She’d be the most enthusiastic Maid of Honor Elle had ever seen. Margot would be Pinterest-level enthusiastic, queen of DIY hacks and rustic elegance—whatever the fuck that meant—and Ball mason jars and inspirational quotes with unattributable sources. She’d tattoo live, laugh, love on her ass if it would make Elle happy.
“That’s good, because I don’t have anyone else to ask, and even if I did”—Elle’s smile wobbled—“there’s no one I’d rather have as my Maid of Honor than you.”
Aw, fuck. Margot’s vision swam, eyes flooding with tears. She ripped off her glasses and tossed them on the cushion, quickly pinching the bridge of her nose. “Shit, Elle. You’re going to make me fuck up my eyeliner. Do you know how hard I worked to get these wings even?”
“Hey.” Elle nudged Margot gently with her knee. “I haven’t wanted to push, but . . . what’s going on with you, Mar?”
She opened her mouth—
“And please don’t say nothing, because there’s obviously something.”
Margot puffed out her cheeks. Well, there went that plan.
Elle leaned closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Does this have something to do with Olivia?”
Margot jerked back. “What?” In an attempt to cover the way her voice cracked, Margot laughed. “Why would this have anything to do with Liv?”
Elle stared at her, smile small and gaze knowing. The skin between Margot’s shoulder blades itched, and she rolled her arms back.
“I don’t know.” Elle’s lips tipped up in a wry smile. “Maybe because you keep looking at Luke like you’re imagining eviscerating with him your eyes or brainstorming new and inventive ways you might torture him.”
“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel,” Margot muttered under her breath. “Or rack.”
Elle stared.
“Joking.” Margot huffed. “One hundred percent not serious.”
Elle’s brows rose.
“Fine. Ninety-nine percent not serious, and that one percent only wishes he’d step on a Lego.”
Elle sighed. “Margot.”
“Ugh. Do we really have to do”—she gestured vaguely, tipping her beer bottle back and forth between them—“this? My feelings are—”
Margot’s heart seized, panic gripping her as she stared across the fire at Luke and Olivia. Their legs were angled toward one another, knees touching, and Olivia spoke with her hands, animated when she answered his questions, her flushed face lighting up each time she laughed.
Margot drew her bottom lip between her teeth.
Fuck.
Her feelings.
Feelings.
Margot wasn’t supposed to have any feelings, not of the chest variety. God, her chest was doing all sorts of ridiculous things right now, clenching and fluttering, her heart pounding against her sternum like a battering ram.
Damn it, it was supposed to be sex. Supposed to be casual. Feelings weren’t on the menu. Feelings were strictly prohibited; that was the whole point. Friends with benefits, satisfaction guaranteed, all gain no pain, reward with none of the risk, have her cake and eat it, too.
It wasn’t like the sex wasn’t great. Sex with Olivia was . . . Words couldn’t do it justice. Mind-blowing, toe-curling, amazing. But Margot wanted more.
She frowned sharply when Luke said something that made Olivia shove his arm playfully. She wanted that. To sit beside Olivia and let her hand linger on Olivia’s thigh, to be the person offering Olivia marshmallows off her stick, to be the person making Olivia laugh. To be the person. Olivia’s person.
Not Luke, not Brad, no one else. Her. She wanted it to be her by Olivia’s side.
She could picture it perfectly.
Waking up beside Olivia every morning. Falling asleep beside her every night.
How easy it would be to let these feelings grow, let herself fall in love with Olivia, fall in love with her again.
Too get in too deep.
How awful it would be, telling Olivia she wanted more, baring her brittle heart, offering up all her many messy feelings, only for Olivia to turn her down gently. For everything between them to become strained, sharing a seven-hundred-square-foot apartment, their lives entangled in new ways. To ache each time Olivia stepped through the front door, to hold her breath each time Olivia left, wondering when the time would come that Olivia would leave and never come back, Margot’s feelings too big, eating up all the oxygen in the room, making it so the two of them couldn’t coexist inside the same space.