Page 42 of The Score

"You left us speechless!" Nat exclaims.

"You won the reveal game," Damián says. "We were excited for your reactions to the elopement. Logan and Evie's engagement added excitement but you guys? I wasn't prepared."

"So you haven't been hiding a relationship?" Logan insists in our direction.

Nat shakes her head with incredulity. "You've always looked like you were already married!"

"Some PDA included," Logan frowns as he holds Evie close. "But have always denied it."

Belatedly, I realize his arm around his fiancée mirrors the way I sit next to Pen. I press my lips together. I can't pretend he isn't a little bit right. Pen and I have always been comfortable being close. Finding comfort in little touches. It's never meant more than that.

"Now you're getting married?" Evie asks. "Make it make sense!"

"Not that we're not happy," Nat adds. "But bewilderment may win for a while."

Pen puts a hand on my leg, mirroring me. "Bear and I have known each other since we were ten. We've gone through so much together. Did you know his scar is because of me?"

"All I'm hearing is that we were right," Ames says.

Pen shakes her head. "I'm saying that it's natural that we're so comfortable with each other that people assumed we were together, even if we're not."

"But you're getting married!" Dom exclaims.

"We're getting married as friends," I say.

A pause in the group.

"Are you trying to tell us you're getting a lavender marriage?!" Nat asks.

"Mhh," Saint utters. "How many words do you know for bewilderment, Divina? Perplexity. Confusion. Puzzlement."

"Not a lavender marriage," Pen smirks. "But a platonic one."

She glances at me, asking to take over the explanation. I press my lips together, feeling sad with her.

I rub her back. "Her dad needs risky surgery. He's always wanted to walk her down the aisle. I proposed, so I can be the one at the end of it." I pull a soft smile on my lips, so that everyone knows it's going to be okay. "This wedding is part of our plan to keep things hopeful."

Where shock filled the outdoor space before, understanding falls over all of our friends now. Joy over engagements and elopements is still there, but a certain heaviness accompanies it now.

"I'm so sorry," Ames says.

Everyone nods and adds comforting sentiments.

"Bear is the best." Pen looks at me with a small, melancholic smile on her lips. "He's always come to my rescue."

Her hand rests on my knee. I grab it and squeeze, giving a small smile back at her.

With my free hand, I run two fingers down her face. "Pen is my favorite person. I'm happy to take care of her and her dad for the next little while."

At my leg, she interlocks our fingers. She squeezes back and faces the group again.

"My parents think it's real," Pen says. "Bear's parents do, too. But here with you all? We wanted to tell you the truth. Just don't let it get out of the group."

"Of course," Evie says.

"You all know I swore off romance." Pen chuckles at the irony of getting married after all. "But I want Bear to have the wedding he always dreamed of with someone he's in love with. That's why we'll eventually divorce."

"We'll be married for at least a year," I say. "Then we'll tell our parents we had it right before and we're better off as friends."

The words taste sour in my mouth. I roll them around my tongue, trying to get them to sweeten. Whatever words want to come out instead, get crushed between my molars and swiftly swallowed.

Pen doesn't see romance between us, and neither should I. If there's one thing that could break what Pen and I have, is the betrayal of developing romantic feelings for someone who's so important to me but would never see me that way. For years, I've dismissed these observations people make as giving us a hard time. I can't start questioning now if I've been missing something this whole time.