“I shouldn’t have said that,” I say quickly. “It wasn’t bad. It was just—I asked if it would be weird being friends with me. And he said no. I was one of the guys.” The words still make me wince. I tucked that moment away inside me, letting it harden and calcify.One of the guys, I told myself,it’s perfect.Who doesn’t want to be one of the guys, right?
“Fucker,” Emory mutters under her breath.
“It’s fine. I really did want to be one of the guys for years. It felt like the easiest way to be accepted at work.” I shrug. “So with him, I told myself I didn’t care. And I didn’t. Genuinely. It’s not like I got up every day and wished he liked me or something, but somewhere along the way—”
“You wished he saw you differently,” she says quietly.
I lift one shoulder, my throat working. “I thought about it. I keep looking at the women he’s dating and wondering what life would be like if I were like them. And I hate it.” I pause, trying to phrase things honestly. “I like myself, Emory.”
“I like you too,” she says with a tiny smile.
“But this situation has showed me all the things I’m lacking.”
“Shit.” She bumps me with her shoulder. “You’re not lacking anything.”
I hold myself still next to her, then lean in slightly to her warmth and her easy affection. “I haven’t figured outmy thing, you know? I look at all these women and Tristan and I’m jealous, mostly because I want to be more like them. I want to do big things. I just haven’t figured out that big thing yet. Part of me feels…” My voice trails off, my heart jumping unsteadily in my chest. “Part of me feels like even if Tristan did like me, even if I were an option, that I wouldn’t deserve him.”
“No, Katie,” she breathes. “No.”
“It’s fine.” I shake my arms out. “I’m not wallowing.”
“I’m going to help you,” she declares. “First, I’m going to get you a date with someone hot and nice. And then I’m going to have you help me with something that makes me feel big.”
“Emory, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think Aiden wants me making whiskey.”
She leans in. “Not that. The Mathletes girls found out I train with you and they want in.”
Emory coaches a math team at the local high school and I’ve met the girls before, when they came to Crownhaven to celebrate a big meet. They’re fun and wild and a little bit terrifying.
“Why would they want me to coach them? We should ask Nour. She has way more experience.”
Emory shakes her head. “It’s gotta be you. Just trust me, okay?”
“I trust you zero percent,” I say, smiling at my friend. “You’re trouble.”
She giggles and squeezes my shoulder again. “You know, Katie, you don’t see it, but you helped me too. When I first came here, you felt like the one person I could rely on.”
The back of my nose prickles.Thisis why I love Crownhaven. This little family. “You can,” I say loyally. “So who’s this date you’re setting me up with?”
“A friend of Aiden and Tristan’s.” She grins. “Seth Dawson.” She says the name like I’m supposed to know who he is, then rolls her eyes. “Come on. He’s a billionaire investor in a bunch of medical stuff. His companies save lives. He’s cute and nice and he’s in town at the end of next week. He’d totally take you out.” She must see my hesitation, because her brows go up in challenge. “Unless your date with Ryan turned you off dating forever?”
“Almost.” I grimace. “But no.” My resolve hardens as I think about all the dates Tristan has been on. I want that too. I want to get out of my comfort zone. I think it might be the first step to doing big things.Discomfort is where progress lives, David used to say. I shift on the mat, knowing the next thing I’m about to say will make me feel a little ill. “I want what you and Aiden have, one day. I want to keep putting myself out there.”
Emory’s face lights up. “Hell yes, you do.” She jumps up. “And I’m going to find something for you to wear.” She’s practically skipping out the door, and I follow more slowly, dumping the pads by the door to be sanitized later. “I want Tristan to swallow his tongue.”
“Not the point.”
She dances backward, grinning gleefully. “Totally the point.”
“Whose side are you on?”
Her smile broadens. “Mine. Definitely mine.”
24
KATIE
“Okay. Listen up.” I clap my hands the way I imagine teachers do and scan the high school girls who are sprawled across the gym mats on Sunday morning. There are six of them, from fifteen to eighteen, and one nineteen-year-old alum who is sticking close to Emory.
