Jules snorted, not because that wouldn’t be exactly what she wanted but because she didn’t know how it would work. Hope flickered in her chest as she remembered the night before. Even if she didn’t see how, it might be possible. “Right.”
“I’m serious. Wes is serious. I bet if you asked Rhys, he’d be on board.”
“All right. I’ll put it on my list of things to talk to him about.” Did she have the guts to ask him about the future? A week ago, the answer would have been no. Now…?
“Did you sleep with him yet?”
“Abs.”
“Oh, that sounds like a yes.” Abigail drew in a deep breath. “I bet that man can fuck.”
“Abigail.”
Her sister chortled. “Am I wrong?”
“You’re nosy. That’s what you are.”
Abigail hooted and said to someone else, “I’ll tell you later.”
“Is that Wes? If you tell Wes anything, I’ll… make sure…” Jules stared at the ceiling. She wasn’t good at lobbing threats. “Just imagine something bad. I’ll sic Sloane on you. She’d probably stab someone if I asked her to.”
“If you could see me quaking in my bathing suit.” Abigail laughed. “Besides, if you and Rhys really got together, Sloane would throw a party.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because every picture of you two together is like midnight on New Year’s Eve. Like you’re drunk on each other and staring into the future with hope and blinky lights shining in your heart-shaped eyes. It’s so cute that it’s gross, and the world is eating it up.” Abigail gagged. “Kinda makes me want to puke a little, except I know it’s real, so I have to be happy for you.”
“There’s nothing to be happy about. We’re just…” Hanging out? Screwing up a solid working relationship? Falling for each other—or something even worse? Ruining everything. “Being us.”
“God, you’re a precious pain in the butt. What’s holding you back?”
“Besides the fact that we live on opposite sides of the country?” Jules thought back to all the animosity she used to harbor for him and wondered where and when it had gone. “I don’t trust him completely.”
Abigail scoffed. “I know you’re not still talking about the Jordan Everett thing.”
“Well, yeah.”
“First, I think you got over that a long time ago.”
Maybe…
“Second,” Abigail continued, “even if you hadn’t, you trust him professionally. And maybe you don’t trust him with your secrets.But that’s why people date. To grow together. To figure out how they exist as a couple.”
“I don’t know.”
“Jules, wake up, sunshine. It’s not that you don’t trust him. You do. You always have. It’s that youthinkyou haven’t forgiven him. But guess what. You did that too. Over the last fifteen years, you’ve grown up together. You forgave him without realizing it. He’s your guy. He’s always been your guy. Maybe it’s time for either of you to notice.”
A shiver ran down Jules’s arms as she sucked in her cheeks. Her breath caught in her chest, and she wasn’t exactly sure how to jumpstart her lungs again.
“Did your phone die or something?” Abigail demanded. “Stroke out on me?”
“Ugh, shut up, please.”
A truck pulled into the driveway, and Rhys jumped out.
“Hey, Abs, I have to go.”
Her sister laughed. “Tell Rhys we say hey and to—”
