Page 90 of You Again

“Come on, Stell.” Roman stands, making his way around the table and walking her to Fran’s guest bathroom.

“I thought I was going to have to plan a wedding on the fly.” Fran paces behind Rosalie’s seat, hands on hips.

“No,” Rosalie says, her grin ear to ear—now that she’s won. “We wouldn’t have gone through with either bet, Fran. It was a joke.”

“I wasn’t joking,” I say, brows raised. “You were joking?”

She only shakes her head at me. I take my finger and draw an imaginary X over my heart, right where my tattoo will be going.

“Hey, Zev,” Lucca says, phone out. “You’ve got options.” He pushes his phone in front of my face, multiple rose designs on the screen. “Do you want her name beneath it?”

Rosalie pushes her chair out from beneath the table. Chortling, she stands. “No, he does not want my name beneath it. He’s not getting a tattoo.”

“Only, I am.” I stand and walk around until I’m right in front of her. I give her an innocent grin. “A bet is a bet. You should know I’m serious next time we play cards, Conrad.”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling too. Then, in front of all our friends—except for Stella who’s still in the bathroom—I plant a kiss on my girl.

Thirty-Nine

Present Day

Dr. Case’s office smells like peppermint. I read somewhere that peppermint soothes people. I wonder if she does that on purpose. I scoot the small bowl of decorative rocks she has in the middle of this coffee table right to the edge. Then I pick up one rock after another for examination.

“How’s Fran?” she asks. “Have you spent much time with her lately?”

I peer down at the handful of pebbles in my palm and drop them into the glass bowl. “Zevulun told me he loves me!” I bark.

“Oh. Well. This is new. What about Rob⁠—”

“I’m over that.” I pick up the bowl of pebbles and hold it close to my chest. “He’s not who I thought he was. Fran told me. Grammy told me. Even Zev told me, and he doesn’t even know him. But then I saw it firsthand and—” I swallow. “Well, that situation actually kind of threw Zev and me together, and two days ago he was high as a kite on drugs, and he told me that he loves me. And while it was probably a drug-induced accident, I can’t stop thinking about it and wondering if he actually could have meant it.” My hands flail with the words like a drowning woman in a lake, which causes every single pebble in my bowl to fly all over Dr. Case’s office. I bite my lip, holding back the four-letter word on the tip of my tongue.

Dr. Case weaves her fingers into her curled hair and pulls out one of the rocks.

“I’m sorry,” I groan, getting on my hands and knees. I pick up pebbles but stop with⁠—

“Rosalie,” Dr. Case says, her tone authoritative. “Please sit. Someone will take care of that later. Her mouth purses, her brow furrows. “Explain. He was high?”

I keep her decorative bowl in my grasp, my knuckles turning white as I hold it tight. “Yes. On Benadryl, after an allergic reaction.”

“I see.”

But I’m not sure she does.

“You’re missing the part where he said he loves me,” I say, holding out my arm and pointing the bowl at her.

“I heard.” She taps her pen to her pad. “How does that make you feel?”

I groan. Really? She’s giving me the “how does it make you feel” spiel? “I don’t know,” I growl.

“You seem to have some feelings on the subject. Let’s explore them.”

“He wasn’t himself,” I huff, bouncing in my seat, and the half dozen pebbles I cleaned up jump from the bowl once more. “He was reacting to the entire bottle of Benadryl he consumed.”

“And yet,” she says, leaning forward and taking the decorative bowl from my hands, “you definitely have some feelings.”

I lean back, nothing in my grasp to distract me. “It’s just—it took Robert so long to say it, and then he never really meant it.” I sigh. “Zev just said it like it was the easiest thing in the world, like he’d been wanting to for some time.” I shake my head. “Which is ridiculous because we haven’t even been friends that long.”

She nods, continuous little nods as I speak. “So, it felt good.”