“Maybe.” Or maybe not. “I want a lot of things.”
She allows for a dramatic pause. “Like Reeve?”
I pull a pillow over my face to hide my smile.
“Oh my god, are you ...embarrassed?Alert the press!”
“Shut up!” I yell from under my pillow.
“Aww,” she coos, raising her voice to an irritatingly high pitch while Maisy and Ruby laugh. “Do you love him?”
I throw my pillow aside. “Will you shut up? I don’t even know what love is. I look back at me and Sam and I can’t believe I thought that was happiness. That was dysfunction junction. Girls, one of these days I can’t wait to tell you the story.”
Ruby smiles. “Maybe you only see that now because of what you have with Reeve.”
“Oh god, don’t do it, Jade!” Maisy says. “You end up with Reeve, that means your future children will have an Uncle Cash.”
Ruby shakes her head as Lenni and I laugh. “Don’t believe this girl. She’s the most loyal sister on the planet.”
Maisy shrugs. “It’s a twin thing. We have no choice but to have each other’s backs.”
“See, that’s it. That loyalty?” I shake my head. “I don’t know if Reeve could ever give his all to a relationship as long as football is in his life.”
“Man cannot live by football alone.” Lenni raises her eyebrows, waiting to see how this little nugget of wisdom will land.
“Oh, good one,” I say. “Let me write that down; maybe Lorenzo will get it for his next tattoo.”
Ruby chuckles. “Fuck football and all that noise in your head. Just let yourself fall in love. We need you.” She reaches over and squeezes my arm.
I smile. I can’t believe I’m baring my soul to two girls I barely know the same way I do to Lenni, as ready to admit to them my feelings for Reeve as I’m ready to admit them tomyself. I wonder whether the boys would consider making this a quarterly tradition.
“Besides,” Ruby adds. “Reeve’s a different person since you came along. I always thought he was funny but ...”
“Shallow, unintelligent, and disgustingly arrogant?” I supply.
“Pretty much,” she says. “But I was wrong. He just didn’t have you.”
I look over at Lenni. Her eyes are dancing, and I know what she’s thinking—that Ruby just put into words everything Lenni’s thought but hasn’t let herself say out loud. Everything I’ve felt but haven’t let myself believe.
I don’t hear the boys come into the bedroom. It’s not until the earliest tinge of morning light has infiltrated the room that I wake up and realize Reeve’s shirtless body is curled around mine. Slowly so I don’t wake him, I extract myself and tiptoe across the hardwood floor and down the hall to use the bathroom. Afterward, I slip back into the bedroom. In the other bed, Cam lies sleeping on his back, one arm curled protectively around Lenni, who sleeps with her head on his chest. God, they’re cute.
Reeve’s eyes crack open as I make for our bed, and he throws back the covers, inviting me in.
“Get back in here where you belong,” he says, his voice low and raspy.
He’s wearing only gray boxer briefs, and the sight of his ripped body under a mountain of covers and surrounded by plush pillows is the most inviting scene I’ve ever laid eyes on. He gives me a sleepy smile in the dawn light as I slip under the well-worn flannel sheets, then throws the blankets back over me and pulls me against his body with one strong arm, my back to his bare chest.
I rest my cheek on the soft skin on the inside of his arm andclose my eyes. Absolute bliss settles over me. The heat of his body flows into me, warming our cozy nest as cool, lake-scented air seeps into the room from the cracked window.
I’ve never felt safer, warmer, happier.
It’s the feeling I’ve been wanting. The feeling I hoped I’d find in Spain, of escaping everything that hurt so much this past year, of finding the people and places that would make me feel like me. They’re here: the best friend I’ve ever had, a group of friends who feel like family after one night together, and the man whom just months ago I loathed. They were here all along.
Maybe I know exactly what love is after all.
THIRTY-TWO
reeve
