AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d hoped she’d say that considering how much pain it looked like she was in, but I didn’t want to make the choice for her. “It’s more than okay. Let’s go.”
* * *
When I stepped onto Layla and Lyndi’s front porch with a bottle of nonalcoholic wine in hand, it had been a full forty-eight hours since my conversation with Paul after his proposal. Forty-eight painfully slow, all too quiet, torturous hours. Had I done anything to relieve the pain, like calling or texting him, for example? No. No, I hadn’t. But he hadn’t called or texted me either. Which made me think the whole thing was in my head and there hadn’t really been fiery passion in his eyes like I’d thought. Everything looked different in the heat of the moment than the light of day, right?
“Hey girl,” Layla said as she pulled the door open and ushered me inside.
I held up the bottle of my HCM-friendly wine. “Tropical Faux-Moscato.”
“So you’re saying you want a sugary faux-hangover tomorrow morning?” Layla asked, looking at the pretty bottle with wide eyes.
“Well, I’m not planning to party like it’s 1999 with it, so I’ll probably be fine,” I said with a laugh.
Sometimes it was a bummer that I found out about my heart condition before I’d reached drinking age because that meant I’d never get to try the stuff. And it wasn’t that I really needed to or anything, but it was another thing that made me feel different from my peers. Some people chose not to drink because it was too many calories or they didn’t like the hangover, and that was great for them. But for me, alcohol could aggravate the obstruction in my heart, worsening blood flow. Clearly not worth the risk, therefore not a choice. And I hated how many things in my life I didn’t have a choice about.
Thankfully, my friends never made me feel bad about my sober lifestyle. They teased me like it was an option I’d decided against, instead of tiptoeing around the fact that it wasn’t. I liked that.
“Suit yourself,” she replied as she held up her IPA. “I’ll stick with beer.”
“You do you, boo.”
Aria and Lyndi came around the corner then, Aria with a glass of red wine in her hand and Lyndi with sparkling seltzer wrapped in a custom can koozie. It had the logo of the wedding venue that Aria ran, and Lyndi was their official wedding photographer.
In addition to being sisters, Layla and Lyndi were the best of friends thanks to being relatively close in age. You’d think they would have fought a lot being only two grades apart in high school, but they were actually the opposite. The two of them and Aria hung out constantly back then. Paul, Will, and I were all in Layla’s grade, so even though she totally could have hung out with us, she chose to spend time with her sister.
The sisters had been so excited when they’d found this cute little two-bedroom bungalow to rent together, and it was our unofficial girls’ night hangout space. Aria lived in a small cottage at the venue and there were always guests around, and I had a tiny studio because that was all I could afford with my hodgepodge of dancing jobs.
The bungalow was decorated in a classy yet girly style. Their small sectional was covered in a soft charcoal microfiber, with throw pillows in different sizes and textures strategically placed around it. There were pops of pink in subtle ways, like the pale-pink sheers on the windows, the detailing on the throw pillows and area rug, and the flowers that sat in short vases throughout the room, which were as faux as my wine.
A flat-screen was mounted over the exposed brick fireplace, and the Netflix app was already on the screen, poised and ready for us to pick a chick flick to watch. We never really stopped talking enough to fully pay attention to the movie on our girls’ nights, but it was fun to have it on in the background.
“Hey, Shel,” Aria said as she hugged me with her free arm. “How are you?”
“Good, thanks.” I eyed her carefully, wondering if she’d heard anything from her brother about our little conversation the other night.
“I’ve been dying to talk to you about the proposal,” Lyndi said. “That was horrible. The rejection, not the flash mob. That part was perfect, as usual.”
I pursed my lips. “I just feel bad for Paul.”
“As long as no one says they feel bad forRoxy,” Aria warned, holding up a finger with a heap of protective-sister attitude radiating off of her. “That girl is on my list.”
“Come on, let’s sit.” Layla jerked her head toward the living room, and we all followed her to the couch, making ourselves comfortable so we could chat. She pulled a pale-pink throw pillow onto her lap. “Shel, was Paul totally blindsided by that or what? Did you wind up talking to him before dinner to make sure he really wanted to go through with it?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
My three friends all shared loaded looks, and Aria reached over and patted my knee. “That was hard to watch as his sister. I can’t imagine how you felt.”
“Again, I felt bad for him.” I sank deeper into the couch, images of the hurt and embarrassment on Paul’s face flashed before my eyes.
Aria licked her lips. “And what about before the rejection? Or during? Or after? I really wanna know what was going throughyourmind. Considering.”
“Considering what?” I asked, afraid I already knew the answer.
“Considering you love him, obviously,” Aria said, quietly.
I looked down at my hands. On another girls’ night with another type of faux white wine, I’d totally admitted that I loved Paul but knew it would never work out between us. It was the first and only time I’d ever said those words out loud, and I regretted it for weeks—no, months—after.
I remembered being so worried that Aria would tell her brother, or that one of the other girls would let it slip to some town gossip that would pass it around until the news landed in his ears. But that never happened, and they’d been largely supportive of the fact that I wasn’t going to do anything about my feelings for Paul Bristol. Thank goodness.
