“Not just today,” she added with a raised brow to drive her point home.
Lainey’s voice was weak when she teased, “I might pay to see one of the guys in skinny jeans.”
A bright laugh left Chloe. “Can you imagine?” she asked before making a face, as if she wasn’t sure that was an image she wanted in her head, then turned her attention on me again. “I’ll say it again, if you want to change your style, we’ll help. But from this conversation, I think it’s super obvious you don’t see yourself clearly. Like,at all. And maybe it’s because you’ve always been in a male-dominated field, or maybe it’s thatsomeone”—she said the word as if she knew exactly who thatsomeonecould be—“shattered your confidence.”
“If that’s the case,” Lainey picked up for her, “that shouldn’t be the reason you change.”
“It isn’t,” I lied.
Neither of them looked like they believed me, but Chloe warily said, “Then we’d love to help.”
My head bobbed for a handful of seconds before I asked, “How soon?”
Iknew a message from Briggs wouldn’t work twice, but I was hoping Mallory’s obsession with chicken shawarma outweighed the tension between us, and her frustration with me. So, with wraps from Mallory’s favorite place in hand, I drew in a fortifying breath and reached for the handle of my door just as my phone vibrated in my pocket.
Something I nearly ignored until it vibrated again just as I was about to step out of my truck.
With a heavy exhale, I paused with my door fully open and pulled the device out of my pocket, all thoughts of talking to Mallory, of gettinganywherewith her, abruptly disappearing when I saw the messages waiting for me.
Thatch
I didn’t tell Chloe anything about Aruba. But she just filled me in on what went down earlier.
Be straight with me . . . is Monroe pregnant?
My chest pitched as I stared at the screen without actually seeing it anymore. In an instant, I was hit with the same visionfrom this afternoon—Mallory pregnant with my child. Just as quickly, I was consumed by overwhelming grief and unexpected loss because, not only was that not our future, but I was rapidly losing the only woman I’d ever loved.
Every attempt to prevent it only seemed to make it worse. I briefly wondered if tonight would end the same.
By the time I managed to tap into the messages and respond, it felt like a barbed knot was choking me and my lungs were being crushed under a vice-like grip.
Me
No.
Told you we were dressed when we woke up. And Monroe wouldn’t do that.
I didn’t explain more than that.
It wasn’t my place to tell anyone that Mallory had never slept with anyone, and it wouldn’t help convince Thatch, since he knew we’d woken in the same bed. But I knew Mallory, and I knew me.
With how much she hated the thought of us together? She wouldn’t have slept with me.
With how much I loved her? Even if she’d given me the green light, I wouldn’t have slept with her when she was too wasted to know what she was doing—let alone remember.
Thatch
You sure? Because Chloe said Monroe was asking odd questions about pregnancies.
Sometimes people get dressed afterward Gray.
I went still as I read the next messages. My heart skipped painfully before pounding too hard. Too fast.
But as I quickly went over that morning in Aruba, and what little Mallory had said to me this weekend, I knew they had to be wrong.
She would’ve said something.
Me
