Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) by Lyssa Kay Adams

            “He didn’t write it,” Elena said. But it wouldn’t have meant more even if he had. She looked down at the words again, but this time they swam through a watery lens.

            “Does it mean something important?” Michelle asked quietly.

            Yes, it meant something. It meant everything. It was a Pushkin poem about a man who fell in love with a woman but lost her, only to find her again years later.

            It was a poem about second chances, about forgiveness and starting over.

            It was, Vlad seemed to be saying, a poem about them.

            At the bottom, Vlad had written a note. It was a wondrous moment when I woke up in the hospital and saw you there. I don’t want you to go. Will you have dinner with me tonight?

            “So?” Claud prodded impatiently. “That’s it? Just a poem?”

            “No,” Elena said, looking up again. “He wants me to have dinner with him tonight.”

            Michelle squealed and did a little dance before pointing at Elena with an I told you so expression.

            “What did I say? That man would die for you.”

            “I don’t want him to die for me. I want him to be happy.”

            “And he will be if you get over your stubborn self, put the past behind you, and give your marriage a chance at a real future.”

            “But what if I can’t make him happy? What if—”

            She swallowed the rest of the question, but it remained a loud voice in her head. What if she was too broken after all this time? What if it was too late to overcome all the mistakes, the misunderstandings? What if her past was just another anchor destined to drag their future into a dark well of water?

            “No more what ifs,” Claud ordered. “It’s time to decide, once and for all. Happiness is the harder choice, but you’re strong enough to risk it. I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t believe that.”

            “I still have things to tell him,” Elena whispered, her voice weakening along with her resistance.

            “And you’ll have plenty of time for that later,” Michelle said. “But for now, you just have to take the first step.”

            The first step toward a new future. Was it really that simple?

            Elena swallowed and sucked in a breath. “Okay,” she said with a fortifying nod. “What’s the plan?”





CHAPTER NINETEEN





She said yes.

            An hour after he’d sent her the poem, Elena sent a note back saying she would be home at five, and the guys immediately sprang to action. They shaved him. Fixed his hair. Dressed him up in his best suit. Noah asked Alexis to make a special dinner, and then the two of them arranged the patio table outside the same way he’d arranged it her first night in America.

            With a half hour to spare, Vlad took to pacing with his crutches as the guys tried to calm him down.

            “Take deep breaths,” Malcolm said.

            “I can’t. I’m too nervous.”

            “About what?”

            He stopped and glared.

            Malcolm held up his hands. “There is no reason to be nervous about that right now. This is your first chapter of a new story together. Sex might not even happen tonight.”

            “But what if it does?” Oh, God. He was going to puke.

            “If it does, congratulations,” Mack quipped.

            “But what if she doesn’t . . .” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. He could even say the word orgasm.

            Malcolm stood in front of him. “You know what? There’s actually a really good chance she won’t just from intercourse itself.”

            Vlad groaned.

            “But that could be true whether it’s your first time or your fiftieth. No matter what, just remember to take care of her first.”