Page 85 of The One You Want

“Gray, tell her,” Marc pleaded. “I’m just messing with you.”

He squeezed Rose’s hand, but addressed Maggie. “He’s just trying to get under my skin for reasons that have nothing to do with Rose or you.” Gray held Marc’s gaze. “Stop before you say something you can’t take back. If Maggie and I can accept it happened and move on, then you should, too.”

“I did a long time ago. I met Maggie and fell in love with her. This whole thing is just weird.”

Maggie took a sip of her drink. “It wouldn’t have been if you’d told the truth months ago when you saw pictures of her in my apartment. Instead you lied and then you asked her to lie, too.”

Marc sighed. “Babe, come on. We went over all this yesterday. I’m the asshole. I know. I’m sorry. But now everyone knows everything and it’s no big deal.”

“Then stop acting like it is and butting into Gray’s relationship with Rose,” Maggie snapped.

Rose flinched.

Gray linked his fingers through hers and squeezed. “It’s okay, Maggie. Marc is right. This is an odd thing to have happen between all of us. Now that we’ve all acknowledged it, let’s just have a nice dinner and talk about something else.”

“It’s a beautiful night out,” Maggie said, talking about the same nothing again to get them all to change the subject.

“Did you know the first full moon of summer is called a strawberry moon?” Rose went along with the new topic.

Maggie leaned in and stared at her like she was fascinated. “You don’t say. That is interesting. And one of my favorite fruits.”

“I love them in daiquiris.” Rose smirked at Maggie.

“One of the better ways to consume them. Remember the time we got wasted on strawberry margaritas on spring break?”

“What year of college was that?” Gray asked.

“Sophomore year of high school,” Rose informed him. “The year my father let me finally stay out past seven o’clock.”

“Seriously,” Marc scoffed.

Gray bumped his shoulder to hers. “You rebel.”

“Not so much. I threw up all over—”

“Tony Rupert’s shoes,” she and Maggie said in unison, and burst into giggles.

Rose blushed. “He’d just asked me to homecoming.”

“Did he still take you?” Marc asked.

She shook her head. “My dad wouldn’t let me go.”

“Why?” Gray asked.

She and Maggie exchanged a look. “Because I was two minutes late getting home that night.”

“Man, your dad was really strict.” Marc dipped another piece of bread in the fondue.

“Yes, he was,” Maggie said softly, probably remembering, like Rose, that her dad had shoved Rose into a wall so hard it left a baseball-sized bruise on her shoulder.

Gray rubbed his hand up her back and under her hair and kept it there, a soft and steady pressure that grounded her. “So no more margaritas after that, I guess.”

“Oh, no,” Maggie said. “Margaritas are forever.”

Rose tilted her head toward Gray. “I just learned not to drink so many at a time.”

Gray laughed with her.