In the Likely Event

by Rebecca Yarros

He was a reader? This guy just kept getting hotter.

swallowed. Hard. “I used to take sedatives. Prescribed by my doctor, of course. I’m not into the illegal stuff. Not that it’s bad if you are.” I cringed at my own words. Why the hell was my brain my own worst enemy?

L O L

I laughed, forgetting that we were moving steadily forward through the takeoff line. “That body? That face? That cut on your lip? Those scraped-up knuckles?” I glanced at where his sleeve met his arm, noting the swirls of black ink. “Oh, and tattoos? Quintessential bad boy material right there. I bet you left a plethora of broken hearts in your wake.”

That was because nothing distracted me like Isabeau Astor. She wasn’t some bright, shiny little diversion. The woman was a meteor, a shooting star capable of granting impossible wishes or destroying life as I knew it.

His idea had been . . . swoonworthy. He’d taken me into the bookstore and told me to pick one of my favorite books that I’d guess he hadn’t read yet, and he’d done the same, buying both and a two-pack of yellow highlighters.

“Twelve inches,” I said to Izzy once the noise of the rotors had faded enough to hear myself. “Not quite,” she shot back quietly, clutching the strap of her messenger bag. “Smart-ass,” I muttered. “Twelve inches is the maximum distance you’re allowed to be from me while we’re here.”

Isabeau’s lover, cursed to only see her at dawn and dusk. Doomed to love her but never touch her. Never hold her. Never make a real life together.

“I think it’s about time we took our shot. What do you say?” His gaze dropped to my mouth. “I mean, you should probably know that I’m going through some therapy, and that might not be something you want to stick around through—” “Yes.” I nodded, my heart pumping so wildly I half expected it to burst out of my chest. “I say yes. Let’s take our shot. Let’s go slow or move fast. Let’s do everything we talked about and dream up new stuff. I don’t care where we live or what we do, as long as I get to do it with you. I love you.”

I smiled as his mouth met mine, then sighed when he deepened the kiss and kept going all through takeoff. By the time we lifted our heads, we were far above the clouds. I didn’t know what this new future looked like, but I knew it was ours. And that was everything.