“Vivi.”
Gwyn had crossed the kitchen and had her hands on Vivi’s shoulders as she gently turned her around. “I love good sex and distractions more than just about anything. But I also can recognize when something is the real deal. And this is, isn’t it?”
Vivi could’ve withstood a lot of things. Sarcasm, prying, possibly even torture. Had Gwyn attempted any of those, she would’ve been able to breezily insist that she was not in love with Rhys Penhallow, and that she was just a twenty-first-century woman having a good time in the midst of what was otherwise a total mess.
But Gwyn was looking at her so sincerely with those big blue eyes that had always seen right into her soul, and oh, goddammit, now she was crying. Again.
Just a little, but that was enough for Gwyn.
Her face creasing in exaggerated sympathy, Gwyn pulled Vivi in, smothering her in orange wool and the scent of lavender.
“Baby girl.” Gwyn sighed, and Vivi hugged her back, letting herself cry.
“It’s so stupid!”
“So is love, to be honest.”
“We’re completely wrong for each other!”
“Which is why it’s hot.”
“I cursed him, Gwynnevere.”
“Who among us hasn’t.”
Pulling back, Vivi stared at Gwyn before swiping at her wet cheeks. “Even you have to admit this is very bad timing.”
But Gwyn only shrugged. “There’s no really good timing for this kind of thing, is there? Finding your person? It just kind of happens when it happens. Or so they say.”
With that, she turned back to the stove, and for the first time, Vivi noticed what she was making—the particularly sweet and, in Vivi’s opinion, gross hot tea that Gwyn had always loved, a mix of truly obscene amounts of sugar, black tea, a bunch of spices and orange-flavored Kool-Aid.
It was Gwyn’s go-to comfort drink, even above vodka, and it always signaled something bad.
“Jane?” Vivi ventured, and Gwyn didn’t turn around.
“Talk about people who were completely wrong for each other.”
Without saying anything else, Vivi walked over and put her arms around Gwyn’s waist, resting her cheek against Gwyn’s back. Then, after a pause, she asked, “Wanna curse her?”
Gwyn burst into laughter, dropping her hands to cover Vivi’s, and squeezed. “You know, let’s wait to see how your sitch turns out before we attempt cursing again, okay?”
“Fair,” Vivi answered, giving Gwyn one more hug before going over to the cabinet to get them both mugs.
Tonight, she’d sit at the kitchen table and drink Gwyn’s Breakup Tea.
And tomorrow, she’d make a deal with the devil.
Maybe literally.
Chapter 31
Rhys woke up on what might be the last day of his life in an unsurprisingly bad mood.
For one, he was alone.
He’d slept on one side of the massive bed last night, like some kind of heartsick idiot, and now, as he rolled over and stretched his hand out to the place where Vivienne should be, he felt very much like some kind of heartsick idiot.
He’d fucked up last night. Badly.
And he wasn’t sure exactly where. He knew she’d been upset about the curse and what it meant, but he believed in her. Believed in them, that they could fix this, and it had stung that she clearly didn’t have the same faith.
But then, she never had had a huge amount of faith in him. Rhys might have bungled that summer pretty badly, but she hadn’t even given him a chance to explain, had immediately assumed the absolute worst interpretation of what he’d said, and until this moment, he hadn’t realized that that had stung, too.