23. Nessa

Nessa

“ Y ou still haven’t texted him back?” June asked.

I ignored her question, turning back to the women approaching my table, arm in arm in matching pumpkin sweaters and bucket hats. Talk about friendship goals.

“After the dicking of a lifetime?”

Their eyes widened, darting back and forth between June and me. I coughed to shield my discomfort.

“Er, thanks for coming, ladies.” Cellophane crinkled when they each grabbed a goodie bag off my table. “I hope you enjoyed the show,” I called after them when they quickly ducked away.

It wasn’t surprising. The bucket hat biddies—along with most of Northern Oregon—had come for the official Buns and Roses kickoff, which culminated with the “War of the Roses” competition, a head-to-head comedy and lip sync battle between Rose Nylund impersonators. Their tickets hadn’t included a public recap of my sexual exploits.

My head whipped around. “Would you keep it down?”

“No,” June said, hands on her hips. “Personally, I think you owe an explanation to all of Rose City as to why you keep giving this sexy and successful baseball god the runaround.”

I nailed her with a pained expression, one that hopefully conveyed just how badly I did not want to have this conversation.

The last few days had been a whirlwind, an emotional rollercoaster with enough loops to make me queasy. Literally. My period had arrived the day after my and Jared’s all-night fuck fest. Between the body aches and bloating, I had spent the last four days feeling like a decomposing blob.

Today was the first day all week that I’d managed to squeeze into something other than crotch-stained leggings, and only because I’d had to; the festival wasn’t going to run itself. At least my hair looked great. I hadn’t washed it in days, so it had reached that perfect oily balance that allowed me to braid it into submission.

“Seriously, Ness. I thought we covered this already. You like him.”

“I do.”

“And he likes you.”

“He does.”

“And most importantly, he knows his way around the clit—”

I covered my face and groaned into my hands. “My god, June.”

“So, why are you still hesitating?” She tugged my hands away and held them to my sides. “Look, I think the heterosexual female collective will all agree that we cut men too much slack. The bar is in hell, and not even the entrance to hell. I’m talking Dante’s sixth circle.”

A very unladylike snort slipped out of my lips.

“But unless there’s something you haven’t told me, Jared hasn’t given you any reason to believe he’s going to hurt you.” I shook my head, mute and, frankly, a little numb. “I don’t want to see you fuck this up.”

Moisture pricked my eyes, startling us both. “What if I already have?”

Her brows drew together with a look of consternation. “What do you mean, sweetie?”

I sniffled. The emotions I had been bottling up all week threatened to bubble to the surface.

Growing up, I had always felt that I had more in common with Granny Gibbs than my own mother. Caution might as well have been Mom’s middle name. She’d thought through every possible outcome before making any decision, whether it had been about her latest date from Match.com or which shade of buttercream brightened up the kitchen best.

GG, on the other hand, had longed for adventure and had spent the better part of her eight-nine years finding it. On a cruise, with her weekly juggling club, in somebody’s bed. From what I could tell, she hadn’t been afraid of anything. And yet, sometime in the past few days—more specifically while chowing down on a bag of pumpkin spice popcorn in my bathtub—I had started to see things differently.

“You were right.”

She tilted her head to the side, puzzled. “I mean, duh, but about what exactly?”

“What you said the other day, before the benefit.” It all whooshed out of me after that. The bottle had officially been uncorked. “I am falling for him, harder and faster than I have with anybody else, and that scares the shit out of me. Especially when I stop to think what might happen if I give him my . . . everything and then it doesn’t work out. And then I feel guilty for even thinking that way because like you said, the man is a walking, talking, fucking green flag. He’s done nothing but treat me like a queen.”

Meanwhile, I had treated him like a one-night stand, a lackluster lay from the local bar when he was anything but.

“It’s just—” I choked back a sob. “I feel like I’ve been watching it play out from the sidelines.”

“What?”

“My life.” I threw my hands up in the air. “Our lives. How many other opportunities do you think I’ve missed out on? How many other incredible, caring men and women have I turned a blind eye to because I thought they might hurt me?”

The writing on the wall was crystal clear. I had spent the last two decades hiding, choosing the safety of fictional ogres and faraway places over real human connection. My book boyfriends couldn’t hurt me. They couldn’t cheat or call me names, but they also couldn’t hold me. They couldn’t wake me up with vegan pancakes or text me goodnight.

They couldn’t love me back.

That’s all Mom and GG wanted for themselves.

They might have gone about things differently, but even after the bad dates and loneliness—not to mention four divorces between the two of them—neither of them had ever given up on love.

And they wouldn’t want me to either.

“Oh, babe.” June draped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to her side. She wasn’t as tall as Jared, but the difference in our heights was enough to make me think about his lengthy limbs wrapped around me. “Don’t start playing ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda.’ Nobody ever wins that game.”

The same could be said for “Consequences.” Maybe it was time to stop playing games altogether.

“What if he doesn’t want me anymore? It’s been five days.”

I hadn’t intentionally ignored Jared’s messages after our night together, at least not at first. It had overwhelmed me, along with my mounting feelings for him, so I’d given myself a day to think and process and rest my well-fucked muscles.

But then that day had come and gone. As had the next, though that one had been spent curled up on a heating pad, sucking down Midol like they were peanut M this was the man in love with one of my best friends. If Kaylani could rewrite her story with Ryan, there was no reason I couldn’t do the same with Jared.

“Thank you, Ryan. I . . . really appreciate you saying that.”

He nodded. “I’m just sorry it took so long.”

I thought back to June’s words still echoing through my head. “It was worth the wait.”

Ryan’s eyes caught on something—or someone—behind me. “Okay, well, I think somebody else needs you now,” he said, stepping back to excuse himself.

I pivoted around to face them, smiling when I found one of the bucket hat besties from earlier peering up at me from beneath the brim.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes, how can I help you?” Before I could stop myself, the word vomit rushed out of me. “Oh, and before you say something, please allow me to apologize for earlier. We shouldn’t have been discussing something so . . . private in a public space.”

“Oh, honey, no.”

An instant calm washed over me when she took my hand in hers, cradling it against her chest the same way that Granny Gibbs used to. Moisture pricked my eyes at the memory. No matter the circumstances, GG had always known what to say and, more importantly, how to say it. I needed her now more than ever.

“My sister and I were talking, and we wanted to offer you some advice on your . . . man problems. ”

I choked back a laugh, readying myself for whatever came next.

“I’d love to hear it,” I told her.

A wicked glint sparkled in her eyes. She inched forward, lowered her voice, and said, “A good dicking is hard to come by. Hang onto that young man.”