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Isobel laughed. “Pour me a glass of that wine and I’ll turn for you, but same rules apply. I don’t want to see your thing.”
“Um, I’m right here,” Stacey said, good-naturedly swatting Isobel’s arm as the four of them sat down.
At first, Jordan didn’t process this entire exchange as anything more than usual friendly banter, but then her consciousness demanded that she replay it—as did Simon’s quick kick to her shins.
Oh. Ohhhhhhh. Stacey and Isobel were…romantically entangled.
Surreptitiously, her eyes flicked between the two women, perhaps not subtly enough, because Stacey caught her eye and grinned. “Wondering how you missed it?”
“I—”
“It’s not common knowledge,” Stacey said. “Or perhaps it is, but it’s not…out there.”
Stacey fiddled with a coaster, and Isobel brushed her fingers against the back of her hand before turning to Simon and Jordan. “Stacey’s father is a reverend just outside of town.”
“And not the forgiving, love-is-love type of preacher,” Stacey muttered, taking a large gulp of wine.
“No, he’s definitely more the brimstone variety,” Isobel said with a tight smile.
“Oh, honeys,” Simon said, reaching across the table and extending a hand to each woman.
Stacey accepted his hand immediately, Isobel with an eye roll and more reluctantly.
“I came out of the closet when I was nineteen, and my parents haven’t said a word to me since,” Simon said.
Jordan gave him a quick look. They’d been friends for years, and he’d never told her that. She knew that he and his family were estranged, but to be disowned because of whom you loved…
Jordan felt like a bit of an outsider as her three tablemates sat for a moment in silence, sharing something she’d never understand, but she didn’t mind.
Mostly her head was reeling, wondering if she’d missed signs, or if they’d just hid it that well, or…
“Okay, enough about it,” Stacey said, pulling her hand back and shaking out her arms as though wanting to rid herself of sad thoughts. “We’re not all the way open about it, but we like you, Jordan. Figured if you’d be friends with Simon here…”
“For the record, you’re the gayest person I’ve ever met,” Isobel said to Simon.
He patted her hand affectionately. “Just about the nicest compliment you could ever pay me.”
Jordan was still trying to process it all. Stacey obviously wouldn’t be a candidate to prance around in a bikini searching for her true love among a couple of dozen men, but she found she didn’t care as much about that as…
“Does Luke know?” she blurted out.
Then she winced, for both the irrelevance of the question and what it revealed.
The entire table gave her a surprised look, but then Stacey smiled knowingly. “You like him.”
Jordan swallowed. “He’s…”
“Hot.”
Jordan looked at Isobel in surprise, and the redhead shrugged. “What? I can like girls and still see it.”
“He is hot,” Jordan agreed, because…what was the point in fighting the facts? “But he hates me.”
“As someone who dated him for two years and nearly married the guy, no, he most definitely does not,” Stacey said firmly. “He’s got no idea what to do with you, but that’s a different problem altogether. And to answer your question, yes. He knows about Isobel and me.”
“Is that why you didn’t get married?” Simon asked kindly but bluntly.
Guilt flickered across Stacey’s face, and Isobel put a protective hand on her arm. “I’ve got this, hun. Yes,” Isobel said, turning her attention to Simon and Jordan. “Stacey told Luke the morning of their wedding that she couldn’t keep living a lie. He was good about it. I’ll always be grateful for that.”
