Page 308 of Nobody's Girl

She looks away. “I see. I don’t want you to feel forced together either. I love you guys. I would never want you to be unhappy in any way. No matter what happens, you will both be in my life for a very long time.”

I see Eden walking to the table with a large platter of all types of different foods. Laura’s following him with a bottle of wine and four glasses.

“Look who I found,” Eden says.

Ally smiles at Laura. “Did you make a new friend, Laura?”

“Yes, I did, Ally. She said to tell you goodbye. She had to leave the party early. She needs to get up really early tomorrow to head back to New Orleans.”

My eyes narrow as I glance at Eden. His fascination with the drab woman makes me tingle inside. I’m not pleased with it one bit. His focus should only be Ally. “Did you get to tell her bye, Eden?” I ask.

The slightest hint of a frown takes the corners of his lips down. “No, I didn’t. I guess she was in a rush to leave.”

Laura looks at Eden and smiles. “So am I going to see the birds tonight or what?”

Eden taps the top of her hand, which lies on the table top. “I told you that you were. I always keep my promises.”

The music starts back up and Laura stands up. “Come on, Eden,” she looks back and calls out to him. Ally looks surprised. “It’s okay, isn’t it, Ally?”

The look of surprise leaves her face, leaving it as angelic as it usually is. “Yes, of course it is.”

Eden gets up to go out to the temporary dancefloor with Laura. The band plays a country song that’s slow. I find Ally watching them intently as her husband holds her best friend close to him.

I stand up, taking her hand and pulling her up. “Come on, Ally. We can’t let them have all the fun.”

I pull her in close to me as I take her arms and place them both around my neck, moving mine around her tiny waist. I press my forehead to hers. “Are you ready for this, Ally?”

She smiles. “Yeah, it’s just a dance, Kyle.”

“Not are you ready to dance, Ally,” I say as I start swaying us with the music. “Are you ready for this? For us being so close all the time. Do you think you can you handle it?”

“Eden showed me something on the jet ride over here, Kyle,” she says as she pulls her head from mine and looks at me. “I’ve seen the past from your point of view. I’m aware you had a difficult time choosing between me and Laura. I know you were more physically attracted to Laura. You felt like the tiny, almost non-existent kiss we had that one night would cost you both of us if you didn’t choose me.”

“Wow, you know that, huh?”

Leave it to Eden to find that tidbit of information in the cosmos and share it with her!

She nods. “If you would’ve told me you liked Laura, which would have been fine, it wouldn’t have stopped our friendship, and I would never have developed an inappropriate relationship with you.”

“Inappropriate?” I ask and stop our dance. “There wasn’t a whole lot of inappropriate going on, Ally.”

She looks at me and begins moving us again. “What is that supposed to mean?”

I pull her closer, our bodies touching in the old, familiar way they used to. “Just that more could have happened, but you wouldn’t let it and now it never can.”

“You can blame me if you want to, Kyle,” she says as she pulls away from me a bit. “But the fact we didn’t go any further than we did is a blessing.”

I search her eyes and try to see what she’s thinking. She’s closing her mind off to me and that tells me loads. “If it was such a blessing, then why do I feel like something is missing?”

She shifts her eyes, letting them roam over the guests. “You didn’t feel like this yesterday.”

“I kind of did,” I say. “I’ve always wanted you like that. Hell, you know that. When I told you I’d wait forever for you, I didn’t think I would actually have to. Now you and I are together, in a way, forever, but we can never be together like that. It’s a lot to take in.”

The song ends, but I don’t let her go. “Kyle, the song is over. We should go back to the table.”

“I know that, Ally,” I say, but I can’t seem to make myself let her go.

“We can get through this, Kyle. My husband and Laura know our past is a hitch in this situation. All of our feelings are important to each other. We can all work through this together. We are all supposed to be together. I saw that,” she tells me, then pulls away from me, leading me back to the table.