Eve continued to go to Results, but she carefully timed her visits to avoid Cliff. Still, as her sneakers pounded on the track, she could see the machine where they had first met, and where he had first touched her.

She grimaced, her tangled ponytail swung, and she continued her ragged pace. It was okay. They would be friends again.

She quietly unfollowed both Cliff and his sister Chelsea on Facebook. She didn’t really want to know what he was doing without her. It didn’t matter if he was in selfies with some gorgeous woman or if he was just checking in at the farmer’s market. She didn’t want to know if she couldn’t be there with him.

Milo made things easier. She wasn’t sure how he would take this adjustment to their dynamic—he’d never struck her as the supportive type—but he continued to see her. The first day, he just came over to come over. They went to the grocery store and made dinner together. They watched a Will Ferrell movie and he left without even kissing her goodbye. Eve closed the door behind him, confused but extremely grateful for the visit.

The second day put all her fears to bed. Hell, the second day, Milo put her in bed and fucked the living daylights out of her. She couldn’t walk without trembling and staggering and her sleep that night was certainly sound.

From that point on, any time was fair game. Cliff had been all about endurance and duration but Milo was the polar opposite; he was all about speed. He attacked her ravenously, randomly, planting his spread palms on either side of her face like he was going to try to pin her. He didn’t talk and cuddle afterward. His prickliness was always there. However hard she tried, there was no sanding down those rough edges.

He was certainly to the point and he was not a man who would wait half an hour or more as his female companion prepared herself in the bathroom at nine o’clock when they were supposed to be out the door for a night on the town.

“Are you constipated? What the hell is going on in there?” Milo called from the other side of the door.

Eve grimaced and continued staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her stomach, which had once been round and soft, was now slim and narrow. She gave Cliff the credit for that, he had changed her diet to include more raw and less processed foods. He had also persuaded her to go full vegan. Her breasts were still full and she now possessed a dramatic hourglass figure complete with powerful ass. Tonight she complemented her new shape with a sheer black mini-dress. Her hair was carefully engineered to look like a mess with each strand perfectly out of place and crumpled curls all tangling together.

“I’m on my way,” she lied. She shifted slightly and examined herself from a new angle. Jesus, she was loving this dress.

The bathroom door burst open and Eve gaped at Milo. Caught.

“Aha! I knew it!” Milo cried, shaking a finger at her in his victory. Unlike her, he was dressed for a bar and not a club. His jeans were loose and torn, and his shirt was old and a little frayed around the collar. “What are you doing in here?”

Eve resisted the urge to nip at her lower lip. It was already popped out with that berry gloss. “I’m just making sure I look…” She spread her arms around herself and prompted Milo to answer for her. But Milo shook his head and just stared at her with wide, uncertain blue eyes.

“Bangable?” he suggested.

Eve touched her finger to her nose and pointed at him. She twisted slightly and struck a pose that accentuated her new, more dramatic curves. She ran her hands over her juicy, hard-won ass, the product of a hundred squats a day for almost two months now. “Take a selfie of me!” she suggested cheerfully. She knew she looked good.

But Milo smirked. “Take a selfie of you?”

“Fine, then, Professor! Take an ussie, then.” She pouted provocatively and whipped out her cell phone, trotting over to her new not-boyfriend and angling it above them. She batted her eyelashes up at the screen and Milo smoldered. Eve examined her catch, gave it the nod of approval, and posted.

“So, how many likes do you think it’s going to get?” Milo asked. Eve knew he was teasing but she also knew that he was a bit curious.

“With you in it, probably like a thousand or more.” Milo’s jaw dropped. “Even just a picture of my breakfast will get a few hundred likes, at this point. Anyway, dude, let’s go! Nightshade isn’t going to be open all night.”

“I was ready an hour ago,” Milo reminded her grumpily as he opened the front door for her.

Eve took a step past Milo, then stopped dead in her tracks. She blinked.

Trent was staring at her. “Eve,” he breathed. “You look...”

A smile tugged at the corners of Eve’s lips. She was surprised to see him but aside from that, not much else was happening to her emotionally.

“Hi, Trent,” Eve answered, her tone warm and comfortable. “Oh! Uh, Milo, this is Trent. We used to go out. Trent, this is my umm friend, Milo.”

“We are currently going out,” Milo assured Trent, his tone also warm and comfortable. He shook Trent’s hand, though the other man seemed wary.

They held eye contact just a second longer than was polite, and Eve clapped her hands together and chirped, “So, what are you getting into tonight?”

“Uh, not much,” Trent answered. Eve looked at him more closely. His eyes were dark, as if he’d been staring at screens for too long. He had a five o’clock shadow that, unlike Milo’s, was completely unkempt and seemed to leak onto his throat from his chin. His eyes shone adoringly at Eve. He couldn’t say much—Eve knew he wouldn’t dare with Milo watching—but the message was clear enough. He was happy to see her, and he thought she looked good.

Not that it meant anything. Trent was Trent. He had always wanted what he couldn’t have. He was a fundamentally unhappy person. It was why he had closed up on Eve no matter how hard she tried. It was why he’d left her for someone he didn’t even know. Naturally he wanted her now.

“I just came by to pick up my things and leave my key,” he added, still staring at Eve, then tore his eyes away and returned them to the door in front of him. “Lake’s not here right now.”

“You two broke up?” Eve’s tone was tinged with an honest sympathy, and even though she’d wished for this moment just a couple of months ago, she felt no sense of victory. She was beyond wanting to see him suffer, because she was happy. “I’m really sorry to hear that,” she went on.

Trent grimaced. “Yeah. I’d tell you what happened, but—well, you’ll never believe me.”

Eve drifted closer, indulging him. “Try me.”

“She left me because I couldn’t stop talking about you,” he confessed.

She felt bad for him and immediately chastised herself for being so soft.

Just behind her, Milo cleared his throat.

Eve glanced over her shoulder at him and nodded, turning back to Trent. “We really should be going,” she explained gently. “I’m practically dragging him as it is.”

“It’s true,” Milo agreed smilingly. His hand slid around Eve’s waist and he guided her and her treacherous heels down the steps.

“It was good to see you again,” Trent called after them forlornly. Again, Eve felt a small twinge of pity, but little else. She didn’t realize until he left that he was the one who was the weight dragging down her life. Her apartment felt lighter, more cheerful and a hundred times more positive, just by not having him in it.

“Good to see you too,” she returned over her shoulder, now hand in hand with Milo as he guided her around to her side of his car.

She collapsed into the passenger seat and found that Trent had already all but disappeared from her thoughts and had been replaced by a sense of excitement for the night ahead. She did wish that Cliff was with them, though.

* * *

Nightshade Jungle was packed and, when you’re the male escort of a woman who looks like Evelyn Mooney, you have to be on your mettle. The entire club was grope city central. Milo shuddered just thinking about it and he kept his eyes firmly on Eve. They got drinks and hit the dance floor, where Eve gyrated, all graceful and flowing and Milo bobbed around her, trying to look like he belonged and failing miserably.

He wished she hadn’t worn such a tight dress. He’d seen the way that loser, Trent, had undressed her with his eyes. As the bass throbbed over the dance floor and Milo’s eyes lit across Eve’s innocent, beautiful face, moving between shadow and beams of smoky neon light, he felt a twinge in his chest. He hadn’t anticipated this feeling—this certainty that he needed to protect her from all the darkness of the world—but there it was, out of nowhere, expanding over him like fallout. He had stopped dancing.

Eve sashayed closer and gazed up at him, smiling. “What are you thinking about?” she yelled over the pounding bass line.

Milo took this as his cue to start trying to dance again.

“Going home.” He hated the club scene—overpriced, watery drinks and strangers wearing too little clothing—but Eve wanted to go out and dance away her very odd week, and he didn’t want her to do that alone. But he didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

“Oh come on,” Eve shouted back to him. “Aren’t you having a good time?”

“We could be having a much better time at home.”

Eve went still and blinked up at Milo. She drifted closer and they became the only two people in the room. The music hushed. Eve’s slender hands slid over Milo’s chest and his breath all rushed out.

Eve nodded solemnly up at him, then tilted her head toward the back exits.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said at normal volume, and Milo read her lips perfectly.