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Those words are both a balm and a burn. “It’s a whoever, not a whatever,” I say, thinking that Tillie would be smiling in satisfaction right now if she were standing here.
“Even better it’s a whoever,” Stone says. “That means connection.”
“Christ, don’t try to shrink me,” I grumble. “I know what my fucking issues are.”
“Yes, you do,” Stone says, clapping me on the shoulder. “And I’m guessing you’re trying to figure a way past them. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be standing in this parking lot talking to us.”
He’s got a point. I just hate saying it out loud because then I’m setting up expectations that I won’t allow myself to fail.
I heave an exaggerated sigh. “Who all is coming to dinner?”
“Just us,” Gage says, waving his hand between himself and Stone. “And Baden probably. Guys’ night out.”
I rub at my neck—one dinner doesn’t take much consideration. These are the core men who tried to have my back through all my fuckups this year. Hell, Gage even went after my main tormentor, Coach Keller, and got him fired, although for other reasons.
I could give these guys a night.
See if there’s any room for real redemption.
CHAPTER 23
Tillie
Ann Marie topsoff my wineglass before refilling hers. Settling back onto my couch, she kicks her feet up on the coffee table next to mine.
“This is the life.” She sighs and pats her stomach. “Good food, good wine, and good friends.”
“Best friend,” I correct her.
“Best friend,” she agrees and holds her glass to the side. I tap mine against hers, and we sip. “This wine is really good.”
“I feel like we’re sissies or something drinking moscato.”
“Why?” she asks with a snort. “Because it’s sweet and fizzy?”
“Yeah. We’re chicks who drink Iron City beer, which has been known to put hair on even the prettiest girls’ chests.”
Ann Marie angles sideways to face me. “Why do we drink that crap? It’s like bubbly horse piss.”
“It is not,” I exclaim, defending our regional beer. “It’s a way of life.”
We break out in peals of laughter that may or may not have something to do with the fact we’ve polished off one bottle already and are halfway through the second.
Ann Marie and I do sleepover dates once in a blue moon. Sometimes we get so busy with our lives, we need an entire night together just to catch up. It’s been a week since we’ve seen each other as she went to Baltimore with Xander. That’s his hometown, and there was the formal meeting of parents, which indicates this is getting serious.
For a quick second, I allow myself a blip of jealousy. I’ll never be able to introduce a man to my parents. I won’t have my mom’s advice to fall back on or my dad promising a slow, painful death if a man were to break my heart.
I can’t help but imagine what they’d think of Coen. My mom would love him, no questions asked. She’d want to mother him, and he needs it. My dad would probably have a harder time connecting. As an artist, his head was often in the clouds, and he knew nothing of sports, so they wouldn’t have had anything in common. But I think my dad would see that there’s more to Coen than the rough, aloof nature he shows the world.
A nature I’ve only recently learned is rooted in not only a traumatic experience—the plane crash—but by a mistake he made, responsible for his suffocating and debilitating guilt.
“Are we going to order pizza for dinner?” Ann Marie asks. It’s the only thing that will deliver this far out of the town limits.
“I have some frozen butter chicken I can thaw.” It’s one of our favorites, and I always make a double batch and freeze it in individual servings so I can have it whenever I want.
“Yummy,” she says as she settles against the back of the couch. “After we finish this glass.”
“Tell me about Baltimore,” I prod. I’m concerned it didn’t go well, as I was sort of expecting her to be bursting at the seams to share.
