Page 54 of Hers for the Weekend

She wiggled her butt bones against his thighs to make him yelp, because messing with him was much, much easier than dealing with what he’d said.

“Where’s the rest of your crew?” she asked, changing the subject. “Don’t y’all usually travel as a pack these days?”

Miriam picked at an imaginary loose thread on her overalls. It was, Tara knew, one of her tells for when she was uncomfortable and trying to hide it. “They’re having some Feelings about Cass and it’s best if I give them space for that.”

“You don’t have feelings about Cass?” Tara asked, nudging Miriam with her knee.

“I do”—Miriam shrugged—“but I didn’t exactly have feelings at all for ten years, so I’m still kind of in the training-wheels phase.” She looked up at the sky, like she was trying to figure out how to phrase her next words. “Plus, like, not to invalidate how they’re feeling, but I’m so much more mad at my parents that Cass’s idiosyncrasies barely register. Is that terrible?”

It was Tara’s turn to shrug. “It’s a feeling. It doesn’t have moral value. I probably wouldn’t tell it to Levi, but…” Tara had heard a lot about Levi’s Issues with Cass from his wife.

Miriam laughed. “Noted.”

“Speaking of your parents…” Tara grimaced.

“Oh my gosh, is my mom being awful?” Miriam asked, clutching at Tara’s sleeve. “She promised she would behave.”

“She implied I should object to the wedding and try to win you back My Best Friend’s Wedding style.”

Miriam’s eyes got huge in her tiny, elven face. “That ratfink.”

Tara had forgotten that Miriam said shit like ratfink, and how charming it was. God, she was glad they were getting back to being real friends again. She would never want to lose one of the few people she genuinely liked in this world because they’d had the bad sense to try to date. “The weird thing is, I think she genuinely adores Noelle. It’s like some sort of compulsion, to set you up with the wealthiest person in the room.”

“I know!” Miriam threw up her hands. “Since she found out Cole’s getting his trust fund, she’s been trying to suss out if he’s gay or bi, and whether we ever slept together and might do so again.”

“Ew,” Cole said. “You slept with Tara! That would be like incest!”

“You’re so weird,” Tara said, but then remembered a story she’d meant to tell Miriam. “I forgot! When he came out, my mom told me, ‘Oh that’s great, now you can get married and you won’t get in each other’s way.’”

“WHAT?!” Miriam screeched, almost falling off the porch swing with laughter.

Cole gasped. “You never told me that! Ew times a thousand.”

“It’s a good thing that we never introduced our mothers,” Miriam said when she caught her breath. “We wouldn’t have survived their scheming.”

Tara wiped tears of laughter off her cheeks and shook her head.

“It turns out, I’m glad we didn’t get married.” Although she was fairly certain Miriam knew this, she felt it still needed to be said.

“Me too,” Miriam agreed.

“Third!” Cole agreed. “We always needed Noelle in our karass.”

“Although,” Miriam mused, “we did make a good team. You’re going to make some lucky girl a hell of a wife someday. Maybe soon?” At this, she elbowed Tara gently.

Tara grimaced. “I really like Holly, and I think she would make an amazing wife, but I’m not sure she wants to be one. I think I’ve been hiding my head in the sand a little about whether or not I could ever fit her into my life, and vice versa.”

There, that was true, if not the entire truth.

Cole snorted. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, my friend. Look at Hannah and Levi! He wanted to see the world, she wanted to stay at Carrigan’s, he left her alone for four years in a remote hotel in the woods with his parents while he wandered off on a boat to find himself, and yet, here they are. Two little peas in a pod, living their best lives. You like her, that’s what matters.”

“It’s more complicated than that, baby, you know it is,” she told him. And herself.

He made a dismissive noise. “Is it? When was the last time you liked anyone this much?”

Honestly, maybe… never.

Tara did really, really like Holly. She was quick, and funny, thoughtful and always down to help. She was a freaking clinic escort, and what was sexier than a girl who rode hard for reproductive rights? The sex was so hot it felt like her brain was melting.

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