Page 48 of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Catching Feelings #1)

I cross my legs and bounce one foot, pretending not to care. Pretending my stomach isn’t roiling. Ignoring how the blood pumping from my heart feels both too fast and too sluggish, like it’s somehow supercharged and diseased.

I’m going to be sick.

I’m about to hop up and run for a bathroom to splash cold water on my face when I see a boy I recognize, maybe six or seven, wearing a Mudflaps tee that’s two sizes too big.

It came from a T-shirt cannon on kids’ night.

All of the swag we gave away that night was in kids’ sizes, unlike at most baseball games, where they’re Adult Unisex XXL.

I was walking around the concessions when I heard him talking to his mom about how the bigger kids kept snagging shirts before he could.

I walked over to him and his mom, bent down, and introduced myself.

“Hey, I’m Kayla. What’s your name?”

“Paul,” he said, shaking my hand.

“I’m sorry you didn’t catch a shirt. You know, I’ve never won anything, either.”

“Don’t you own the team?” his mom asked, her eyebrows sky high.

“I do,” I said. “But I have the worst luck. I always lose at cards, I spill on myself all the time, and I’ve never won anything from a claw machine. It almost makes me think the universe is against me!”

“No,” Paul said, patting my arm, “It’s okay. Winning doesn’t make you special. It just makes you lucky!”

I laughed. “You have a great attitude, Paul. I bet your momma has taught you some good life lessons.”

He shrugged.

Part of me debated taking them to the fan store to get him something, but as I said goodbye to him and his mom, another idea struck me.

I watched them as they returned to their seats, found the mascot, and made sure he fired a T-shirt directly toward Paul.

The look on his face when he caught it made my heart squeeze.

And now, Paul spots me, his eyes light up, and my heart squeezes again as he gives me an excited wave.

“I won the shirt!” he says.

I grin at him, but before I can say anything, his mother gives him a nudge and moves him along. She mutters something I can’t hear, and his shoulders slump.

It hurts worse than any scowl.

I shift in my seat, trying to clear the lump lodged in my throat. Trying not to cry.

She has no idea I made sure he got that T-shirt. She probably thinks I’m a stingy jerk for not having bought him a whole wardrobe that day.

I close my eyes for a second, wishing these people would just see me already.

“Thought you might need this,” a voice says. My eyes pop open, and I see Delia and Red. Delia hands me a cup from …

Fruitful Union.

Tears burn my eyes. “What’s this?”

“It’s for you,” Red says.

The warmth in the back of my eyes spills down my cheeks. “Thank you!” I say, gushing too much, but I can’t stop. “How did you know?”

“Sean called,” Red says.

“He told us to get ‘Green Goals,’” Delia says.

Red elbows her. “Say the next part.”

“‘For his goddess.’” She rolls her eyes hard.

I laugh and take a sip. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I needed this.”

“I know we don’t have much say in any of this, but you got our support,” Red says. He pats my shoulder.

“Don’t give up on yourself,” Delia says. “If they don’t like what they see, that’s their problem.”

I could contradict her. I could point out that them not liking me is very much my problem, considering it affects my entire future. But I nod, instead, because throwing kindness back in people’s faces isn’t my style. And because if I’ve changed Delia’s mind, maybe that’s enough.

“We’ll see you in there,” Red says, and the two walk toward the auditorium.

A voice calls out to someone behind me, and I turn to see the mayor—Tucker’s grandfather—walking into the auditorium, flanked by a couple of council members I don’t know well. A woman in teal with the mayor tips her head toward me but doesn’t stop.

The mayor doesn’t look my way.

Trailing behind him, though, are Serena and Tucker. And Serena can’t help herself.

She looks like an angel in white. While I’m the dummy who decided to wear red. Like the devil she’s trying to paint me as.

When she gives me a little smirk, I pretend not to notice.

I pull up my text thread with Meryl.

KAYLA

I’m about to go into the lions’ den. Except they’re angry baseball fans, not actual lions. Got any gold leaf armor?

I stare at the unsent message. Frown at it.

Then I put my phone on my lap.

I take a long sip of my Green Goals, forcing my throat to open, to release the lumps and pain and self-consciousness that have been stuck there for days. Months, really.

It would be so easy to text Meryl. To find comfort in that easy friendship. Meryl was a gift—a blessing—to me for so long.

But I worry our friendship has become an anchor.

One I need to cut, at least for now.

She’s not my only real friend anymore, and if I keep turning to her for comfort instead of accepting the friendships that are forming in front of my eyes, I’ll always have one foot out with this town.

I take another drink of my smoothie. A smoothie that was bought for me by Delia, of all people, at the request of my husband.

Sean.

A man who knows me well enough to know that I’ve been having a hard time eating with him not around. To sense I was both sick to my stomach and starving.

A man who’s thinking about me, taking time out of his schedule, when he’s busy with the biggest week of his career. He’s in the middle of a make-or-break evaluation that will decide if he ever plays professional hockey again, and he’s thinking about me.

How did I get so lucky?

And why am I worried about what anyone else could think about me when I’ve somehow managed to marry a man who’s intuitive and thoughtful and has spent a lifetime noticing and serving other people?

A man whose shoulders only seem to get stronger the more he bears my burdens?

Whose heart only seems to grow the more of it he gives away?

Sean thinks about, notices, serves me, chooses me every day. He’s helped me find a community of people who love me.

And I’m worried about fitting in with people who … don’t?

I’ve been so busy trying to prove I belong that I forgot who I belong with.

“Mrs. Carville? The mayor’s ready.”

I look down at my phone …

And delete the message to Meryl.

Not forever, but for now.

Then I stand up and adjust my pantsuit.

The mayor’s ready, is he?

So am I.