Fly With Me | ✓

03

The worst thing about the morning after was not the see you next time. No. It was the standing together in an elevator in silence on some kind of fucked up walk of shame where Donny would leave the building and Everleigh would go to continental breakfast and they would both pretend they didn't smell like sex because neither of them had bothered to shower afterwards.

            Everleigh was some kind of sick fuck during a morning after because she always, always drowned her feeling of hatred toward herself in a bowl of stale cereal from the breakfast bar. Mainly Froot Loops, but it depended on what was available. If it wasn't sugary and shitty for her, Everleigh didn't want to eat it. She figured that was part of the reason Donny never stayed with her for breakfast—that, and after the first time when he'd rejected her idea of breakfast, Everleigh stopped asking. Probably the non-asking had more to do with it than anything else.

            When Everleigh got back to her room, a Styrofoam bowl of Froot Loops in her hand, her phone started ringing. Well. Maverick's phone started ringing.

            With a mouthful of cereal, Everleigh pressed the phone to her ear. "Hello?" Everleigh nearly spat milk down her front as she greeted the caller. Lord, she was too comfortable answering Maverick's phone.

            "Please tell me you're eating breakfast and not eating—"

            "Stop." Everleigh nearly choked on her cereal instead of swallowing it. "God, what do you want?"

            Maverick laughed on the other end of the phone. "I had a question."

            "A question you couldn't text me?"

            "I like to hear your accent, Everleigh."

            "You're a few sandwiches short of a picnic, Kingston." Everleigh sighed and put him on speaker so she could eat her cereal.

            "See? That's not nearly as insulting over text."

            "You had a question." Everleigh waved her hand in spite of Maverick not being able to see her. "Carry on."

            "What are you eating?"

            "You called to ask what I'm eating?"

            "No, but now I'm curious."

            "Froot Loops."

            "Really?"

            "Why would I lie about Froot Loops?"

            "I don't know. It sounded fake."

            Everleigh sighed. "Is that a thing you do? Think everything's fake?"

            "Are you talking about the fact that your name sounds fake?"

            Everleigh hung up on him. Immediately video called him.

            Maverick answered a little too quickly. "God, Everleigh, I thought something had happened to..." Maverick reached to his ear offscreen, shook his hand away. Pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose. "What the hell was that for?"

            "I wanted to see your face when I told you my last name is Meadowlark." Everleigh ate a handful of Froot Loops.

            "Everleigh Meadowlark?" Maverick gaped. "Are your parents Geralt and Yennefer?"

            Everleigh laughed. "I wish."

            "You understood that reference?"