Page 184 of Can't Always Get What You Want

My best friend laughs, and if she had two free hands, she’d be clapping. “Good for you!” She gives Luca a love tap on the arm. “And good for you, big guy. You seem like the nervous type, I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to fuck her in public.”

Gio throws up his hands. “I didn’tseeanything, but mysoulsaw things. My third eye is permanently blind. I’m scarred for life and so is my unborn child.”

“Oh, babe.” Poppy pats his arm like he’s a trauma victim. “You should’ve knocked louder.”

“Ididknock!”

Luca groans behind me, looking like he wants the saloon floor to open up and swallow him whole.

“Okay,” Gio growls. “I’m leaving. I’m going to pee. Alone. Like a civilized adult.”

“Great talk, bro!” I call after him as he all but slams the door shut.

Poppy swings her attention back to me, her hat a little crooked, her drink somehow still full. “Okay, so now that Gio’s peeing out his trauma, you’re going to tell me everything.”

As if. “I will literally never tell you everything.”

My best friend pouts. “I don’t love who you’ve become.”

I laugh, dragging her down the hallway, Luca trailing along behind us. “It’s called privacy. You should try it sometime.”

Poppy notches her chin up. “Will you be saying that when I’m in a relationship and you want all the details?”

“When you’re in a relationship, we’ll renegotiate.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Poppy says, swaying dramatically like she’s in a perfume commercial. “Also, just so you know, Ialready put in a request to the universe. Tall, tattooed, emotionally available. And bilingual, preferably.”

“Ah,” Luca says from behind us. “A unicorn.”

Poppy glances over her shoulder. “Tell me you wouldn’t date a hot, emotionally available unicorn.”

Luca shrugs. “I mean... I wouldn’tnot.”

“Exactly,” she says, spinning to walk backward, drink raised like a priest offering communion. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go make questionable choices near the margarita machine and try to convince Austin’s cousin to show me his abs.”

I turn to my boyfriend. “You know what would be amazing?”

“Hmm?”

“If you had a friend we could set her up with.”

He shakes his head instantly. “Nope. Not happening.”

I blink. “Wait—why not?”

He levels me with a look. “Because she scares me.”

“That’s not a reason. That’s a personality trait.” I throw my hands up. “Come on, Luca, you have a whole team full of hot, questionably mature, emotionally stunted athletes who need molding—that’s just what she needs right now.”

I sigh long and loud. “Now you sound exactly like my brother when I was single trying to mingle.”

Cockblockers, both of them.

“Babe, it’s nothing personal against her. I try not to get involved in anyone’s business.”

Hmph. That’s not convenient.

I sigh dramatically, snagging two pink cake pops from a tray shaped like a saddle. “Fine. But when she ends up dating some douchebag accountant named Bryce, we’ll both know it’s your fault.”

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