My throat tightens. Fingertips dig into the blanket beside me. I want to turn away, but I hold still. Let myself feel it. Just this once. The pressure of care. The weight of being seen.
Ruby doesn’t count. She decided I was hers in seventh grade and never gave me a choice. She’s chaos wrapped in sunshine, and I love her for it. But this? This is different. This is someone I barely know showing up just because I was hurting.
I blink hard, chasing the sting from behind my eyes.
Sloane coils her stethoscope into her bag, then straightens and meets my gaze.
“You’re going to be okay,” she says.
Soft. But certain. She’s seen enough to believe it—and dares me to believe it too. The words feel both like a balm and a dare.
The words pull tight against the lyric I almost whispered earlier: “I’ll believe it when I sing it.” But I bury it. Not ready. Not yet. I’m still hoarding my truths the way someone hoards currency. Still waiting to feel safe enough to spend them.
I don’t answer. I just nod, swallowing around the lump in my throat.
Then she adds, almost as if it’s nothing, “Girls’ night. Tonight. Me, Frankie, Darla. You in?”
I blink. “What?”
“You’ve earned it,” she says, already zipping up the bag. “And Ruby’s invited too.”
That yanks something loose in my chest. Ruby. Of course she’d be there. I don’t think I’d survive the idea of being surrounded by all of them without her. But even so…
A girls’ night?
People don’t invite me to those. I’ve never been anyone’s plus-one to wine and trash talk. Never painted my nails whilelaughing over exes or split tequila shots with women who actually wanted me there.
I’ve always been the outsider. Even here. Even among them.
But they want me there. Sloane does. She said it without hesitation. No pity. No pressure.
Just a quiet offer I didn’t know I needed.
“I might come,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.
Sloane pauses at the door, hand on the knob. Her eyes soften.
“No pressure,” she says again. “Just know we want you there.”
I believe her.
Chapter 21
Candace
Ididn’tknowwhatI pictured when Sloane said girls’ night, but it damn sure wasn’t this. The clubhouse doesn’t feel the way it should. It’s too warm. Too bright. Too… soft.
My ribs tighten, bracing for an impact that never comes. The ache isn’t sharp. It’s the bruised kind, the kind that throbs beneath the skin, unfinished and unresolved. My lungs hesitate, untrusting of the air here.
Candles flicker in old mason jars, casting pools of golden light across scarred bar tops and dented stools, as though the place is trying on someone else’s skin and somehow pulling it off. The usual scent of motor oil, sweat, and stale whiskey is softened beneath layers of vanilla, melted sugar, and something vaguely herbal. Maybe sage or eucalyptus. There’s a diffuser humming on the bar next to a bottle of Fireball, two opposites sharing space for the night.
It smells of the first breath after a storm. A hint that home might be possible.
Throw blankets in chaotic colors have been draped over every surface—couches, bar stools, even the pool table. There are mismatched pillows piled high, some with sequins, others with flamingos or skulls. A dozen empty or half-empty wine bottles line the top of the bar, trophies in glass form. Darla’s cookies sit in a vintage cake dome that looks hilariously out of place and perfectly right all at once.
And the music. It’s not the usual rebel rock or outlaw country that defines this place. Tonight, it’s all girl anthems. Soft rock and moody alt-pop bleeding into the occasional Taylor Swift or Alanis Morissette banger. One second it’s Florence + The Machine, the next it’s Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel a Woman” blaring while Ruby spins in a circle, waving a bottle of tequila held high in triumph. The bass hums underfoot, pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat.
My pulse syncs with it before I can stop it. My fingers twitch, remembering a rhythm they haven’t played in months.
