me forever. Unless I was a spy when I was in elementary school.”
“So it is Everlee?” she teases.
“Lizzy!”
“Fine. Fine. I’ll bite.”
“I’m going to put this up and I’ll be right back.”
When I come back into the room, she’s propped on the couch with two straws in the wine bottle, sitting with her legs crossed.
“Straws?”
“You’re making me sign an NDA. Shit's about to get real. Straws were needed.”
I roll my eyes and smile. I should have done this sooner, because my heart already feels happier just being around her for less than two minutes.
“Oh, also, Jax got you something.” She hands me the clothes box.
I look at her, confused, taking it from her.
“Also, why is Jax buying you things?”
Feeling like a soda can about to explode, I grab the NDA and make sure it’s signed. I take a deep breath and peek inside the box.
My favorite shirt. The one he ripped off when he came to visit the day Dickface showed up on my doorstep. And there’s a note.
Ev-
We’re giving you space now, but it won’t last. We will come back and get what’s ours. But first, we will let you figure this out while we find a way to make it work.
Jax
My stomach clenches at his words. Theirs. I am theirs. A tear falls down my cheek.
“What is it?” Lizzy grabs the box from me and tears the lid off. “Don’t you already have this shirt? Why are you crying over a shirt?”
“Funny story…”
Ten minutes later…
“SHUT THE FRONT AND BACK DOOR! YOU WHAT?!” Lizzy shouts, climbing on top of me.
She jumps up and paces the room, hands running through her hair.
“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything to me.”
“I couldn’t.”
Her eyes grow wide. “But still. I’m your bitch,” she sighs.
“You are my bitch. But… I don’t know.” I take a big gulp of wine. “I think I was just scared. Scared you’d not approve. Or maybe you would. I wanted to do that on my own, see where it went. I think I needed to work through some things.”
“Fuck yeah, you worked through things. On things. In things.”
“Stop.” I smile.
“I didn’t know you were a little kink factory.”
“Me either.”
She sits down on the couch. “You’re definitely not a lesbian. You love that dicky dick too much.”
“I do love the dicky dick.”
“Good thing I brought you another vibrator. If you’re going to start taking four at a time—” She cuts her eyes at me with a sly smile spread across her face.
“Will you stop?”
“I will for now, but I don’t want you thinking I’m anywhere close to done giving you shit for this. Four.” She holds her fingers in the air, trying to visualize everything, and I bat her hand down.
“What movie did you get us?”
“Oh, it’s just an empty box that looks like a movie. I felt it went with the whole theme. But I did rent us the most classic breakup movie of all time. Legally Blonde.”
“Bend and Snap.”
“Yes, Queen.”
“I need to connect to my account so we can stream.”
Mentally exhausted, I rest my head on her shoulder and shove a chocolate in my mouth as Jax’s note plays on repeat in my head. We will come back and get what’s ours.
This isn’t over.
We aren’t over.