Page 66 of Count Your Lucky Stars
Damn it, it was supposed to besex. Supposed to be casual. Feelings weren’t on the menu. Feelings were strictly prohibited; that was the whole point. Friends with benefits, satisfaction guaranteed, all gain no pain, reward with none of the risk, have her cake and eat it, too.
It wasn’t like the sex wasn’t great. Sex with Olivia was... Words couldn’t do it justice. Mind-blowing, toe-curling,amazing. But Margot wanted more.
She frowned sharply when Luke said something that made Olivia shove his arm playfully. She wantedthat. To sit beside Olivia and let her hand linger on Olivia’s thigh, to be the person offering Olivia marshmallows off her stick, to be the person making Olivia laugh. To bethe person. Olivia’s person.
Not Luke, not Brad, no one else.Her.She wanted it to be her by Olivia’s side.
She could picture it perfectly.
Waking up beside Olivia every morning. Falling asleep beside her every night.
How easy it would be to let these feelings grow, let herself fall in love with Olivia, fall in love with heragain.
Too get in too deep.
How awful it would be, telling Olivia she wanted more, baring her brittle heart, offering up all her many messy feelings, only for Olivia to turn her down gently. For everything between them to become strained, sharing a seven-hundred-square-foot apartment, their lives entangled in new ways. To ache each time Olivia stepped through the front door, to hold her breath each time Olivia left, wondering when the time would come that Olivia would leave and never come back, Margot’s feelings too big, eating up all the oxygen in the room, making it so the two of them couldn’t coexist inside the same space.
How hard it would be to put herself back together.
History repeating itself and her the fool for letting it happen, believing that Olivia would ever choose her, ever want Margot as much as Margot wanted her.
Margot swigged her beer, bottle shaking slightly in her hand as she lowered it back to her side. “I just don’t...vibewith Luke, okay?”
Elle made a face, nose wrinkling. “You don’tvibewith him?”
“Yeah.” Margot crossed her arms and stared across the fire. “What do we reallyknowabout him? What if his real name isn’t even Luke?”
Elle laughed. “Okay, Margot. I’m pretty sure if Brendon—his college roommate andfriend—thinks his name is Luke, it’s probably Luke.”
“It could be short for something,” Margot argued. “Hisname might actually be—I don’t know.” Her brain blanked. What the hell was Luke short for?“Luketh.”
Elle lost it, snorting so hard she dribbled wine on the deck. Darcy threw a napkin at her, lips twitching in fond exasperation.
Margot ached. She wanted that, someone to look at her with fond exasperation when she was being utterly ridiculous. Not someone.Olivia.
“You meanLucas?” Elle pressed a hand to her stomach, trying and failing to rein in her laughter. Olivia’s eyes flickered across the patio, her lips tipping up in a smile when she met Margot’s eye.
Margot dropped her gaze to the deck, face burning in a way that had nothing to do with the heat from the fire pit. Her heart stuttered and her stomach swooped. How she hadn’t seen this coming was anyone’s guess. She hadn’twantedto see it coming. If she’d have spared a moment to really think about it, she’d have known that this? This was an inevitability. From the moment Olivia kissed her—hell, from the moment Margot invited her to move in—this was always going to happen.
Casualwas nothing but a weak safeguard against the inexorable; like waves beating against rock, it was only a matter of time before her feelings wore her down, weakened her resolve, until leaks started to spring and her feelings spilled out where they didn’t belong. She could plug the holes up, but a new one would always appear.
Margot didn’t know how to be anything butall inwhen it came to Olivia.
Elle’s brows rose. “Do I have to tell you you’re being ridiculous, or do you already know it and you’re just being difficult?”
She sniffed. The second one. “I’m just saying, Luke’s this... this Hallmark actor look-alike with perfect teeth and perfect hair and a job that literally involves saving people’s lives and—and hisshoulders.”
Elle blinked. “You’re upset that he has shoulders?”
“Broadshoulders.”
“Ah. An important clarification.” Elle nibbled on her lip. “You know you can talk to me, right?”
Margot looked at her askance. “I am talking. My lips are moving; sounds are coming out of my mouth.”
“But you’re not reallysayinganything,” Elle said.
With that, Margot couldn’t argue. Elle had a point.
