My phone buzzed again as I got inside. “Margaritas? I thought you were all about the martinis?”

Owen laughed as we pulled away.

“Not at Grant and Sophia’s. Sophia makes amazing margaritas. You’ll see. You’ll love them too.”

My phone kept going so I pulled it out.

Reese: So a llama isn’t mistaken for a lama, which is also a Tibetan monk. Google.

Reese: I have actually. She pinched my ass and I offered her some Ensure.

Reese: Drapes: Juan. Nothing gets past him when he’s playing defense. Shades: Carzoni because he does his job, but he’s a softy inside. Curtains: Lestroy because he wears his heart on his sleeve so you can see through him at times. Blinds: Crusky because the Cruskinator is hard as nails, though sometimes his humor is sideways.

Reese: I’m THE goat. You figure out why.

I barked out a laugh, but covered my mouth quickly. Jesus. I hadn’t expected him to answer, but he always did.

Hadley twisted around in her seat. “Is that…”

She bit her lip as I put my phone away. The smart-ass answers could come later, when I was buzzed with even more attitude.

“Yeah,” I answered. “It was Reese.”

She glanced to Owen.

Coughing, he rolled his shoulder back. “So, uh…” His voice was strained.

Hadley’s wasn’t. Her eyes were big, and her tone was gushing. “What’s the deal with you two? Are you really not sleeping with him? Because, I mean—”

“Hadley.”

“What?” She looked back at her husband. “Are we really going to ignore this? She’s texting with Reese Forster! She was freaking out over him herself a week ago.”

I snorted. “I still do.”

“See?” Her grin was smug as she turned back to me. She leaned even closer. “Tell us everything. What’s he really like? Is he nice? Is he a dick? Has he put the moves on you? Because you know, ball players can get laid.”

Owen groaned. “We all know that, but…” He hesitated, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

They were curious. I would’ve been too, if I looked at it from the other side. But I wasn’t on the other side now. And I was protective. Whatever kind of friendship Reese and I had, I needed it. He wasn’t twisting my arm to know about Damian. I didn’t feel obligated to apologize to him for skipping out on years of friendship, or to tear open my insides and show him how I was still devastated, still in pain, still not quite healing.

I didn’t have to explain anything to him, and that’s why I liked him. I mean, other than the obvious: his ball skills.

I sat back and shrugged. I needed to proceed with caution. I loved these two people. I owed them too, because they could’ve declared me dead to them, and they hadn’t. But I couldn’t give them what they wanted.

“He’s cool. He’s funny.”

“Have you two, you know…”

“No, Hadley. There’s been nothing like that. Just friends.”

“But still.” She sighed, moving to sit more forward in her seat, her profile to me. “Can you imagine being friends with someone that famous? I know we get celebrities here sometimes, but we’re staff to them.”

“Yeah.” I understood.

“Some are so nice and down-to-earth, but we’re not friends when they leave.”

“It’s their staff that aren’t so nice sometimes,” Owen added.

Owen and Hadley shared a laugh, and I knew what they meant. Reese and me, though, this wasn’t just a camp friendship. It didn’t feel like it.

But maybe it would be. Maybe when he left, and they entered their regular season, that’d be the end of us. I guess if that happened, then that’s what happened.

Was I really in a place to demand otherwise? I mean, come on. I was a mess, a certifiable, fucked-in-the-head, slightly-crazy-and-I’m-not-joking-about-it sort of mess. Reese had become some form of weird name-calling glue that held me together.

Was this the beginning of healing?

Maybe?

God, I hoped so.

Either way, when we pulled in to Grant and Sophia’s house, I was more than ready for some margaritas.

Three hours later, the screen door opened behind me. A beer and a package of smokes landed on the table, and Grant sat beside me.

I grunted as he yawned, then lit one up. “I forgot you smoked.”

My stomach knotted. I knew why he’d come out, and the somersaults were going.

He breathed in, his arm resting on his knee. “Yeah. Just when I’m drinking.” I felt his gaze. “If we were teens, I’d offer you one. You stopped, right?”

“I only had a few that one summer with you. And they were cigars.”

I’d gone a whole summer thinking I was badass, sucking in, holding, then exhaling. I never actually inhaled the cigars, and I’d had no clue I was doing it wrong until a friend realized what I was doing. She’d laughed so hard that I gave up cigars after that.

My voice was hoarse now, from the yelling, cheering, laughing, drinking—just from all the hoopla I’d learned defined a party at Grant and Sophia’s house.

“I think I’m in love with your fiancée and her family,” I added.

He grinned, taking another drag, then lifting his beer. “I know. Why do you think I’m marrying her?”