Star smiled.“I’m feeling a hell of a lot better.”
Inside, the clubhouse buzzed.Ol’ ladies everywhere along with Eden, Bell, and Clove.The guys were already in church.
“You two better get your asses moving,” Alice called.“You’re making Beardilocks wait.”
Boink kissed Mayra’s cheek and headed off.
Star started to turn away, but I caught her wrist and pulled her back.
“You’re not going to say goodbye?”I asked quietly.
She looked around, suddenly nervous.Everyone was watching.
I didn’t care.
A week of kissing her whenever I wanted had ruined me for pretending otherwise.
“Cole,” she whispered.One word.All doubt.
“You don’t want to kiss me anymore?”I murmured.“Am I a dirty secret you don’t want to—”
She cut me off by rising onto her toes and kissing me hard.
Fast.Hot.No hesitation.
When we pulled apart, I smirked.“Later, babe.”
I turned on my heel and headed for church, smug and grinning, while the ol’ ladies exploded behind me.
And for the first time all week, I wasn’t worried about the bubble popping, because we had just blown it right out of the water.
Chapter Fifteen
Star
I sat curled in the corner of one of the couches with a soda in my hand, surrounded by the ol’ ladies like I’d always been part of their group.
Which was wild, considering a week ago I’d still been sleeping away all of the day.
Now I was here, listening to Eden and Clove argue loudly about blow-up costumes.
“Okay,” Clove announced, holding her phone up like she was about to present an important business proposal.“We need to pick costumes for girls’ night, and I’m telling you right now, if we don’t go hard, what’s the point?”
“Are we really going this hard for girls’ night?”I asked.I was tired just thinking about everything they were wanting to do.I was just happy hanging out with them right now.“I mean, aren’t we pretty much having a girls’ day right now?”
Everyone gasped like I had just said cheese didn’t belong on fries.It did, by the way.
“Girl, I know you are new to this, but you have got to have fun when you can.We’ve lived by that for years,” Wren said.
“Yeah,” Nikki agreed.“You don’t even want to know all of the shit we had to go through to get to where we are now.”
“Kidnappings,” Mayra called.
“Multiple,” Carnie laughed.
Karmen pointed at Alice.“Running away.”
Alice stuck out her tongue.“I was young and dumb, okay?How was I supposed to know the bearded god I curtsied to was meant to be my Beardilocks?”
