Chapter 19
Theo
“Wait. You two are coaching soccer now?” Mia shouts over the country music playing through the Branch.
Fable’s smile is the widest I’ve seen it in a long time.
She’s two margaritas deep, and the bartenders here make a mean drink, so she’s adorably tipsy at this point—all giggly and uninhibited.
“You should see your brother on that field. Running around, decked out in sparkly rainbow unicorn gear, with his little unicorn-minions running around behind him.” She titters into her glass. “He looks ridiculous.”
“—ly handsome,” I finish for her, slinging my arm over the back of her chair. “I caught you smiling a few times.”
She glares up at me, but there’s no heat behind it. “Fine,” she says to Mia and Bree. “It’s so cute, actually. Those girls love him already.”
“Knew it.” I clink my water cup with her now-empty glass. “Thank you, Ethan, for this magical truth serum.”
Mia flips her hair over her shoulder. “Who would’ve thought we’d see the day when you two were working together on something?”
That catches Mary’s attention. She leans over and nudges Mia’s shoulder. “Maybe I should sneak over to a practice and see them in action?”
Mom perks up beside me. “I’ll come with you!”
“Bring the fancy camera,” Dave adds. “Get some good photos.”
Mia pounces on that idea instantly. “Yes. Send them to me.”
“Looks like I’ll be sitting out the next practice then,” Fable announces.
I shrug a shoulder. “I don’t know. I was pretty fucking convincing last time.”
“Language,” Mom scolds.
Fable tries to conceal her smile, but I catch the corners of it. That alcohol has gone straight to her cheeks. They’re practically glowing pink.
“Ohhh, do tell,” Bree says, leaning forward and perching her chin on her fist.
Fable side-eyes me. “I wasn’t participating in soccer time, because . . . reasons. Then your brother did the most annoying—”
“—ly adorable,” I interject.
“—thing.” She elbows me in the ribs. “He teamed up with all his unicorn-minions and they made a plan that if they acted like they didn’t know how to kick the ball, I’d get up and help.”
“And did it work?” Bree asks.
Fable rolls her eyes. “He was teaching them to kick the ball with the bottom of their foot.” She steals a handful of my fries, and I let her. “Of course it worked. He was embarrassing the both of us.”
Mia grins at me affectionately. “Well, what else is new, really?”
Fable pats my thigh, her expression dipping into something soft. “But did you see Ariana by the end? She really had the hang of it.”
“She was so proud.” I curl my hand around her shoulder, pulling her an inch closer.
In the back of my mind, I know I should stop touching her so much, but it’s like a compulsion at this point.
I’m trying to rationalize it. Tell myself it’s normal to feel this way about her.
She’s beautiful and kind and magnetic and soft in surprising ways.
It’s bound to happen—this rush of . . . wanting.
It’s growing in tendrils, reaching for any tiny bit of her it can get.
It’s spinning around me so much I’m dizzy with it.
I’d hoped that spending time with her would quench my thirst for more of her, but it only seems to be multiplying.
I want so much it hurts. I want in a way that’s treading dangerously close to something deeper than I’d planned, and I’m fighting a losing battle to put those thoughts back in the cage where they belong.
Mia sets her elbows on the table. “I heard we’re going house-hunting tomorrow.”
“Fabes and I are. I didn’t invite you.” I give her the kind of withering smile specifically designed for siblings.
Her gaze narrows threateningly.
Leaning into Fable’s ear, I whisper, “Oh, she’s big mad. Look, her nostrils are flaring.”
Her hair tickles my cheeks as she laughs. “And that vein is popping out in her forehead, see?”
Mia tosses a fry and it hits me in the jaw. “Please, Theo. It’ll be like real-life Zillow creeping. Bree and I have been training for this for years—hours of time spent on that app when we weren’t even trying to buy a house.”
Bree looks wistful. “You remember that cottage in Scotland? I think about it all the time.”
“Yes.” Mia gasps patting her fiancée’s arm. “With the little garden in the back? We should look that up again.” She pulls out her phone and distractedly asks, “How many houses do you have lined up?”
Apparently, we’re bulldozing past her lack of invitation. “Cathy sent me two or three, I think.”
“Fuck’s sake, Cathy,” Fable and Mia chirp. We all look down the table to Logan, who takes a break from staring dreamily at Mabel to raise his beer bottle proudly in our direction.
Behind him, the main door opens, and my stomach knots when Arthur appears, strolling toward the hostess stand with his wife.
Things were busy at the clinic this week.
Garrett and I have been working hard on the adopt-a-thon planning, and I got in touch with most of the rescues and shelters in the area.
There’s going to be a big turnout if we can gather enough volunteers to help transport animals.
Everything is looking really good, except that I’m on edge every time Arthur is around.
I feel like I’m putting on a show for him.
Like this is all a performance, and it’s an unsettling sensation.
I’ve never tolerated lying—it probably stems from my experience growing up but lying and secrets always make me uncomfortable.
And this feels like the biggest lie I’ve ever told.
I’m doing things I wanted to do anyway but doing them for this reason .
. . it’s sitting weird in my stomach. I can’t figure out how to come to terms with it.
“Let’s dance,” Fable says, standing and grabbing my hand.
A beat of stunned silence. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a thing people do when there’s music.” She sways her hips to the peppy beat, and my gaze drops to catch the movement. “You know you want to,” she says, tugging me up.
She wants to dance with me. One hundred percent, we can blame this on the alcohol. She’s unfiltered and unconcerned. But it’s dancing and she’s asking.
Hell yes, I want to.
As I stand, I meet Mia’s eyes across the table, and her expression is smug, like she’s somehow the mastermind here. “Have fun,” she singsongs. Fable leads me away, and I distantly hear my sister whisper something about soft pretzels.
Fable’s fingers are folded around mine until we get to an open spot on the dance floor, and she spins my way. “How do I look?” she asks, hands perched on her hips.
I grin, taking her in. Her honey-blond hair is in a messy knot at the back of her head after she was laughing so hard an hour ago that she got marinara on the tips.
A low-cut dark-green dress with tiny, delicate flowers hugs the curves of her breasts, then flairs at the waist and fans out above her knees.
That freckle I love is there, along with the tattoo peeking out at her shoulder and wrist. Bare legs and black Converses and small gold hoops in her ears.
She looks like a dream I’d never want to wake up from.
“You always look beautiful, Fabes.”
I get an eye roll. Somehow that wasn’t the answer she was hoping for. “But do I look like Theo’s girlfriend?”
My heart pauses for a beat. What does Theo’s girlfriend even look like?
I’ve never really let myself picture it.
But that gaping, achy thing inside my chest—the one that keeps drawing me closer to the woman before me—whispers faintly that if it was anyone, it would be her.
Lazy mornings and bare skin. Sharing fries and sharing secrets.
Fable doesn’t give me a chance to answer as she lifts one hand to my shoulder and links her other with mine. “Because I’m contractually obligated to put on a show here.” She looks toward the edge of the dance floor where Arthur and his wife are seated at a table. “I signed on the dotted line.”
Oh. That reality check burns on its way down, blanking my mind for a moment.
“Put your arm around me,” she instructs.
Despite the pinch in my chest, I follow her lead, my hand covering the velvety fabric at her waist. The material is so thin it’s almost nonexistent.
I breathe in her flowery scent. It’s not a factory-made flower smell, poured into a bottle and slapped with a label. No, it’s straight-from-the-garden—like she planted them, watered them, picked them, and set them in her kitchen window. It’s intoxicating and real.
Fable steps into me and her breasts brush my chest. Longing coils around my spine.
I love the way she feels against me. In my hands and in my lungs.
But it’s taking all my concentration to remember she’s pretending right now.
I’m tipping over the edge of . . . something, losing my stomach in the process, and she’s still on sturdy ground.
I force myself to move us around the dance floor, and she falls into rhythm with me. Our toes bump a few times, and she snickers under her breath.
She looks up at me through golden lashes. “Are you okay? You look like you’re in pain.”
“I am.”
“To which part?”
My hand flexes against her waist. “Both?”
Her head tilts. “Why are you in pain?”
I almost don’t reply. My brain says to keep the status quo, make it through this dance, go home and have a cold shower. Or two.
But my heart says fuck it. She’s half drunk on alcohol, I’m half drunk on her. She’s putting on a show, I’m very much not. How can the truth make this any more complicated?
“I’m in pain because a stunning woman is in my arms, and I can’t remember how to dance properly. Or even function, really.” I trip over her toes on our next step, proving my point.
Color flashes over her cheeks. “Want me to teach you how?”
“To dance or to function this close to you?”
“Whichever one is more important.”
“I’d say the functioning.”