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Sasha, the only one still standing moved to perch down on the coffee table across from me, face earnest. “Seriously, Kam. How are we supposed to fix whatever it is if you don’t tell us what’s wrong?”
I had a golf ball lodged in my throat, turning my friends into blurred outlines behind a wall of tears. I fought to blink them back, to swallow them down before it all spewed out in a rush of hysterical weeping. I tried to hide the tears by focusing on the half-eaten cookie in my sweaty fingers when Sasha’s hand rested over mine in what she probably thought was a comforting gesture.
The errant droplet clinging to my lashes for dear life plummeted and splattered across the back of her hand. I heardher murmur my name before several familiar arms enclosed me from all sides, a pressing fold of sisterhood and the purest love as everything from assurances to bodily harm on the person responsible were voiced. I wedged my face into Sasha’s shoulder, soaking her t-shirt as I let all my misery pour out for the first time in days. No one stopped me until I’d heaved my last sob. Someone stuffed a tissue into my hand, replacing the cookie now crushed somewhere in my lap.
Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how much I missed my girls, how much I needed them to pull me together. Those few days without them, I’d worked so hard to stuff everything down and ignore it when all I needed was my friends.
“You okay?” Sasha murmured, sweeping back strands of hair off my damp cheeks.
I started to nod only to have Kas narrow her eyes. “No lying again. What happened?”
Sniffling, I scrubbed my nose and eyes. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well, you’ve been a total weirdo since we got to the lodge, so start there,” Lavena decided, folding one leg under the other and scooting closer. Her hand continued its slow, circular rubbing of my sweat-soaked spine through the heavy blanket.
“You’re going to think so badly of me,” I murmured, twisting the moist tissue into a ball.
“Well, that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said,” Kas teased. “I’d hit you if you weren’t already down.”
“We would never think badly of you,” Sasha reiterated.
I took a deep breath, knowing there was no going back. I couldn’t help wondering if I’d made matters worse by giving in to my feelings for Darius, not just for my heart, but my relationship with my friends.
“Is this about Darius?” Lavena raised a questioning eyebrow when my head jerked up in her direction.
“What?” I mumbled stupidly.
“Yup,” Kas murmured, as if I’d given myself away.
“Definitely Darius,” Sasha agreed.
Lavena leveled all the weight of her attention on my face. “What did he do?”
“He didn’t … how did you—?”
“Know?” Lavena finished and I nodded.
“Because we’re not idiots, and you guys are not subtle. Holy fuck you guys are not subtle.”
Sasha and Kas made quiet noises between agreement and amusement.
I looked between each of them, my head spinning. “What do you mean?”
Lavena narrowed her eyes in a very clear,are you joking,gesture. “Do you really not know how loud you are?”
The implications of her statement was a baseball bat of pure, raw mortification straight in the face. The violent surge of horror exploded with blistering heat up my neck.
“You heard us?”
“Sweetheart, the entire country heard you,” Sasha murmured a little too kindly, like she was trying to ease me into the horrifying knowledge.
“Oh my God!” I slapped my hands over my face, the skin scorching to the touch. “Oh my God!” I moaned again, pulling the blanket up to my forehead. I stayed that way long enough that I was breathing my own hot air. When I finally dragged the comforter down just low enough to peek at the smirking faces of my friends, I wanted to die all over again. “No…”
Lavena nodded. “Kas didn’t know if we should save you or get you a movie deal with a porn company.”
“You’d make bank,” Kas agreed.
“Stop it!” I shoved her.
