The cabana erupted — Pete whooped, Izzy scrambled for her phone to film it, Danica covered her face with both hands. Maggie slipped inside after Kiera, deliberately choosing a seat far from Gwen. She busied herself with a towel, pretending to fuss with her hair, all the while feeling Gwen’s gaze like static across her skin. The laughter swirled around her, but under it was the sharp weight of her own meddling. She couldn’t shake the fear that her warnings to Izzy might’ve planted doubt, or worse — that she’d managed to dim Kiera’s joy in the process. For once, she didn’t meet Gwen’s eyes. It was easier to stare at the bubbles fizzing over and wonder whether her interference had done more harm than good.
CHAPTER 12
Gwen
After Gwen pulledherself out of the shower, the suite felt quieter, calmer. The bass from the pool was a dull throb through the glass, muffled by heavy curtains. Maggie was stretched on the pullout couch in a towel, hair damp, pretending to scroll her phone but mostly looking like she could fall asleep again if left unsupervised. Pete was starfished across the other couch bed in a robe, muttering about “the champagne flu.”
Kiera emerged from the bathroom with her hair slicked into a neat bun, eyeliner sharp and lethal, and a determined glint in her eye. The one that usually preceded group projects, chore charts, and field trips nobody wanted but everyone needed.
“Everyone up,” Kiera said, clapping her hands once. “We’ve got a reservation.”
Pete groaned into the pillow. “Cancel it.”
“Nope.” Kiera tugged at the tie of Pete’s robe, ignoring her muffled protest. “We didn’t come all the way to Vegas to eatsad nachos from room service. This is supposed to be celebratory. We are celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?” Danica asked, emerging from the bathroom in a silk top, lips already glossed. Her tone was too innocent.
Gwen found herself smiling despite the heaviness still lodged under her ribs. The nap had dulled her edges, but it hadn’t erased the memory of Maggie in the pool — laughing, sparkling, daring her — and it sure as hell hadn’t erased what had passed between them in the shadow of the bathrooms. That was still humming in her veins, quiet but insistent.
Dinner was mercifully quieterthan the pool had been. The restaurant lighting was low, amber spilling over the table, softening everything into gold and shadow. Their group took up half a banquette — plates of pasta and steak and vegan pizza with overpriced sides scattered like trophies.
Pete stood halfway through the meal, one hand braced on the back of her chair, a glass of wine clutched dramatically in the other. “All right,” she announced, voice hoarse but strong enough to carry over the room. “I’ve got something to say.”
Danica groaned, already pink. “Pete?—”
“Shh,” Pete said, putting a hand to her fiancée’s cheek. “Let me.”
She cleared her throat, then launched into it — equal parts irreverent and sincere. A list of all the things she loved about Danica, half of them jokes about her obsessive calendar management and half of them so earnest Gwen felt her throat tighten. “Wendell, you make me better,” Pete said finally, simple and direct. “You make all of us better. And somehow, for reasons I’ll never understand, you want to marry me. Which is insane, but I’m not arguing.”
The table broke into laughter and applause, glasses clinking. Danica leaned up to kiss her, eyes shining.
The feeling landed in Gwen’s stomach — sweet and sharp all at once. That quiet intimacy, so unshowy, so sure. The kind of thing she used to have, once.
She looked back down at her glass before she could help it, pretending the reflection of the candlelight was what had made her chest ache.
Beside her, Maggie laughed at something Pete said, tossing her head back, hair catching in the glow. Gwen didn’t look. Not right away. She just took a slow sip of wine, willing herself to stay composed in the middle of so much love.
She told herself not to. She told herself to focus on the wine, on Pete still holding court at the head of the table, on the flicker of candlelight reflecting in polished silverware.
But she looked anyway.
Maggie was across from her, shoulders relaxed for once, laughing at something Kiera had added to Pete’s speech. Her cheeks were flushed from the wine, hair still damp at the ends from her shower. She leaned forward on her elbows, listening intently, and when she smiled — open, unguarded…
It was the kind of smile that had once been hers, that had lit up Gwen’s worst days, that had carried them through years of chaos and compromise. And god, it made her chest ache to see it now, angled somewhere she couldn’t quite reach anymore.
Maggie caught her looking.
Just for a second, their eyes locked across the table, the noise of their friends receding until it felt like the room had gone quiet. Gwen didn’t look away. Couldn’t. The air between them was too heavy with everything unsaid.
Maggie’s lips curved, faint and fleeting, a secret she wasn’t about to share with anyone else.
And Gwen, holding her gaze in the soft golden light, felt that old familiar tug somewhere between her ribs — love and ache, wound so tightly together she couldn’t tell which was which.
The air between her and Maggie had gone taut, stretched to breaking, when Maggie blinked like she was recovering from a trance. She cleared her throat and stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the tile floor. “All right. My turn.”
Maggie had a pasted smile. “Here’s to Pete and Danica — the only people brave enough to willingly corral this disaster crew through Vegas. May your marriage survive overnight shifts, bachelorette weekends, Pete’s bad jokes, and an obscene amount of champagne.”
The group laughed, glasses raised automatically. Pete cheered, “Hell yeah!” Danica reached and squeezed Maggie’s hand.
