Rhea starts to laugh and shakes her head, “I don’t even know what this song is.”
“Seriously?” I scowl.
“I added a bunch to the playlist without listening to them to see if you actually played them all the way through without complaining,” she admits.
“You’re a terror—” I shake my head and bite my tongue.
“You sure you want me back as a roommate? It was such a hard adjustment period the first time.” She smiles, and I think every muscle in my body tightens in excitement.There you are, my emotional, sad girl.
“I never thought I‘d say this, but the apartment is too clean,” I tell her, and her smile grows. “There’s no hair ties in the sink, week-old leftovers growing mold in the fridge, or energy drink cans in my truck.”
“I don’t like to litter,” she says weakly. “And if I can’t find a garbage can, what am I supposed to do? Throw it out the window—” I stop her, dropping her hands to cup her face and bring it close to mine. I groan and lift her face to meet mine in a long kiss that feels like heaven. Five months of missing her, waiting for this exact moment. The feeling of her in my arms again was enough to get me through every single second of therapy, and now that I have her—
I never want to let go.
I push my hands into her hair and pull her closer to deepen the kiss as fingers dig into my shoulders to mold us together. I can feel how much she missed me, and every worry fades into the background around us. She tangles her hand into the front of my suit, pulling me harder against her, and somewhere in the distance, the cheers of three very proud friends echo into the morning air.
“They are insufferable,” I groan, and she smiles against my lips.
I kiss her again, unable to get enough as the music shifts again and her brows furrow in the funniest way. “This song is really horrible,” she laughs as she pulls back.
“It really is,” I breathe finally, inhaling her completely. “I missed you,” I tell her when I refocus on her face. “A lot.”
It’s a weird feeling to be so happy and simultaneously so wrong about something, because when I really look at her this time, I see it. Rhea Drake glows the prettiest shade of purple.
“What does purple mean?” I ask her, and she furrows her brows. “Your color trick,” I chuckle, “what does the color purple mean?”
“Uh,” she straightens out, “it’s love, empathy, balance.”
“Glad we got that figured out,” I whisper.Love.“Is mine still dark red?”Almost black—it’s so dark, I remember her telling me.
“I can only do it when I’m drunk,” she confesses, and I shake my head at her.
“Pretty sure that’s just blurred vision, Hellcat…” I sigh, but she starts to laugh like a wild thing, and I gravitate toward the sound, peppering her jaw with kisses. “Thank you,” I say to her. “For taking care of Daisy while I was gone. She told me that you kept taking her to school when you could and watched out for her. You didn’t have to do that.”
“She’s not just yours, Brighton,” Rhea reminds me.
“No, she’s not, is she?” I realize that now more than ever. “I found this,” I say, and pull her key from my pocket.
“I…” she trails off, “I’ve been staying with your brother. I have an apartment lined up.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No,” I repeat. “Absolutely not.”I didn’t do all of this work to lose you again.
“Me living there is what got us into this situation,” Rhea hums, and all I hear is her telling me she doesn’t want to be around me anymore. “Maybe it’s just best we—”
“Come home and make a mess, Hellcat.” I press my forehead against hers, and she responds by tangling a hand into the front of my shirt. “Please.”
“So we can go back to being friends?” she asks me after a long moment of silence that kills me with every passing second.
“Don’t ever use that word around me again,” I snap and kiss her hard, reminding her that we stopped being friends-who-kiss a long time ago.
BRIGHTON
“We’re going to be late, Dad.” Daisy tugs on my arm as I lock the truck and follow her into the stadium. It’s busier than usual. During the off-season, the girls started getting more attention, and now the Hillcats get played on the big TV at the Hollow—even during hockey games. “I want a Drake jersey!” Daisy points to the line.
“Yeah, alright,” I say to her and hand her my card. She starts toward the line when I call out, “Get me one too.”
Daisy nods quickly and turns toward the line. I stare up at the mural on the wall of the sports complex with pride. There’s a framed photo of the Hillcats from last season, and any chance I get to see that smile, I take it. Rhea has her arm around Kaia and Addy, grinning ear to ear in her rugby jersey.
