Fly With Me | ✓

10

"I really want to get drunk and forget today happened."

That's what Everleigh said the moment they touched down in Winnipeg. And what she repeated the few days she spent there, hounded by paparazzi to the point she couldn't trust the room service waiter. When she'd finally decided fuck it, she found herself getting drunk at the hotel bar on bad shots and an empty stomach on her last day in the chilly Canadian city. (If she passed out, maybe she'd make the front page.) (Maverick's rumoured girlfriend gets absolutely shittered at Canadian hotel bar: EXCLUSIVE.)

If things weren't already bad, it might've brought her joy—well, maybe not joy, rather, a semblance of annoying normalcy—when her mother called her. Maybe Everleigh should not have answered the phone a little too sloshed for her own good, but Dawn Meadowlark was nothing if not persistent and would've continued to call had she not.

"Sup?"

"You did not just answer your phone with sup."

"Yup." Everleigh should've hung up. The P pop was enough to make her want to lose her last shot.

"Everleigh Jane, are you okay?" Dawn asked. "Your father's been worried sick about you the last couple days. Says it seems like something's happened. You didn't even call for New Year's."

That was code for Troy had seen the articles about her and Maverick and kept Dawn away from them. She appreciated that—she should call him more.

"'M fine," Everleigh said. "Is that what you called for?"

"I wanted to ask when your next time in London is."

"Potentially around Roman's birthday, but I haven't got the approval yet. Might have to fly to New York."

Born on Valentine's Day, of course. Ever the perfect man for her mother to fawn over. Giving her an excuse to give him little heart shaped marshmallows and chocolates along with the cardigans she bought him every year that Everleigh had never seen him wear. (She wasn't sure where her mother had gotten the idea he liked cardigans, it's not like he'd worn them before she started buying them for him.) (Troy loved having Roman around for Valentine's day so he didn't get gifted the cardigans from his wife—he lived with her, he had to wear them whether he liked them or not.) Everleigh and Roman usually snuck outside after everyone was asleep and did shots of whatever liquor Everleigh gifted him to make up for her mother's cardigans. Sometimes Troy joined them, too.

"Florence has had her baby a couple weeks early," Dawn said. "We're in the hospital right now."

Wonderful. That made Everleigh feel peachy fuckin' keen.

Hold your damn tongue for once in your life, Everleigh, you stupid bitch.

"Really?" Her voice was quieter, less headstrong.

"She really wants you to meet her."

"Did they name her?"

"Navi," Dawn said, "after Roman's mother."

"How do you feel about that?" Everleigh couldn't help but stir the pot. She raised her finger to the bartender for another shot.

"I think it's cute."

"It is cute." Everleigh never doubted her sister would give her kid the best name possible. Navi was perfectly them, probably a hyphenated last name. Navi Meadowlark-Sahota. (Sahota-Meadowlark?) Everleigh nodded a thank you to the bartender for giving her another shot, she downed it quickly. "I'll try to visit soon."