Southern Attraction (Southern Heart 3)

I shrug. “I’m not sure. Neither one of us brings it up really. Which is crazy because we talk about everything but that. Well, mostly. He did tell me he wants me here.” I smile as I think back to that conversation.

“What are you thinking about right now?” Whit asks.

“Just something he said.”

“Dish.” Liv grins over the rim of her glass. “That look says it’s good.”

I bite down on my lip and worry if I should tell them.

“What we say during girl time stays between us. Don’t think they don’t talk about us when it’s just them,” Kinley assures me. “I think they’re worse than us,” she says, causing us all to laugh.

“Is it bad that I can recite what he said word for word?” I ask them.

“Hell no, that just means it was the right thing for him to say. All the feels?” Whit asks.

I nod. “I want you here. For two weeks, two years, two decades, the rest of our lives. Whatever I can get, I want it with you.” I repeat his words with my eyes closed, remembering that morning with him. I realize the girls are quiet and slowly I open my eyes. They’re all smiling, and Liv is wiping under her eye.

“He loves you,” she whispers.

“No, we’re just… growing close, is all.”

“Bullshit,” Whit says sternly. “Admit it.”

I sit there, hands in my lap, wringing them together. I think about how just seeing a text from him brightens my day, how I crave the sound of his voice and his arms wrapped around me. He’s more to me than any man before him.

“I love him,” I confess quietly.

“He loves you too,” they all three say at

the same time.

It’s freaky the way they do that. I bury my face in my hands and feel the hot tears behind my eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Just do what you’ve been doing. Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to,” McKinley assures me.

“How can you be so sure?” I ask her.

“Evan and I didn’t have it easy. Some miscommunication had us both thinking that the other wanted different things, which could not have been further from the truth. I wanted him and he wanted me. We were just too stubborn to see it. If I can give you any advice, it’s to be open and honest with how you feel, with what you want. Everything else will fall into place.”

“Look at me and Aaron. I left trying to keep from hurting him and actually hurt him in the process. If I would’ve just been honest with him, it would’ve saved us all a lot of grief.” Whit looks away, but not before I see her eyes glistening.

“So you’re saying I should tell him that I’m in love with him?”

“If that’s how you feel, deep in your soul, then tell him,” Olivia says. “If it’s not, please don’t. I know he loves you and losing you is going to kill him. Don’t give him false hope.”

“I’m not, at least I’m not meaning to. But one of us is going to have to sacrifice something, and I don’t know how to do that. I don’t want to be selfish and ask him to give up the family business and come to Chicago with me, but then again I want that. I want him with me.”

“Take it one day at a time. It will all work out,” Kinley assures me.

“It’s going to be so damn hard to leave him after the wedding.”

My three friends look at me with sympathetic smiles. Things are so damn confusing. How will we know what’s right? I don’t want either of us to have any regrets.

“Enough of the heavy, let’s talk about the honeymoon.” Liv waggles her eyebrows at Whitney. “Are you all set? Got all your sexy lingerie packed?”

I watch as Whit blushes. “Maybe,” she giggles.

The rest of the night, we talk and laugh about anything and everything. It’s not until I hear keys in the door that I realize how late it is. Mike comes into view and grins when he sees us.