Page 88 of Try Hard
“I’m not,” I lied.
Kim gripped my arm. It did not feel like when Eve touched me. “It’s okay. You can have a moment. I had one when I realised Kieran had always fancied me. It’s the best feeling ever. Just let it in!”
I shook my head. “There’s no way. And, even if there had been, why would you use your wedding to set us up?”
“Because I’m in love and you’re our friends.”
“No offense, Kim, but we haven’t seen each other in the last twenty years.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’re here now. You came to my wedding. We’re still friends.”
“And,” Tanika said, pressing into my other side and making me really need some space, “those twenty years don’t matter between you and Eve, either. You should just march back over there and ask her about it all.”
“No.”
The bartender reappeared with my bottle of water and I tapped my card wanting to get away—back to Eve. But they weren’t letting me go.
I scowled at the pair of them. “Are you just trying to live vicariously through me? Missing dating or something?”
Kim giggled. “Not at all. This is my wedding! I don’t want to date. I’m getting married.”
“And I’mveryhappily married,” Tanika said with a huge grin.
“To a man you’ve told me next to nothing about,” I pointed out, “because you keep trying to talk about Eve instead.”
“As if you don’t want to talk about her.” She shook her head. “And you’ll meet him at the wedding. He had to work tonight, but he’s the best.”
“Not to you, obviously,” Kim said. “You think it’s Eve.”
And that was why you didn’t stay friends with people you knew at thirteen. Apparently, everyone reverted back there when all you wanted was to get away and think about… recently received news.
“Don’t worry,” Tanika said seriously, “she clearly thinks you’re the best too.”
I huffed. “Well. Good chat. I’m going to go.”
“Back to Eve,” they both called. I wasn’t sure how they’d managed to be quite so in sync, but I wasn’t sticking around to ask.
I weaved through the crowd and straight back to Eve. My confused mind wasn’t unobservant enough to miss the way Sammy was very obviously dancing on Adnan in a way designedto make Eve jealous. But, from the way Eve’s eyes met mine and she lit up, opening her arms to welcome me back… home to her, I didn’t think the ploy was working.
I went readily into her arms. It didn’t matter who saw, they’d already seen enough and drawn their conclusions.
Eve’s smile faltered as I handed her the water bottle and wrapped my own arms around her. “Are you okay? What happened?”
I breathed a laugh, mostly from shock, and shook my head. Did she know me so well because she’d been learning to read me since we were teenagers? And, if she did, was there a reason behind that? One that matched the reason I’d spent secondary school watching her?
How would that even be possible?
“Do you want to go?” she asked, holding me tight.
I breathed her in and felt myself relaxing again. “Not yet. Just… revelations, I suppose.”
She laughed and I felt the stress in her easing. “Care to share?”
“Maybe later.” Maybe once I’d fathomed how to physically muster the words to ask if she’d liked me all along—if she liked me now.
She started moving the two of us to the music again. “I can’t wait.”
I could. And I couldn’t.
