Isabella shrugs again, completely oblivious to the way my chest is fucking caving in. “Some guy she talks to online. She said she doesn’t even know his real name.”
My stomach turns.
“She said he goes by a nickname.”
My throat goes dry.
I can feel the table around me. The noise. The guys still talking. But everything’s muffled now. Like I’m hearing it from the bottom of a swimming pool.
“What’s the nickname?”
Isabella scrunches her nose, thinking. “I don’t know… something weird. I think she said it was… Six?”
The word slices clean through me.
My chest locks up, my breath catching somewhere high in my throat.
Did she just say?—
“Wait.” My voice sounds distant to my own ears. “What did you say?”
Isabella blinks, clearly confused by my reaction. “Six? That’s what she called him.”
And suddenly I’m not sitting in a booth surrounded by my teammates anymore.
I’m in my room, sitting in the dark with my phone lighting up my face. I’m reading her messages. Smiling every time she types back. I’m sitting on the bleachers, my heart pounding every time I see her name pop up, wondering who the hell this girl could be.
And it was Maisie.
Maisie is Cherry.
MyCherry.
I let out a laugh before I can stop it and set my drink down with a shaky clink. “Holy fuck.”
Ryan turns. “What?”
I barely register the sound of his voice.
Becauseof courseit’s her.
It was always her.
It couldn’t be anyone else.
Every message. Every late-night conversation. Every ridiculous nickname and unfiltered confession. Her sister. The Oreos. The cherry Chapstick.
My brain’s racing to catch up with my body, which already knows. I should’ve seen it. I should’ve fucking known.
I glance across the bar like I need proof. Like my brain needs to physically see her to believe it. And when I find her—still sitting at the booth with Aurora, fingers wrapped around a glass, laughing at something I can’t hear—my whole damn chest cracks wide open.
That’s her.
That’s the girl who’s been wrecking me for months. The one who made me laugh like a teenager and think about things I’d never said out loud. The one who always knew exactly what to say to make me feel less alone without even trying.
I really am an idiot.
She was right in front of me this whole time, and I had absolutely no idea.
