Page 29 of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Catching Feelings #1)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SEAN

I could stay in this kiss forever, but a loud whoop sounds from the locker room, pulling Kayla’s attention—and lips—from mine.

She looks dazed and deliciously kiss-drunk, her lips slightly swollen, cheeks flushed, a faint patch of whisker-rub blooming on her chin.

I grin and Kayla buries her face in my neck. Lucas and half the team are standing at the door to the locker room—some wearing only towels around their waists—cheering like they just won the World Series.

“Get it, O’Shannan!” Lucas yells.

Fletch comes out of the locker room with a towel in his hand and starts spinning it. For a second, I think he’s going to whip it around in the air and start cheering.

But instead, he snaps it at Lucas’s butt.

Lucas jumps like he took a fastball to the tailbone. “Ouch! What the heck, Coach?”

“Winners earn celebration privileges. Losers hit the showers. Get back in there.”

Kayla laughs, but so do half the guys as they go back to the locker room.

I give Fletch a grateful nod, but he just mutters something under his breath and walks off like there isn’t enough money in the world for this nonsense.

I set Kayla down and put my hands on the dip of her waist.

“You tempted me here. Now what do you want with me?” I ask her. I keep the teasing note in my voice, because I’m afraid of what I’ll sound like without it.

Desperate.

Hopeful.

Absolutely head over heels.

When she texted me this morning, sounding so inviting, I wondered if she was joking.

The old me would have shrugged it off, would have felt sick over that kind of text.

Teased. Taunted, even. I would have shown up to find Serena dancing with another guy while maintaining it was all just for fun, nothing happened.

And I would’ve forced myself to believe the lie.

I was tempted to think the same thing today. To assume she was secretly having the time of her life with Aldridge. Reconnecting with him. Maybe playing us both against each other because she could.

Listen, I can’t shake the fear that I’m only in Kayla’s life right now because I’m the best available option. It’s too ingrained.

But Kayla isn’t cruel. She isn’t a shark looking for blood.

She may not love me—she may not be as far along as I am already—but she wouldn’t hurt me. She may send flirty, teasing texts, but she wouldn’t toy with my feelings.

So I decided to believe her.

To accept her invitation, take it at face value, and drive.

It’s funny how trust isn’t always a feeling, but a decision. A choice of faith over fear.

An act of courage.

Kayla’s stomach growls so loudly, we both laugh.

“Is there a tiger in your stomach, or are you just happy to see me?”

She wrinkles her nose, like what I said was either too adorable or too cheesy to handle. “I’m starving.”

“I saw a smoothie place about a half-mile?—”

“Actually,” she says, stopping me with a hesitant, hopeful smile. “I had something else in mind.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re parking in front of a barbecue joint that looks like the last place Kayla Carville would ever walk into.

Except, when I glance at her now—wearing my jersey, a Mudflaps cap, and a pair of leggings that make her legs look like they just don’t stop—I’m not so sure.

Maybe she’s never felt like she could eat at a place like this.

Maybe she’s always wanted to try.

Hand-in-hand, we walk up to Big Hank’s Hog Heaven, a dive if I’ve ever seen one—tin roof, worn wooden floors, and a neon pig in the window that’s missing part of its tail.

It’s the kind of place where the menus haven’t changed in decades, the sweet tea is served in giant mason jars, and every table’s faintly sticky, even after it’s washed.

But the smell of hickory smoke, slow-roasted pork, caramelized molasses, and warm cornbread is enough to make both our mouths water.

With a line that goes all the way out the door.

“What is that smell?” she says when we get to the back of the line.

“You’ve never had barbecue before?”

“Now you’re just being silly,” she says, bumping me with her hip. “My family is rich, not dead. But there’s something different to this. It doesn’t have that mustard or vinegar smell.”

“Tennessee barbecue is tomato-based.”

“I think I like it better already.”

“Whoa,” I say with a shake of my head, leaning away, like I’d be gone if our fingers weren’t threaded together. “This may be the start of our first fight.”

She gasps and pokes my abs. “Don’t even joke about that!” Then she inhales again. “Mmm. I’m sorry to break it to you like this, but I think I’ve met the love of my life.”

“I’m sure you and Big Hank will be very happy together.”

She grins and leans her head against me, so affectionately, so effortlessly endearing. I grab her baseball cap and spin it around on her head, so it’s facing backwards. And then I kiss her nose, because it’s just so dang cute.

“Catch me up on what I missed,” I say, putting an arm around her as we slowly move forward in line.

“Oh! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this, but Aldridge cheated! While we were engaged!”

I look down at her wide eyes and open brow and wonder what pain she’s hiding. “What an absolute—” I bite back my next word, as there are kids in line. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

She gives a light, surprised laugh. “Yes! I don’t know if he wanted to clear his conscience or prove that he still had power over me, but I didn’t have the energy to care.

Or the investment, maybe. It’s like … I already sold off all my Aldridge Sinclair stock.

Finding out there was a scandal I missed makes me even happier I divested when I did. ”

“Boss, I don’t understand about half of what you just said, but you throwing out those sexy business terms has me fixing to propose all over.”

She tips her head back to laugh, and I find myself almost drunk on the sound. Getting through the line takes another twenty minutes, and Kayla gives me a rundown of the last two days. Every mention of Aldridge has my fists squeezing until my knuckles crack.

“How were you with that guy for so long?”

“You knew Serena was stringing you along. You stayed because you loved Dakota, but I bet there was something more to it than that.”

I shrug, but an uncomfortable prickle spreads across my arms.

It was safer than wanting more ? —

I blink away the thought to listen to Kayla. “I think being with Aldridge felt like … cracking a code. Like I had tried for a long time to be accepted by his world, and he was my ticket in. Not armor, but a mask.”

“Why did you feel like you needed a mask at all? Wasn’t his world yours, as well?”

“Yes and no. My family is ‘new money,’ and we didn’t get really wealthy until I was nine or ten. I was obsessed with dance, and so when I pushed for a better dance studio, my dad put me in the best. I thought everyone would be as nice as my last studio, but … they weren’t.”

She ducks her head down, and I tuck her more firmly against my side, wishing I could protect her from the memories and everything that caused them.

“What did your parents say?”

“I didn’t tell them,” she says. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t exactly make it easy for my parents when they suggested keeping me in the studio I was already in.

Mom had told me horror stories about bullying in other studios and warned me about body dysmorphia and disordered eating.

She talked about all sorts of dangers and pressures, but I didn’t listen.

I insisted. I was a monster about it. Fits, freeze outs.

Anything to get them to change their minds. Until they relented.”

A cold kind of nausea creeps over me as I think about where this is going …

“So I came home everyday pretending that it was wonderful. The best studio ever. Everyone was so kind, so supportive. I got really good at pretending,” she says with a sad smile.

“Then I hit a growth spurt. Early puberty. I kept growing, kept developing, and soon I was taller than everyone in the studio—boys and girls. And I had curves that none of the other girls had. The boys I danced with could hardly pick me up. The instructors and moms made hushed comments. The girls swapped looks. I felt more like an outsider than ever. And it kept getting harder and harder to pretend everything was okay. So I focused on becoming who and what they needed me to be. On … shrinking until I was perfect.”

The words strike like a fist.

She’s talking about that … body dysmorphia. Disordered eating.

I know it to my bones.

I want to argue with Little Kayla. I want to grab that sweet little girl and hold her close and tell her how special and good and beautiful she is. But that girl isn’t here.

This one is. With tears welling in her soft hazel eyes and her lips pursed too tight as she chews the inside of her cheek.

I put my finger on her chin, keeping her gaze on mine. “There was never anything wrong with you. You were never too big or too much. They were too fragile. Too weak. You didn’t need to be smaller, Kayla. You needed people strong enough not to be threatened by you.”

“They weren’t threatened by me,” she says with a dark laugh.

“They were,” I insist. “People who are confident in themselves don’t care what someone else looks like, and they definitely don’t comment on it. Those coaches should have made those little boys hit the gym and they should have told those little girls how ugly jealousy made them look.”

“They weren’t jealous.”

“Boss, I don’t need to know what you looked like at ten or twelve to know they were jealous. There hasn’t been a moment in your life where you weren’t the most gorgeous woman—or girl—in a room. You were a swan in a room full of emotionally stunted ducklings. It wasn’t your fault.”

Kayla nibbles the inside of her cheek again, but the dampness in her eyes has dried up, replaced by a pensive look.

There’s only one person in front of us in line, so our conversation is about to pause.

I’m tempted to let the family behind us go on in front, but the sooner we get to the table, the sooner we can continue.

“My mom loved the Ugly Duckling story. I thought it was weirdly anti-adoption, so I never let her reread it, but she always said she thought it was beautiful how the swan finally finds a family where it fits.”

“The swan was perfect all along,” I say. “And spectacularly hot.”

She laughs. “I think the swan was a boy.”

“No. It was a girl. And she was hot.”

“Next,” the man behind the register asks.

Kayla’s too busy giggling, so I take the liberty of ordering one of everything.

The only seats available are at long picnic tables surrounded by other people.

Kayla doesn’t even eat in front of me. I don’t know how she’s going to handle this. And that fact seems to be weighing on her mind.

Kayla sits next to a mom, who has a toddler next to her and her husband and another kid across from them, on my side.

The family is too distracted to even know we’re sharing a table with them.

The kids are a mess—barbecue sauce everywhere, mac and cheese stuck in their hair.

When the younger boy knocks his lemonade across the table, the parents swap tired, frazzled looks, and then the mom pulls out half a roll of paper towel from the holder in front of her and wipes it up.

Then the toddler knocks over the dad’s drink, too, and the spill spreads across the table, creeping toward our plates.

“I’m sorry,” the dad says. “We can’t take these two anywhere.”

“You’re at Big Hank’s Hog Heaven,” I tell the man, helping him wipe up the table. “If you can’t take kids here, that’s the world’s problem, not yours. You’re okay, man.”

The little boy who knocked over the drinks stands on the bench, face buried in his dad’s shirt. At first I think he’s using it like a napkin, but on second glance, I realize he’s watching Kayla.

What is that, peek-a-boo?

No. He’s copying her.

She’s got her hat pulled down low over her eyes, then peeks out from under the brim.

The kid peeks out from behind his dad’s shirt.

She sticks out her tongue.

So does he.

She crosses her eyes and makes a fish face.

He copies her like it’s his job.

His dad finally sits. Kayla smiles at the kid, eyes crinkling with delight.

And he smiles right back.

“Okay, Shane, time to eat,” his mom says, pushing his plate in front of him.

“No!” he screams. “I hate bah-be-cue!”

“I love barbecue,” Kayla says loudly. She acts like she’s saying it to me so little Shane won’t get suspicious. She grabs her sticky, sauce-soaked pork sandwich, and holds it up in front of her mouth.

Shane’s protest dies as he mirrors her instantly. He picks up his sandwich and excitedly holds it right in front of his mouth. Waiting for Kayla to take a bite.

And now I’m waiting, too, with bated breath.

I see her chest rise and fall faster, almost like she’s panting. Her eyes flit to mine only for a second, and in that second, my whole soul leans forward.

You’re safe with me. Don’t you dare shrink.

I don’t say it. But I think she gets the message.

Because when her eyes flick back to Shane’s, there’s a twinkle in them.

A twinkle that looks like mischief.

She winks at Shane?—

And takes an absolutely enormous bite.

Sauce squeezes out all over her face. Pulled pork drips from the back, splattering on the plate below. Grease leaves a trail down one arm.

It’s carnage.

And it’s making my eyes wet.

Shane dives in, too, his bite the same delicious disaster as Kayla’s.

Kayla grins at him, chewing with happy, unshed tears in her eyes. Shane spots the sauce on Kayla’s cheeks and nose, and he starts giggling, revealing sauce all over his own face. And that makes Kayla start laughing.

And soon, we’re all laughing. Taking huge, chaotic bites like this is our first meal in years, Kayla and I with tears spilling down our cheeks.

Because in each bite—each magnificent, messy bite—I see everything: her courage, her goodness, her wild, hungry heart.

And I’m not sure I’ve ever loved anything more.