That was Mag too.

He had me covered.

“You’re just life,” I blurted as he shoved the big bite into his mouth.

“What?” he asked after a couple of chews.

“I…I just…” I shook my head and looked down at my own fluffy purple-speckled cakes.

Breakfast he’d made me.

God.

God.

I’d missed it.

I’d been sleeping beside it for weeks, waking up next to it, living with it.

And I’d missed it.

“Evie,” he called. “What?”

Okay.

All right.

I’d just shot him down when he’d asked me to start our future together, and although he was not in a happy-go-lucky mood, he wasn’t throwing a fit, shouting, growing sullen or acting like an ass because he’d gotten his pride stung or didn’t get his way.

Oh God.

Yes.

It was him…

For me.

“Evie,” his voice was more demanding, “what?”

I lifted my gaze to him, and he slow-blinked when he caught my eyes.

I couldn’t imagine what my face looked like after taking a second to actually have a thought about how awesome my boyfriend was, that thought being a world-rocking epiphany.

But from his reaction, I wasn’t hiding I’d had a world-rocking epiphany.

“You’re just life,” I repeated. “I just go on. That’s what I do. Day to day. I know as a kid there’s something missing at home. I power through. I start school and nobody likes me, I can’t seem to make friends, I just power through that too. I grow up and know I’m different, I might be able to make something of myself, but my family weighs me down, and I just power through. My brother asks me for a favor that puts me in danger, and I know it’s gonna put me in danger, and yeah. Again. I just power through. I just power through, Danny. That’s me. That’s what I do. So, I missed it. I missed you walking into my apartment. I missed the miracle. You were just life.”

His body went absolutely still.

Except his lips.

“The miracle?” he whispered.

Yes.

The miracle.

That hair.

Those eyes.

His chest.

These pancakes.

That man.

“Tex told me he was proud of me and Rob told me he loved me,” I explained. “Boone confided in me. He trusted me with some deep stuff, and I know you know what an honor that is. The girls got mad at me because I didn’t call on them when I was in a jam. You walked through the door of my apartment, Danny, and I was so busy powering through, I missed the rainbows and sparkles that waved in your wake.”

“I’d prefer lightning bolts and power surges, baby,” he said quietly. “I’m not a rainbow and sparkles kind of guy.”

“Okay, lightning bolts and power surges, but if, down the road, we have a girl, you better get onboard with rainbows and sparkles.”

Once these words were out of my mouth, I was hit with a lightning-bolt-induced power surge and it was coming from Mag’s electric-blue eyes.

The charge crackled between us for so long, it was likely our pancakes were incinerated, but I could not stop looking into those amazing blue eyes.

Before the entire building went up in flames, fortunately, Mag spoke.

“So, you movin’ in, Evie?”

“Yeah, Danny.”

Without delay, he left his pancakes, and as he rounded the island, I twisted his way on my stool.

He took my face in his hands and I caught his tee in my fists at his waist.

And then he bent to me.

But he didn’t kiss me.

He asked a question.

“What’s Boone confiding in you?”

“Uh…” I mumbled. I was still unsure, even if the boys talked, that was something they talked about.

“Now I’m understanding Mo’s pain when we all claimed Lottie as her brother husbands,” he muttered.

A startled laugh bubbled out of me. “Her what?”

“Without the benefits, of course,” he assured.

I smiled at him. “Of course.”

“So cinnamon clusters for my foreseeable future,” he remarked.

“Yeah, for your foreseeable future,” I teased.

I watched his eyes smile.

I enjoyed watching that.

And then I got serious.

“I’m a little scared, Danny,” I admitted.

“I am too,” he surprised me by saying. “But you’re worth the risk.”

Suddenly, I was a lot less scared.

“Evie?”

“Right here,” I stated the obvious.

“You’re the shit.”

Oh God.

Why did that make me want to cry?

I knew why.

Because I was.

I’d been led to believe differently.

And I’d swallowed that as a matter of course.

But I was the shit.

And not because some hot guy wanted me to move in with him.

Because I just was.

And having that thought in my head was a miracle too.

On this latest revelation, my voice was husky when I replied, “You too.”

He touched his nose to mine, which was mega sweet.

And after he did that was when he kissed me.

When he got done (and I was pretty glad he took his time), he also tossed my pancakes in the trash, saying his woman wasn’t going to eat cold ones, so he was making a new batch.

I had an issue with this considering the waste of perfectly good food and the state of hunger in the world.

But I didn’t say a word.

Chapter Twenty

Sex Shoes

Evie

You have to get those.”

“You totally have to get those.”

“Seriously, you sooooo have to get those, you need to get them in every color.”

I was standing in the shoe department of Nordstrom wearing a pair of sexy red sandals, staring down at my feet and experiencing some pretty extreme Shoe Peer Pressure.

Ryn, Hattie and Pepper were all over taking care of my “heel problem.”

I did not think I had a “heel problem.”

I thought I had a driving need to get to Fortnum’s because Gert was going to be there soon to look over the girls to make her determination if they were good matches for the guys (but mostly, I figured, so she could get out of the house).

Smithie heard of this so he was showing too, though I didn’t know why, since he already knew everyone. Probably because he considered himself our second father, the brand of that Smithie embodied included sticking his nose into everything.

And Lottie was not about to let her handiwork be picked over without her input, so she was going to be there as well.

But most of all, I was finding shopping, not my favorite pastime, was giving me a driving need for one of Tex’s Textuals.

I glanced over at Axl, who was standing slightly removed in a zone where he could see everything, but still close enough he could get to us quickly.

He had his arms crossed on his wide chest, making his pecs bulge and the sinews in his forearms ripple. His long legs were planted. And from about two point oh five seconds after he positioned himself, the shoe department suddenly became crowded with females, regardless (or maybe because) of the fact he looked like he’d prefer to be strapped down with someone poking needles into his forced-open eyes.