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Kit cackled. “Yeah, that’s totally better.”
“Leave her alone,” Aspen drawled as she joined them. “She can be a smitten kitten if she wants.”
Zann sighed. She loved her friends and had been looking forward to this week from the moment she’d learned about Aspen and Eve’s grand plans for their big day, but their teasing was making it hard to remember that. This thing with Lydia was so beyond anything she could have ever expected, and while she knew they didn’t mean it that way, the jokes just felt cruel.
Belittling.
She scrubbed a hand over her face.
She knew they didn’t mean it that way, that jokes and lighthearted ribbing were their little group’s love language, but…
This wasn’t a joke.
“Shit, Asp,” Kit said in a mock-whisper, “is she broken?”
Zann pursed her lips against another sigh as she seriously considered what she knew Kit had meant to be a playful question.
Am I broken?
Honestly, that was as good an excuse as any for what was happening to her. She knew that, come Sunday, she’d go back to Los Angeles and Lydia would fly to New York, and this thing that they’d stumbled into would end, but her stupid heart clearly hadn’t gotten the memo that this couldn’t be anything more than a fling.
“I might be,” Zann muttered, her voice choked with emotion. “Shit, guys, I really might be.”
“Oh fuck,” Kit exhaled.
Aspen, to her credit, just hummed and draped a heavy arm over her shoulders to pull her into a bracing side hug.
It was exactly the strong, grounding touch Zann needed. “What am I doing?” she asked as she leaned into her.
Kit cleared her throat. “Well,” she began thoughtfully, all traces of her previous humor absent from her tone, “from what I’ve seen—I’d say that you are taking a page out of our dear friend Aspen’s book.”
Zann choked on a laugh. She must really be a mess if Kit was being serious. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Yep,” her friends agreed in perfect unison.
“But in a good way,” Aspen added.
Zann gritted her teeth against the urge to scoff at that particular assessment. “How is any of this good?”
Her question answered itself by Lydia choosing that exact moment to turn away from Eve to look for her. There was no mistaking the joy that crinkled Lydia’s eyes when they locked onto hers, and she was glad for Aspen’s arm and the chair holding her up as her knees turned to water as she drank her in.
“I’d say because of that, right there,” Kit replied, her tone light, but still uncomfortably reflective.
Zann licked her lips. Kit’s solemnity and the warmth in Lydia’s smile and the fucking insane tug she felt whenever Lydia looked at her was too much. It was all just so very too much. “For the love of god, Hawthorne,” she whispered desperately. “Please make a joke.”
“All right,” Kit agreed brightly. “I call dibs on the Hallmark Movie plotline at whatever the next event is where we’re all together.”
Aspen snorted. “But with lots of sex, right?”
“Fucking duh.”
“Thought so,” Aspen chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do about that.” She squeezed Zann’s shoulder. “But, in the meantime, I think Zee needs to go enjoy hers.”
Zann raked her lower lip through her teeth. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“The way she’s smiling at you says you do,” Aspen pointed out kindly. “Are you really going to keep her waiting?”
Zann swallowed and shook her head.
