30. Hunter

Playlist: Never Let Me Go | Florence + The Machine

“I wonder if Kelsey’s going to no-show,” I tell Jo as we set up for brunch.

Jo shrugs. “Who knows.”

Maybe I’m a terrible person, but damn, I hope she doesn’t show up.

Alas, my dream does not come true. She crawls out whatever circle of hell she’d been lurking in to make an appearance. She walks into the room alone and announces that Becky would be joining shortly, as she was still styling her hair.

I look at Giovanna, eyes wide. “Maybe Becky will no-show. That would be a telenovela level of plot twist, until you really think about it—of course she’d eventually snap.”

Becky, however, does not give me the telenovela plot point of my dreams, striding into the room minutes after Kelsey.

I pull Giovanna aside at least five times to make out with her out of sight of the bridal party. Whenever I break the kiss, she blinks at me like she’s surprised I did that. A slow smile spreads across her face just before she kisses me back.

Every time we kiss, she tastes like mine.

Finally, brunch is over and we’re breaking down the room. Audrey and her daughter, Piper, help us out again, which means we finish quicker than planned. I’m grateful, because while the bridal party is going to a spa in town, Jo and I are on our own until she has to be at Port of Call, the bar in town. It’s not a western bar, but she rented out the entire place for tonight to give Becky and Kelsey the southern-themed night of their dreams.

We spend the day at the beach before going into town to grab a bite to eat. She brings me to Poppy’s bookstore, where I grab a historical romance by Tessa Dare, who Jo tells me is Josh’s favorite author. Millie is with a client when we stop at the tattoo parlor she works at, so Jo leaves a note at the front desk with all sorts of vulgar language and innuendos.

Siblings are weird.

“Oh my god, these are cute,” I say as we set up the bar. Jo looks hot tonight, wearing black linen ankle pants and block heels. She wears a classic white button-up, but her sleeves are rolled up and I am drooling at her forearms.

“What’s cute?” she asks distractedly, trying to detangle a tinsel garland with cowboy boots and hats on it.

“These!” I repeat, placing a pink cowboy hat with faux fur trim on my head. Giovanna turns toward me, a smile spreading across her face.

“It suits you. Is it authentic?”

“Authentic in the sense that I love it? Yes. Authentic in any other sense? No.”

She rolls her eyes and snatches the hat from my head, placing it on her own.

I gasp dramatically. “You know what they say about the hat.”

She smirks at me, and I feel her eyes running down my body. I do a little shimmy, making the skirt of my sundress shimmy, too. “Whoever wears the hat rides the cowgirl, right?”

“Mmhmm.”

Jo steps forward and looks down at me. I’m wearing my white heeled cowboy boots, so there isn’t as dramatic a height difference between us as usual. She cups my hip and pulls my body to hers, eliciting a surprised and thrilled gasp from me. “Is that a promise, honey?” she asks, lips brushing the shell of my ear.

I shiver with pleasure as goosebumps spread over my body. “It’s more than a promise.” I lean forward until our lips brush. “It’s a vow.”

“Guess I’m riding you tonight,” she whispers before capturing my lower lip between her teeth.

I moan. “Thank god.”

“Um, sorry to bother you,” an unfamiliar voice says awkwardly from behind me. “I was wondering if you needed help setting up?”

Everything in me screams to pull away, to put distance between Giovanna and I. This frightened part of me still rears her pretty little head every once in a while, reminding me that my family doesn’t love me anymore and that my attraction to women is thought of as dirty and should be hidden.

I don’t believe these thoughts, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there.

“Hey, Barry. No, thanks. Just direct the rental people back here when they arrive. They might need assistance if you’re willing to help them.” Jo says smoothly.

The gangly, dark-haired man nods at Giovanna, not giving me a second glance. “I’ll do whatever makes you happy, Jo.”

My eyes widen as Jo’s body shakes with stifled laughter. “I know, Barry. Thank you.”

He does a weird little bow before backing out of the room.

“What was that about?” I hiss, looking up into her eyes.

“I’ll tell you after you tell me why you jumped away from me like I was a live wire when Barry came into the room.”

I grimace. “Yeah that was…not my finest moment. I’m sorry. My therapist said I’m traumatized from forcing myself into a closet for so long, and I think my brain can perceive someone seeing us kiss as being caught. Because, you know, that was my worst fear for a good chunk of my life.”

Giovanna tucks a wayward curl behind my ear. “There was reason for you to fear that.”

I exhale shakily. “Yeah. But I don’t want you to think it’s you. It’s not you. It’s me.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes encouragingly. “I’m not afraid of your trauma. I’m not afraid of your brain, I’m not afraid of you .”

Somehow, she said the perfect thing. I wrap my arms around her. “Thank you,” I murmur as she kisses my hair. “It all feels subconscious, if that makes sense. Like I don’t think any of that is true, but sometimes I think these thoughts anyway.”

“It says more about you that you recognize these thoughts as inaccurate than you having them in the first place, you know. And sometimes I still have thoughts like that, too. I don’t want to, but sometimes it just happens. My therapist gave me some affirmations to remind me that sometimes, what I truly believe is different from what I think. And that sometimes, thoughts aren’t precisely truthful.”

“It makes me feel better to know that it’s not just me. That I’m not secretly a homophobic bigot.”

I feel her smile against the top of my head, and I’m a little jealous. I want to see this smile—it feels like a good one. “No, honey. You’re not a bigot. You’re an imperfect human, and I love you for it.”

I feel her body freeze before my brain processes what she said.

I know she means like a friend. A platonic, general love, and that’s fine. But my mind runs wild with thoughts of her and I on the beach, at the spot where we had our first kiss, which quickly turned into having sex for the first time as teenagers.

Now, in my present-day fantasy, Jo tucks an unruly strand of hair behind my ear, which immediately frees itself with help from the sea breeze. We both laugh as I try to hold my hair down and she cups my cheek, adoration in her eyes. “I fucking love you,” she says, and I smile up at her, reflecting the same adoration in my own eyes as I echo the sentiment. Then we’d ride dolphins away into the sunset or something. I don’t know, this fantasy isn’t well formed yet.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell her instead. “There are lots of reasons I love you, too. You pretending to not like Dolly for way longer than it was believable, for one.”

My voice is light and casual, but my heart is screaming. Choose me the way I want to choose you. We deserve to be chosen, to be loved and accepted the way we should have been a long time ago. Because I’ll do that for you, and I think you’d do that for me, too .

“Sorry, that…that was awkward,” Jo stammers, attempting to step back. But I don’t let go of her.

“I like awkward,” I say. “And I know what you meant. I promise I don’t think you’re head over heels for me.”

I want you to be. I can’t stop myself from thinking about it.

Giovanna exhales slowly and steps back again. This time I let her. “Okay. Okay.” It sounds like she’s trying to convince herself it’s okay.

And she’s right. It is okay.

I would love for it to be more than okay.