He leans down so he’s looking me head on, staring at me. “I do.”
He’s close enough that I catch a hint of something sweet and oaky. But it’s not his intoxicating smell that hits me—it’s the quiet certainty in his eyes, like he’s decided I already belong.
Why does that make me flush?
“Well, I think all of those things about you, too,” I say, stirring my straw around in my soda water. “Sincere, authentic, witty,anddelightful.”
He flattens his eyebrows. “Do you really think that?”
I hold his eye, wanting him to know how serious I am when I say,
“I do.”
He doesn’t back up right away, and neither do I, and I get a feeling like I wouldn’t mind staying here, peering into his eyes for a moment longer … when someone asks him for a drink.
He backs up, but not before shooting me a smile that feels almost secretive. But what secret could we possibly have?
And why do I smile back like I know exactly what it is?
CHAPTER FIVE
KAYLA
Icheck my outfit three times before leaving the house, and I ask Ash, my roommate, so to speak, to give me a once-over.
“Picture perfect,” she says, giving me a high five. “You want Rusty and me to come as reinforcements?”
I’m tempted to say yes, but then I remember Sean saying he’ll see me here today. It’s all the confidence I need.
“I got this.”
“Yeah, you do,” Ash says, flipping her dense cinnamon brown curls. “You’re keeping it right and tight in that cream pantsuit, girl.”
I laugh. What would it have been like growing up with someone like Ash as a friend rather than the ballet girls who were so critical, so competitive, so vicious?—
Stop the spiral, sweetie.
I stop, but not before acid crashes against my stomach like waves on a cliff.
With a smile, I thank Ash, climb into my pearl white hybrid Mercedes Benz, and drive the twelve minutes to the church in Mullet Ridge. The only sound is the whisper of tires and the full-volume pep talk playing on my podcast app.
“Today’s mantra, friends,” the podcast host says, “You don’t have to change yourself to belong. You can’t belong when you shrink like it will somehow make room for others. Belonging can only come when you stand tall in your worth. Now go seize the day like your grandmother built it with her bare hands.”
“My grandmother did a lot of impressive things in her life,” I mutter, “but building days was a little beyond her skill set.”
But still, I straighten my shoulders when I pull up to the church.
My phone buzzes with a text, and I check it before I step out.
It’s from my best friend.
Well, my ex best friend, whether either of us can accept it or not.
Aldridge’s sister, Meryl.
MERYL
KAYLA. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for leaving me in Bora Bora alone with these monsters.
