Page 24 of Finally Loved

“How’d you know it was her?”

She rolled her eyes again. “It’s like you think I don’t know you at all.”

“You might know me, but you don’t know Neve. How’d you know she’d even text?”

“Thatwas just a lucky guess. But you, grinning at your phone like a lovesick schoolgirl? That, I know how to read like the back of my hand.”

Alba snorted as she sipped her own drink, glancing around at the bar and its packed dance floor. “I’m not a lovesick anything. Calm down.”

“What. Did. She. Say?” Zainab glared at her.

Alba laughed, taking another swig of her drink. “Just apologizing for her friend Charlie.”

“Oh, you mean the friend who clearly thinks you’re bad news?”

“Mm. Worrying I’m going to abduct their friend.”

Zainab huffed a laugh. “I don’t think it’s that at this point.”

Alba studied her in the low neon glow of the bar. “What else would it be?”

“It’s actually ridiculous that they let you graduate when you’re this oblivious.”

“I didn’t do a degree in reading people.”

“Clearly.”

“I don’t know why you’re so smug. It’s not like you did either.”

“I don’t need to.”

“And, if you’re not going to give me a clear answer, at least come dance with me.”

“Aren’t we waiting for—”

Before she could finish the thought, Francisco and Tariq reappeared, armed with drinks of their own and several extra bottles of water for their group. The pair were happy to go out for their friends’ birthdays, but they were not the ones to be found on the dance floor—unlike tonight’s birthday girl, who had barely left it. Instead, they held down the table, hydrated, and made sure anyone who was drinking wouldn’t wake up with too much of a hangover the next day.

They also flirted shamelessly, and Alba had been wondering for years now when the two might actually get together. She couldn’t quite figure out what they were waiting for.

“You two go dance,” Francisco insisted, waving Alba and Zainab away from the table. “We’ve got this.”

Alba smiled and thanked them both, wondering whether it was that they wanted her and Zainab to have a good time, or whether they just wanted alone time.

She grabbed Zainab’s hand and dragged her back to the dance floor, weaving through the dense crowd until they found their little group again. It wasn’t difficult to do, Ivy had used her birthday as an excuse to dye her hair pink and was wearing a particularly sparkly birthday tiara.

As they danced together, the music pounding through Alba’s body like a heartbeat, she leaned into Zainab. “So, ready to tell me now?”

Zainab laughed, the sound too low to be heard over the music. “Charlie doesn’t like you.”

Alba leaned back exaggerating her scandalized expression. “Charlie doesn’t even know me. How could she dislike me?”

Zainab danced freely, but her exasperated expression was at odds with her movements. “Because she thinks you’re bad for Neve.”

“I didn’t do anything to her,” Alba protested. She wasn’t used to people so viscerally disliking her for no apparent reason.

“Not yet, maybe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

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