“I’m not,” I protest as four pairs of eyes pivot my direction. “I’m fine.”
Kailey tilts her head to the side, studying me in a way that has my stomach churning. “You don’t look fine,” she says. “You look…not sick exactly, but not yourself.”
“No,” Luna interjects. “She looks sick as fuck—and I don’t just mean her pale skin. The way you’re filling out that shirt…” Her mouth twitches and she lifts her hands, cupping them in front of her chest. “Are you on your period?” she asks. “Because that used to give me epic titties.”
“Luna,” Bri says on a sigh, shaking her head.
Faye smothers a smile. “I mean, am I surprised that Luna’s talking about titties?—”
“You write porn for a living,” Luna points out.
A sniff. “I’ll have you know that I consider it smut and not porn, thank you very much.”
“What’s the difference?” Bri asks.
“The female gaze,” Faye replies without missing a beat.
“Nothing,” Luna says at the same time.
Of course, she does it with a smile that tells me she doesn’t believe what she’s saying—she’s just riling Faye up, trying to get a glimpse of that infamous redhead temper.
Faye glares at her. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t give me some nonsense about how real people have sex and so do my characters. Yes, that’s true. But also yes, you really like writing sex scenes that happen on the Zamboni.”
Faye’s cheeks go pink but her chin comes up. “Maybe real-life people have really hot sex on the Zamboni, okay? But real-life people don’t use words like titties.”
“I do.” Luna tosses her hair. “And I use the T-word.”
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now,” Bri mutters.
“I can,” Kailey says with a grin. Her face softens as she looks over at me, asks softly, “But seriously, you okay?”
Okay?
Nope. Not in the least.
Will be okay?
Of course I will.
I always am.
I open my mouth to tell her some version of that—mainly that, yes, I’m okay, that no, actually I’m great—but I don’t get the words out.
Because the moment my lips part, my stomach turns.
I plunk my drink on the coffee table and stand up in a rush, my head spinning, my stomach churning.
“Harper—”
Clamping a hand over my mouth, I rush from the room, hurrying down the hall and into Luna’s guest bathroom.
And there I lose my dinner.
Again.
Soft hands gently smooth back my hair, holding it away from my nape. Someone else places a cold compress there. One of the other women rubs my back, murmuring soft words. And Bri, I realize when I finally sit back and find myself surrounded by Kailey, Luna, and Faye…
