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“Ive?” Nia says. “You with us?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“I was just thinking we should have videoed more of this,” I lie.
“It’s not too late!” my sister crows, pulling her phone out.
“That dueting thing you and Shane are doing is adorable,” Sonya says.
“Thanks.”
Shane’s assistant, who is a social media genius, decided that while we were apart he would have Shane duet videos of me as the two of us separately go about our wedding planning and caption them with lines from Shane about how much he misses me and wishes he could be with me. They’ve been wildly popular. There’s one of Hanna and me working with the florist on arrangement ideas while Shane does a video call with the photographer, another one of me working on evites alongside Shane replying to RSVPs, and a bunch more.
“Let’s get you into and out of a couple of these dresses again,” Nia says. “Ones you’re not going to actually wear, or it’ll ruin the wedding-day surprise. And then Shane can put on and take off his tux in the duet. That’ll be a big hit.” She smirks.
I’m not sure I can survive that video, but I don’t say that out loud. Of course, everyone in this dressing room knows I kissed Shane—because that video was all over the internet for days—but no one knows how much I liked it. Or that I’ve been trying to restrain myself from Googling Shane Hott in a tux so I can brace myself for our wedding day.
“No. Nope,” Hanna says. “My brother. Nope. No undressing videos.” She points a finger at Reggie. “And if such a thing ever happens, no one is—under any circumstances—to share the video with me. Do you understand how traumatic that would be?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Reggie completes the gesture with a dagger to the chest. She turns to me. “I can’t believe you’ve had sex with Mavryx.”
“With Shane,” I automatically correct, then blush ferociously because, of course, I haven’t. Not that they know that. Well, Sonya, Nia, and Hanna probably do. But now I can’t correct the record in either direction because…
Well, fuck.
“I won’t ask if it’s like the movies,” Reggie teases.
“I’ve only seen the first one,” I confess.
I say it because if I don’t say that, I might say, I don’t know; I haven’t had sex with him, and that will open Pandora’s box. But as soon as the words are out of my mouth, they all turn on me in one coordinated movement, mouths gaping.
“Wow,” Reggie says. “That’s…willpower.”
“It’s more like living under a rock,” I admit.
“I don’t think I’d want to watch my fiancé have sex in a movie,” Sonya asks. “You might be better off not watching.”
I bite my lip. Technically, of course, he’s not my fiancé. And my curiosity has been growing with every mention of this movie, especially since that kiss.
Maybe getting to watch Shane—ack, Mavryx—have sex would take the edge off my craving for actual sex with him?
“Don’t watch,” Nia says, her expression concerned—because she’s my sister, and she probably tracked almost my whole train of thought. “Sonya’s right.”
“I won’t.”
My words lack conviction. I can feel myself waffling.
“He’s been gone a while,” Reggie says. “You must miss him.”
I love the fact that the woman who wears all black is this group’s hopeless romantic. “Yeah,” I tell her.
Then I freeze, the stained skirt held between my hands.
Because it’s true.
I miss him.
