“No.”

  “Neither have I,” Emma added.

  “Who won?” Keira asked.

  “We played two out of three, because I took the first one and this one wouldn’t admit defeat,” Macon replied.

  “And then she won the second one, too.” Emma took a drink of her wine.

  “You’re all about victories tonight, aren’t you?” Joanna kissed the side of Macon’s neck and rested her head against the woman’s shoulder.

  “Where’s Hill?” Emma asked.

  “Hitting on some guy at the bar.” Keira nodded.

  “Hillary’s doing the hitting?” Macon seemed to be in disbelief; and she went to turn but stopped, because Joanna’s head was on her shoulder.

  Joanna took her hand and sipped on her beer as they both turned to see that Hillary waved off the guy who was now joining his friends at one of the tables. Then, she turned to walk back to her own group of friends.

  “Hillary, who was that fine gentleman, and did you get his number?” Macon asked.

  “What? Who?” Hillary asked.

  “The man you were talking to.”

  “Oh, that’s a student. He’s a Ph. D candidate.”

  “So, nothing romantic there?” Joanna checked.

  “He’s married to another student I know.”

  “We thought you might get a date out of it,” Keira said, and then she lit up completely as she saw something no one else seemed to notice. “Oh, my God! Hill, she’s here.” She pointed and dropped her finger out of fear of being seen, starting to nod instead. “She’s here.”

  “Who’s here?” Emma asked and followed her girlfriend’s gaze.

  “Your mystery woman.” Keira nodded emphatically toward the bar.

  Joanna followed her nods and saw a woman, who, from afar, looked to be about 5’7” or 5’8”. She was attractive, to be sure. She had long auburn hair that was done up intricately in some kind of fancy braid.

  “She’s not my mystery woman.” Hillary looked toward that woman. Joanna caught a smile. Then, the smile disappeared when the mystery woman met and hugged a man. “She’s his mystery woman, apparently.”

  “They just hugged; no kiss,” Emma pointed out.

  “And she’s always staring at you at the café, Hill,” Keira insisted.

  “She doesn’t stare. She glances, occasionally.”

  “And you’ve never talked to her?” Joanna asked.

  “No.”

  “She’s scared,” Macon said.

  “I’m not scared. Just look at her.” Hillary motioned palm up in the direction of the woman who was now sitting next to the man she’d just hugged. “She’s gorgeous.”

  “So are you, Hill.” Keira finished her wine.

  “Do you want another one?” Emma asked, finishing her own.

  “No, I’m good. I’ll get one for you, though.” Keira kissed her cheek.

  “Water?” Emma asked.

  “Sure. Anyone else?”

  “I’m okay,” Macon offered, and Joanna shook her head.

  “Keira, do not do anything.” Hillary pointed at her.

  “I’m going to get my girlfriend a bottle of water.” She held out her hands in defense. “I’ll grab you one, too.” She pointed at Hillary. “Lime?”

  “Keira…”

  “Lime it is,” Keira said in response.

  “You know she’s going to talk to her, right?” Emma said.

  “Fuck.” Hillary moved away from them and around a corner, where she could hide behind a row of games.

  “What is happening right now?” Joanna laughed, and Macon’s arms went around her waist from behind. “Where did your beer go?”

  “I finished it.” Macon kissed her neck. “Come on. I want to play one of those motorcycle games.”

  “Emma, you joining us?” Joanna asked as Macon kissed her in that spot again.

  “No, I’ll wait for Key.” Emma nodded and smiled toward her girlfriend. “Actually, can I borrow you two before you run off?”

  “What’s up?” Macon asked.

  “I have something I want to run by you.” Emma stepped closer. “I want to ask her.”

  “Ask who what?” Joanna questioned, possibly feeling slightly tipsy from how quickly she’d finished her own beer.

  “Shit! Really?” Macon pulled back from her. Joanna turned halfway to check on her. “You’re proposing?” she whispered.

  “Really?” Joanna moved into Macon and moved her arms back where they were.

  “I want to, yes. I still need to pick out a ring and figure out how to do it.”

  “What can we do?” Joanna asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I just know I want to marry that girl. I talked to Hailey about it, and she told me to make some grand romantic gesture. Then, her wife told me to just ask her. So, now, I don’t know what to do.”

  “You know Keira better than anyone. What do you think she’d want?” Joanna asked and ran her fingers along Macon’s hands on her waist.

  “Her name is Amara.” Keira bounded back over. “Oh, I forgot your water,” she said to Emma.

  Emma laughed, pulled Keira closer to her, and said, “I forgive you. Now, what were you saying?”

  “I didn’t talk to her, because Hill would be pissed. But I overheard her introducing herself to that guy’s girlfriend; her name is Amara. And he is just a friend.”

  “That’s good news, I guess, but it doesn’t mean she’s into Hill,” Macon said.

  “I know. But, guys, she’s at the café nearly every time Hillary is. I’ve seen her at least fifteen times. She’s looking at her whenever she can.”

  “Okay, but Hillary doesn’t want to do anything about it, babe,” Emma explained.

  “She’s just scared.”

  “I am not scared,” Hillary rejected and emerged.

  “You’re literally hiding right now,” Keira pointed out.

  “This is stupid: I came out to see Kell, and now this night somehow turned into trying to hook me up with someone. I’m going home.” Hillary rolled her eyes at her friends playfully.

  “Hill, don’t be like that,” Emma said. “I’ll keep her in check.” She nodded toward her girlfriend.

  “Of course, you will,” Keira replied sarcastically. “I’m bummed about Kellan and Reese, too, though. Maybe we can all grab dinner? We can leave Amara, your mystery girl, here.”

  “Her name’s Amara?” Hillary smiled, and her voice had some levity to it. “It’s pretty.” She allowed her eyes to drift to the bar, where she watched Amara laughing with her two friends.

  “She’s pretty, too, Hillary.” Joanna nudged her forearm. “Why don’t you just go talk to her?”

  “Dinner sounds good.” Hillary returned her attention to Keira. “What are you guys in the mood for?”

  “Another time,” Macon whispered into Joanna’s ear. “She’ll get there, eventually.”

  “Dinner?” Emma looked in their direction.

  “Let’s go,” Macon replied.

  “Make, can I walk with you?” Keira asked.

  “I’ll walk with Emma and Hillary,” Joanna instantly volunteered.

  “We’re all walking together, aren’t we?” Macon checked. “Why are we being weird?”

  “Give me five minutes of your time without your girlfriend glued to your hip,” Keira teased, pulling Macon along.

  “Says the woman that’s been glued to her girlfriend’s hip forever.” Macon laughed.

  They all headed toward the door. Joanna noted the blush on Hillary’s face as they moved past Amara. Then, she noticed Amara turn and catch Hillary leaving. The expression the woman had on her face told Joanna all she needed to know.

  ◆◆◆

  Greene watched Joanna, who walked next to Hillary and Emma ahead of them. She noted how shapely her girlfriend’s ass was from behind and even tipped her head to the side to check it out from another angle.

  “Really, Greene?” Keira laughed.

  “What?” Greene bumped shoulders with her. “My girlfriend has a nice ass.”

  “So does mine.” Keira did the same thing and stared at Emma’s.

  “I can respectfully acknowledge that.” Greene winked at Keira. “So, you want to tell me why you wanted to walk with me for some strange reason?”

  “I’ve been talking to Joanna a lot since you disappeared. She was our only way of knowing you were okay.”

  “Yes, please remind me of that again and again forever.”

  “Anyway, she’s led me to believe that there are some things you allow us to say that may not exactly be true.”

  “Like what?” Greene asked and glanced over at her.

  “She wouldn’t tell me, but it sounded like maybe there’s something you’re not telling us about your little bar escapades.”

  Greene stared at the ground and shook her head side to side.

  “It’s not a big deal; that’s why I’ve never said anything about it.”

  “So, what’s the secret, Make? All these women we thought you were dating… you weren’t?”

  “It’s not like that,” Greene explained. “I dated them. I just didn’t sleep with all of them. You guys think I sleep around a lot. I don’t. I never have. I would meet someone, there would be some flirting and maybe a hot make-out session, but that’s basically where it ended nine times out of ten. When I did like a woman enough to go out on a date, we’d date. Sometimes, we’d have sex. But I’m not this Lothario you all make me out to be.”

  “Greene, why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because it didn’t matter.”

  “Of course, it mattered.” Keira placed a gentle hand on Greene’s arm to hold her back.

  “We’re going to fall behind,” Greene deflected.

  “Hey, talk to me.”

  “Keira, sometimes it’s just easier to let people think things about me than it is to correct them.”

  “I’m not people, Macon Greene; I’m your best friend, or at least I was before Joanna entered the–”

  “No, you don’t get to do that, Keira,” she interrupted a little louder than she’d intended.

  “Everything okay?” Joanna turned to check.

  “We’ll meet you guys there,” Greene instructed. “It’s fine.” She softened her voice toward Joanna.

  “Okay.” Joanna nodded and gave her a sweet smile.

  “Keira, when you met Emma, it was like the rest of us didn’t exist for a while after that. I get it: you fell in love. And I’m so happy for you two. I want you to be happy. I love Emma; but it was like you weren’t there anymore. Hillary and I were on our own, but that was okay.”

  “Because you had Joanna?”

  “No, not just because of that. I mean, she was a part of it, and yes, she became my best friend. She’s amazing, and I love her, but this is about before that. You wonder why I never bothered to correct you?” She let out a deep exhale. “It’s because you thought it in the first place.”

  “What?”

  “You saw me flirt with some girl years ago, another one bought me a drink; I remember the night this whole thing started. You made a comment about how the girls were all over me. One of them kissed me. It was a peck more than anything. And, suddenly, I was a player, or at least this habitual dater who slept with women left and right. It caught on with Hill, and somehow it took off from there, but I’ve slept with fewer women than Jo has slept with men. And neither of us sleeps around, Keira.”

  “Make, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “I know. I know. It just sucks when you have this best friend, who’s supposed to know you, and she makes an assumption about your character as if she doesn’t.”

  “I never should have said it. I’m sorry. I didn’t know, Greene. You always seemed so good at picking up women in bars, and you’d leave with them sometimes.”

  “We’d talk, kiss, maybe get to second base, but that was it, Keira.”

  “I’m sorry. What else can I do to make this up to you? I feel terrible, Greene.”

  “It’s fine. Honestly, it is. This is Jo’s work.” She turned to see that the threesome was standing on the corner, waiting for them. “I love that woman, but she keeps trying to make me better. It’s frustrating sometimes.”

  “Emma does the same thing to me. It sucks.” Keira looked in Emma’s direction. “And it’s awesome.”

  “Yeah,” Greene agreed.

  “It is awesome, you know?” Keira bumped her shoulder.

  “What?”

  “When you find that person that makes you better. Or, in this case, when you find that person that makes your best friend realize what an asshole she’s been for years now because she never bothered to really get to know that part of you.”

  “Did you just call yourself an asshole?” Greene asked her with a grin.

  “Yes, I did. Because I am. I’m sorry, Make.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m glad she got me to talk to you.”

  “Me too.”

  “But you don’t want to admit that to her, do you?” Keira chuckled.

  “The only thing I’ve ever kept from her was how I felt about her. And I couldn’t even keep that in for that long and spilled it right after I figured it out.” She turned to see Joanna watching them with a concerned expression. “It doesn’t do me any good to try to keep things from her. I don’t want to, anyway. I like when she’s happy; and she’ll be happy that we talked.”

  “You really are a one-woman woman, aren’t you?” Keira laughed and hooked her arm through Greene’s as they walked on to meet the rest of the group.

  “Always have been, yeah.” She laughed back.

  “I’m sorry I never noticed before.”

  “You notice now, though, don’t you?”

  “How well you two fit? Yeah, everyone notices that, Greene. Literally, everyone noticed. We noticed before you two did.”

  “And you honestly thought the straight girl would fall for the gay best friend?”

  Keira stopped walking, holding Greene back again.

  “Make, she fell for you right away.” She laughed. “Do you honestly not remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  “You didn’t notice?”

  “Notice what, Keira? Speak.”

  “The day you two met: you guys were at my place, helping me plan that wedding when I needed the staff and the ones I hired flaked on me.”

  “Yes, that I remember.”

  “And Emma got you, Hillary, Joanna, Mason, and crew to help.”

  “Yes… So?”

  “You two were sitting next to each other on the couch and wouldn’t stop talking.”

  Greene smiled at the memory and replied, “That part, I remember.”

  “Make, she would stare at you.” Keira laughed. “You grabbed a donut off the table, and she just looked at you with this smile and also kind of this look of confusion on her face; I watched her shake her head. It’s pretty funny now.”

  “How is that funny?”

  “She was into you and tried to shake herself out of it because, well, probably for a lot of reasons. You were a woman. She was straight. She’d just met you. It probably didn’t help that I made a comment about you not hitting on the clients.” Keira paused and offered an apologetic smile. “I didn’t say anything because I thought you two would figure it out, or that maybe you’d talked about it already and it was a no-go. I didn’t want to pry. But once it was pretty obvious that the two of you wanted it, I was happy for you guys, because it works, Greene. You two work.”

  “We do,” Greene agreed. “We should get going though. She’s going to start freaking out soon if I don’t tell her everything’s okay.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  “Also, you’re buying dinner for Jo and I. And you know what? You’re buying for Hill, too. We all deserve it.”

  “No problem.” Keira laughed as they met up with the other three women.

  CHAPTER 25

  After a night at Macon’s apartment, where they’d fallen asleep almost instantly from the exhaustion, Joanna woke on Sunday morning feeling mostly refreshed but still unprepared to spend a full day at a wedding photo shoot. She’d left Macon in bed after kissing her goodbye to return to her own apartment to pick up her equipment and get dressed. Macon was lagging behind, but she promised she’d force herself into the shower and join her as her assistant for the final day of her all too brief vacation. By the time Joanna had gathered everything she’d need for the shoot and had finished her second cup of coffee, Macon had arrived and let herself in.

  “Hey. You ready?” Macon greeted after closing the door behind her and moving toward Joanna in the kitchen.

  “I made you coffee,” she replied and pointed to the other mug she’d already filled and sat on the counter.

  “You’re the best girlfriend.” Macon kissed her and placed a hand on the small of her back. “I almost stopped on the way over, but I was thinking we could grab breakfast burritos at Eduardo’s before we hit the road.” She grinned an adorably wide grin, indicating that she’d very much like to stop for breakfast burritos on their way to the wedding.

  “I take it that’s something you’d like to do?” Joanna smiled back.

  “Yes, it is.” Macon turned Joanna around in her arms to pull her in for what was likely supposed to be a sweet kiss but, within a few seconds, had turned into something more.

  “We can grab burritos, or we can do something else. We have some time, but not enough time to do more than one thing,” Joanna suggested.

  “You’re saying we can either have morning sex or I can grab breakfast?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Joanna wrapped her arms around Macon’s neck to pull her in, revealing what she’d prefer her girlfriend to choose.

  “I can just eat a big lunch.” Macon leaned in and captured Joanna’s lips again, before pressing the woman back against the kitchen counter and placing her own thigh between Joanna’s.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, if you’re offering…” Macon pecked at Joanna’s neck before returning to her lips.

  “Joanna, we’re here! Oh!”

  “Mom?” Joanna quickly pushed back at Macon as her mother stood in her living room. “What are you doing here? Dad?” she asked of her father, who had entered the apartment.