Page 15 of Finally Loved

“How are you doing?” Alba asked, seeming genuinely concerned, if a little flustered. That was probably what happened when people who cried all over you after being dumped dared to interrupt your date.

“Oh. Uh, yeah. I’m doing okay.” She shuffled awkwardly, aware that Alba and her date were both watching her and hating the attention, even if she had brought it on herself. “Better.”

Alba smiled softly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” As she nodded, Neve considered how true the statement was.

Unarguably, she was better than the last time they’d seen each other. The past week had been hard, but it had also been an education, one Neve should have learned a long time ago. And, while the lessons weren’t nice, they were necessary, and that was okay, right? Nothing was really a waste if it taught you things you needed to know.

And crying wasn’t automatically bad. It was a sign of processing difficult things. Maybe all the tears she’d shed over her relationship with Roxanne and her potential future were okay in the end. If she let them out, she wasn’t stuck carryingthem around with her forever. Then, she could move on in the life she now believed she was supposed to live.

Alba took a step towards her. “I’m really glad. I’ve been thinking about you this week and hoping you were okay.”

“She has been really worried,” Alba’s date said with a little too much glee as she leaned forward on the table with her elbows.

Alba shot her a look while Neve attempted to school her confused expression.

“I’m Zainab,” the woman said, holding a hand out in greeting, and even it was perfect—soft, long, delicate.

Hating herself as she did it, Neve sucked in her stomach slightly as she shook Zainab’s hand. Her own body felt wrong, too marked by imperfections, and both too soft and not soft enough next to this woman. But she knew she was just being hard on herself at the minute. Everything this week had been a little bit harder than it should be, and, as she had, once again, been forced to look her own shortcomings in the eye, it felt difficult not to feel like every part of her was coming up short.

“Neve,” she replied, a little too quietly for the café noise. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Zainab smiled, warm and welcoming and far, far too kindly. “It’s really my pleasure.”

Alba cleared her throat and shot Zainab a look Neve didn’t understand, but which caused her head to spin. Maybe she wasn’t an expert in dating—evidently—but she was pretty sure this dynamic was not date dynamic.

“Neve! Are you okay?” Alice’s panicked voice cut through the moment as she and Charlie appeared at Neve’s shoulder.

Neve blushed harder, looking at the two of them and dropping Zainab’s hand after far too long. “Yes. Sorry. I’m fine.”

“We thought something had happened to you,” Alice said, checking Neve over like a worried parent. She was always themore nervous of the two, but in the week since Neve’s breakup, Alice had seemed particularly worried about her.

“We thought you’d fallen in the toilet,” Charlie added with a grin, looping her arm around Alice’s waist.

Neve had seen her do that a million times in a million situations, but, in that moment, something about it caused an ache deep inside of her. A simple gesture that signaled a deeper understanding. Charlie knew Alice was worried, she knew what soothed Alice, and, there, in the middle of a café, she simply wrapped an arm around her, soothing her, comforting her, letting Alice know she wasn’t alone and everything was okay. And Alice melted into her.

It was the kind of experience Neve had been waiting her whole life for.

“Don’t worry,” Alba said, unexpectedly. “We’d have pulled her out if she’d fallen in.”

Neve looked between Alba and the others. Four people between whom Neve was now the connection. But she had no way to explain.

Well, she did, but she didn’t want to.

“There you go, babe,” Charlie told Alice, pulling her in tighter. “Neve’s got loads of people looking out for her.”

Alice smiled sweetly—as if she came in another setting. “That’s good. How do you two know Neve? I don’t think we’ve ever met before…”

Neve suppressed a sigh. Alice knew full well they’d never met before. She was just being kind and providing an opening. But that opening was a wide-open cavern through which the truth could escape.

Alba laughed. “Oh, we met just last week, actually.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed as she looked Alba over again in light of the new evidence, and, before Neve could think of anything helpful to say, Charlie leaned in. “Alba?”

Alba’s eyes found Neve, the green of them seeming so much more alive as she grinned in surprise. “You mentioned me.”

Neve cleared her throat, not missing the way Zainab rolled her eyes. “Uh. Yeah. Just… a little bit. You know, explaining… what happened.”

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