Brit needed a break from debating exactly how many pairs of shoes she’d need. Some decisions were just too hard.

She dug her phone from beneath a pile of clothes and checked her messages.

A bunch from her friends, but she ignored those for now. Too distracting. Instead, she read the one from her broker, her eyebrows lifting in surprise.

“That was fast,” she murmured, texting the woman back. She hadn’t even put her apartment on the market yet, and already her broker thought she had the perfect candidate for subletting Brit’s apartment on a month-to-month basis, with the potential to go longer.

Brit really, really hoped it would go longer. But for now she needed to cover her ass. And her rent.

Brit agreed to leave a key at the front desk for the broker and potential renter tomorrow afternoon. She told them to come by at their convenience. She wouldn’t be there.

She went back to her shoe choices.

Black leather stilettos or black patent leather. Black leather, black patent leather . . .

She tossed both into the suitcase. Just because she was leaving New York didn’t mean she couldn’t bring a little New York with her.

Brit had moved on to her sweaters when there was a knock at her door. Probably Daisy and/or Taylor, deciding to check up on her in person after she’d avoided them all afternoon.

“Coming,” she called, tossing a blue cardigan onto the top of her bag and opening the front door without checking the peephole first.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Hunter? Aren’t you supposed to be—”

“At my party, yeah,” he said, slightly out of breath. “Can I come in?”

Wordlessly, she stepped aside, too stunned to see him to do anything else.

“Why aren’t you at the party?” she asked.

He looked down at her. “Why aren’t you?”

She dodged the question, giving him a skeptical once-over. “Did you run here or something?”

He laughed and touched a hand to his forehead, which was just slightly damp with sweat. “I guess I did. I had something to say, and it felt—feels—urgent.”

“Well.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “It sort of is. You have a flight to catch at the crack of dawn tomorrow, do you not?”

“I do,” he said slowly.

She studied him again, more carefully this time, needing to know he was okay, even if she was still kind of mad at him. “How’s your brother?”

He nodded. “We talked. Blake’s . . . well, in better spirits than I think I would be in his shoes. He’s convinced he’ll pull through.”

“Good,” Brit said firmly. “Because he will.”

Hunter smiled, his expression decidedly less haunted than it had been during their fight on Friday night.

An awkward moment stretched between them as they just stared at each other.

“Brit.” He stepped forward, his expression turning intense. “Brit, I need to ask you something that I . . . have no right to ask you. Especially after the way I’ve behaved.”

“I’m listening,” she said, even as her heart leapt with anticipation.

He sucked in a breath. “Okay, well, I was at the party, and the gang was, well, like they always are. . . .”

“Interfering, nosy, but well meaning?”

“Yeah, that.” He swallowed. “Anyway, someone, I can’t remember who now, said something . . . They asked if we were going to do long distance. And I said we weren’t. That we’d only been dating for a few weeks and I couldn’t ask that . . .”

Brit’s heart sank. “Long distance.”

“Yeah. Not a horrible idea, plenty of couples do it. And I came here to ask, to beg. But then on the way over here, I realized . . .”

He stepped forward, his hands lifting as though he wanted to touch her, but then he dropped them to his sides, even as his eyes pleaded. “I can’t do long distance with you, Brit.”

Her heart wrenched in pain, and she turned away.

His hands caught her face, cupping it as he tilted it up to him. “I can’t do long distance because I can’t bear to go hours without seeing you, much less days. Weeks. Months. I can’t do it, Brit. I need you too damn much. As my friend. As my lover. As my everything. Which is why I need to ask, and like I said, I have no right . . .”

He closed his eyes and then opened them, and she saw they were damp. “Come with me. Please come with me. We can work something out with Cassidy. It can be temporary. Just until my brother gets better, until the company finds someone else. Then we can come back to New York. Or maybe you’ll fall in love with Kansas City, and we can get a house and a big yard, and—maybe start a family,” he said all on a rush.

Brit stared, stunned, and he let out a nervous laugh at her expression. “Okay. That’s fast. Too fast. Fine, we can start with long distance, and then—”

She set her fingers lightly against his mouth, her own eyes damp now. “Hunter. Hunter.”

He caught his breath. “Yeah.”

She reached behind to her back pocket, where she’d shoved her phone after her conversation with her broker.

Brit glanced down, pulled up what she wanted him to see, and handed him the phone.

He gave her a puzzled expression, then glanced down. Stared. Stared some more.

He looked back. “This is a plane ticket.”

She smiled. “It is.”

“Your name. Tomorrow. Kansas City.”

“Your exact same flight,” she said quietly. “Nick did some spying.”

Hunter took a step back, giving his head a shake, and then he looked around her apartment at the suitcases. “You’re serious.”

“You need me,” she said simply. “You may not know it, but you need your best friend right now, and despite what I said the other night, that’s me. It’ll always be me, Hunter.”

“I know.” His voice was gruff, and he cleared it. “Brit, I appreciate you coming. Really. But I’ve got to know . . . are you coming only as my best friend? Or something more?”

“What did you have in mind?” she asked with a slight smile, her heart close to bursting.

He smiled back, tentatively. “I was thinking we could be . . . whatever the hell you want to call best friends who sleep together, eat together, date each other. I was thinking I could be your . . .”

“Boyfriend?” she asked, not daring to hope.

“I’d like that a hell of a lot more than just friends,” he said, his gaze locking on hers.

“Me too,” she whispered.

For a moment they just smiled at each other, their smiles getting wider and wider until they turned into big goofy grins.

Then Hunter’s entire face softened with tenderness. “God, I love you.”

“I know. I love you too,” she said, wiping away happy tears.

“No,” he said, coming toward her and grabbing her hands. “No, I mean I’m in love with you, Brit. Hopelessly, until the end of time.”

She launched herself at him, her arms and legs wrapping around him. He caught her with a laugh as she buried her face into his neck.

“Say it,” he said into her hair after a moment. “Please say it.”

She smiled. “I’m in love with you too.”

His arms tightened. “Hopelessly, until the end of time?”

Brit pulled back and cupped his face. “Completely hopelessly, until the end of time.”

She kissed him to prove it.