Page 25 of Finally Loved

The song changed and the crowd cheered approvingly, the general movements becoming bouncier than before. Alba fell in with them as she waited for an answer.

Zainab tapped one of their friends, gesturing them into the conversation.

“Zainab! What’s up?” Ace asked, more than a little tipsy.

“What’s Alba’s type?” Zainab asked them, keeping her gaze on Alba as she did.

Ace laughed, pushing their rolled shirt sleeves further up their arms. “Curvy, short, killer eyes, nice smile.”

“Thank you.”

Alba rolled her eyes as Ace turned back to Ivy and the rest of the group. “You don’t need to keep doing that, you know?”

“I do, because you apparently aren’t getting it.”

“I get it just fine. Neve is my type. Whatever. Yes, she’s gorgeous and sweet, but I’m friends with lots of gorgeous, sweet people. I do know how to control myself.”

“Yes, but there’s just a—”

“And besides,Charliedoesn’t know that’s my type. Charlie doesn’t know jackshit about me.”

Zainab grabbed Alba’s hand and twirled her. “Charlie can probably figure it out from your wholeknight in shining armorbit. And from the way you look at Neve.”

Alba sighed. She looked at Neve like she was happy to see her again, because she was. Because she cared that the woman she’d seen so broken was doing better. Not because she wanted to fuck her on the table in the middle of a café. She had no idea why everyone was acting like she had no class or self-control.

“Charlie’s just being a supportive friend,” Zainab said, twirling herself this time.

“There’s a difference between supportive and weird.”

“As if you’d know.”

“I know plenty, thank you.”

“She’s just worried Neve’s going to get hurt again,” Zainab said, her mouth close to Alba’s ear.

“You’re talking like you know her.”

“I don’t need to know her to understand the dynamics when we ran into them. Charlie’s in a relationship that seems to be a happy one, so she’s probably not after Neve for herself. Neve has just had a horrible breakup and is vulnerable to people sweeping in and breaking her heart again. It’s only natural that her closest friends would be worried about that.”

“She’s not a child, you know? She doesn’t need babysitters swatting away anyone who comes near her.”

Zainab pulled back to give Alba a look. “We’re all vulnerable in situations like that. There is a reason the whole rebound concept exists. And the rebound can backfire.”

“I’m not looking to be anyone’s rebound. I’m not looking to be anyone’s anything. I just…” Alba wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. Every word she could think of felt like something Zainab—and apparently Charlie—could twist and turn into something more, something romantic, something potentially destructive, and it wasn’t like that. She just…cared.

“I know,” Zainab said, mostly sincerely. “But you do have… an energy about you that I can see Charlie being wary of.”

“Weird time to insult your best friend.”

“I’m not insulting you, I’m just explaining the situation. Especially since you’re wading into having a relationship with Neve without thinking it through. I doubt you can have Neve without having Charlie.”

“I have no interest inhavingCharlie, thank you very much.”

It took a second too long for Alba to realize she should probably have insisted she didn’t want Neve either if shewanted Zainab to believe she wasn’t looking to start something romantic.

Zainab watched her in a way that told Alba she’d noticed, but, rather than comment, she simply shook her head. “I didn’t mean like that. I just meant that, if you’re going to be friends with Neve, you’re unlikely to avoid her friends.”

Alba huffed, spinning herself around in a bid to escape the annoying fact that Zainab was right. “Fine. I suppose that’s true. But I want the record to show, I don’t have a problem with Charlie. She’s the one with the problem.”

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