My eyes flooded with tears, and I searched her gaze for a second before a laugh burst from my chest. “Jesus, Giana. You really do read too much smut.”
“No such thing.”
Riley came over to join in the group hug. “Look, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what we think. But, for what it’s worth, I think he deserves a chance. I know what it’s like to deny someone the opportunity to prove they’re good, that they’ve changed… and I regret that time I wasted with my heels dug in on my perceptions. Give him the chance to surprise you.”
I nodded, my chest still tight even as a breath of relief left it.
Because I wanted to give him a chance.
“Maybe I just needed to hear y’all say I’m not stupid for wanting to try, that I won’t get my heart shattered in the process,” I said.
“You might,” Julep replied, but her smile was one that said that wasn’t what she believed would happen. “If you do, we’ll be here to get you through it.”
Riley and Giana nodded their agreement, and I chuckled, wiping my face. “You know, I never had girlfriends before you,” I admitted.
“Me either,” Julep said. “Other than my sister.”
“Fictional characters have been my only friends for years,” Giana added.
Riley poked her thumb into her chest. “I hung out with my brother and his friends, that’s how much I was terrified of making my own.”
“What does that say about us?” I asked.
“You know how they say you have to wait for the one?” Julep asked, looping us all together again. “Maybe it’s like that for us. We had to wait for the right girls to be our besties.”
“We’re soul mates,” Riley added.
We grouped in for another hug, and then Giana sniffed, and I soothed her back. “Aw, G, don’t cry.”
“No, I’m not,” she said, leaning back and wiping her nose. “It’s the book funk.”
I blinked. “Your book funk is making your nose run?”
“It’s like having the flu!” she defended. “My body doesn’t know how to function without at least two fictional stories playing out in my brain at all times.”
That made us all laugh, and as Julep and I started cleaning up and Riley climbed into bed to get as much sleep as she could before practice, Giana went into full detail about the book that had caused her funk — getting particularly dramatic over something about a cowboy hat rule — and how she had tried every known remedy to get out of it without success.
By the time we all crawled into the sheets and turned out the lights, it was just past midnight.
I rolled over and set my head on Julep’s pillow. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
“Always,” she promised.
“You’re getting married,” I sang with a wide grin, poking her ribs under the covers.
She did a little happy dance and squealed, then we both fell silent, and minutes later, she was sound asleep — along with Riley and Giana.
I, on the other hand, stared up at the ceiling and counted down the minutes until morning.
Leo
Before my alarm went off the next morning, I woke to the feel of a warm, lush body wrapping around me.
“You’re in my bed,” a groggy voice whispered in my ear.
I hadn’t realized how much tension I’d been holding until it all leaked out of me the second I heard her, the moment I felt her against me.
I smirked, rolling over until I could see Mary’s sleepy smile as she balanced her chin on my chest. She was careful to avoid my fresh tattoo, her eyes skating over it like she was making sure I was following her care instructions.
“Your bed?” I repeated.
She nodded, and I chuckled, not fighting her on it. Palico hopped up on the bed like she’d been waiting for Mary to show, and we both smiled as Mary ran her hand along Palico’s spine, the cat arching into her touch. She only stayed for a moment before hopping off the bed again — likely because she knew Kyle would be up any minute, and was always first in the kitchen.
Which also meant he was first to feed her.
I settled my gaze back on Mary. She looked tired and a little sad, her eyes a bit red, the skin a bit ashen. I wondered if her night had been as long as mine.
Yesterday had been chaotic. I felt alive during practice, energized from my night with Mary and flying high on just the thought of seeing her again at the end of the day. But when she didn’t answer any of my texts, that high turned into a desperate low, and it was all I could do to make it through my evening classes before speeding back to The Pit.
Only to find she wasn’t home.
There was a note on the bed, something about an impromptu bachelorette party for Julep. And while that alone wasn’t a reason to worry, the way she’d been that morning when I left, how she’d fought back tears, and how my texts had gone unanswered — the combination made me sick to my stomach.
I wanted to talk to her, to call repeatedly until she answered and told me what was wrong. But I knew Mary enough to know that if she was asking for space, that was what she actually wanted. So, I waited.
And here she was, back in bed with me.
I swallowed, brushing her hair from her face. “How was it?”
“Ridiculous,” she said with a smile. “We went to a pole studio.”
I arched a brow. “Got any video? My spank bank could use a refresh…”
“You’re disgusting,” she said on a laugh, pinching my ribs. I just chuckled and pulled her into me, kissing her forehead once she was resting in the crook of my arm. We were silent for a moment, my fingers running through her hair as hers curled into fists over my stomach.
“I missed you,” I admitted.
Her entire body softened in my arms at that, and she leaned up again, her eyes soft under bent brows. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For running.”
“Is that what that was?”
She sat all the way up, folding her legs under her and staring down at her hands in her lap. I pushed until my back was against the headboard, so I was sitting up with her, too.
“I’m fucking terrified, Leo.”
Her voice was a wavering whisper, and I felt her words like a hundred needles through my throat. “Of me?” I asked.
She nodded, and a piece of me died.
“I woke up yesterday, and the first thing I thought was that I’d been made a fool of.”
I moved to hold her. “Mary, I—”
“Let me finish,” she said, holding up a hand to stop my advance. “I was overcome with panic that I had been some kind of conquest for you, that you’d known who I was all along and I was just another game, another notch on your headboard.”
I shook my head harder with every word she said, fighting the urge to interrupt her and tell her she was wrong.
“But,” she continued on a sigh. “I know that’s just my own insecurity.”
She was quiet for a while, and I tentatively reached over to take her hand in mine, to soothe her and let her know I was there, that I was listening.
“You… you’re Leo fucking Hernandez,” she said on a laugh. I smiled a little, too, but it slipped quickly when I realized she was saying that as if it were a curse. “You could have any girl you want, any fit, hot girl in the world.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense that you’d ever want me.”