Dammit. The sonofabitch was going to make me cry in front of millions of people. Was that the prank?

He was giving me his crooked smile that still made me weak at the knees, but he looked like he had unshed tears in his eyes as well.

He paused and gave me the tiniest wink.

I nodded back.

Now I knew exactly what he was going to do. Months ago, we’d decided we wanted to get married—no bended knee, no ring, certainly no one else there to witness it. Like all things in our relationship, it was an open discussion and not something where he was entitled to make the decision simply because he was the one with a dick. To be fair, I had several dicks.

We knew we needed to share our news at some point, but didn’t want to do a stiff press release if there was an opportunity to give people a glimpse of our happiness. I was learning how much power there was in the world seeing their Prince Charming get his Happily Ever After with the Wicked Queen.

Sex workers are worthy of love. I’d never set out to represent that notion, but after everything we’d been through, it felt important.

I’d told him to announce our engagement when it felt right so I didn’t have to know it was coming and overthink it. Count on Alex to want to make his big moment about us.

We beamed at each other.

“And I get to spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of her because she’s agreed to be my wife.”

Thanks for reading Elena and Alex’s story! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review. Be sure to catch the next book in The Key Club Series (Zane and Maia’s book) in Spring of 2022!

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Acknowledgments

There’s a thought experiment from ancient philosophy about the ship of Theseus (of Minotaur fame), that asks the question: If one-by-one every plank on the ship was replaced, is it still the same ship? If it’s not the same ship, when did it become a new one?

Why do I mention this? I’ve been pondering it a lot because I’m not sure a single word from the original draft of this book remains and I have a multitude of people to thank for helping me to make it into a ship that was actually seaworthy.

The very first person to see it was Melinda Utendorf, who was my safe space to share my first finished novel. Her constructive editing and enthusiasm got me over that first terrifying hurdle of making a draft (that was probably kind of a disaster) into a real book.