Page 41 of Try Hard
Eve smiled sweetly but shook her head. “No need. Thank you, though. I’m perfectly capable of getting myself—and Fia here—to the venue.”
I narrowed my eyes at her but didn’t say anything.
“Well,” Sammy continued, undeterred, “maybe we should exchange numbers, you know, just in case something comes up.”
“Oh, I can just let Kim know if it does,” Eve said, her thumb rubbing softly over my spine.
Sammy laughed, waving a hand in Kim’s direction. “Yeah, but she’ll be so busy celebrating, and you don’t want to bother the bride on her big night, do you?”
With the proximity of her body, I felt more than heard Eve suck in a deep breath. She knew just as well as I did that we weren’t getting out of this easily.
“Do you have a pen?” she asked the group, and her hand slid down my back as she leaned over to grab one of the business cards on a counter by the door.
Sammy lit up, clearly believing she was getting Eve’s number. She didn’t know Eve very well.
Sammy scrambled around for a pen, finally acquiring one from the bartender, and positively ran back over to us. She tried to hand it to Eve, but Eve simply held the business card out to her.
“Why don’t you write your number there, and, if anything comes up and I can’t reach Kim, I’ll have it available?” she asked, not unkindly.
“Oh. Okay.” Sammy looked thrown for a moment but quickly rallied and scribbled down her number, name, and a little heart.
She did not know how to take a hint. I wondered how often Eve had to deal with stuff like that. She’d seemed easygoing about it with Margot, but surely it got grating after a while? Or maybe it wasn’t that annoying when you enjoyed people the way she did. I wouldn’t know.
“Well,” Eve said, smiling at Kim, “we’d better be off.”
The way her statement made it feel like we were a couple sent a wave through me, only amplified by the way she stepped in to hug Kim and Tanika without taking her hand off me. It simply trailed down my back and hovered momentarily at my hip, making my throat tight.
“Text me,” Tanika whispered, voice loaded, as she threw her arms around me in a parting hug too.
I stepped back, nodding reluctantly. I’d text her, probably, but not with the gossip she was clearly angling for. If I didn’t, she’d only text me incessantly until I did. She’d done that once before, back when we both had Nokias and pay-as-you-go plans that charged fifteen pence per message. I’d been out of credit one weekend and she’d messaged me over and over again until I’d gone to the shop, bought credit, and finally replied to her. It hadn’t even been anything important.
Kim’s hands fought for real estate on my back as she pulled me into a hug too and collided with Eve’s hand. Still, instead of pulling back, Eve simply drifted lower, getting down to my waist. Which was exactly where she kept her touch as she led me out of Sunny Monday’s and towards the cars outside.
Even if I hated to admit it, her constant touch was reassuring.
Knowing she didn’t know the car I was in, she stopped us and looked at me with a grin. “Keys?”
I blinked. “You want my car keys? You know I’m perfectly capable of driving, right?”
She laughed. “Not for that. I’m just trying to win that Tizer.”
I couldn’t help but smile at her, breathing a little easier now that we were away from the cocktail of Tanika, Kim, Sammy, and all of their emotions about the two of us together. “Kind of cheating if I give you the keys. What if it’s the only car of its brand here?”
“Well,” she said, stepping in front of me and finally dropping her hand, “you are special enough to have a one-of-a-kind car.”
I dropped my chin to my chest and pulled the keys from my pocket. “It’s not unique. But you cannot just start unlocking doors and looking for it that way.”
“I promise,” she swore, her fingers brushing mine as she took the keys.
For someone so active, her hands sure were soft. Warm, too.
I watched her glance down at the keys and start walking through the parked cars, sizing them up.
After a moment, she stopped, facing a vehicle with her arms spread wide. “This one.”
I laughed, walking up behind her. She had a good couple of inches on me, even when I was in heels, and I wasn’t sure what possessed me, but I placed a hand on her waist and said, in a low voice, “I’ll buy you half a Tizer.”
She whipped her head towards me. “I got it?”
