“Boned?” Brayden scowls as we discover Josie, Adeline, and Savannah hanging in the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” Josie shrieks and rushes toward her brother. Her strawberry blond hair sways and her face is lit up with joy. She’s wearing a long purple fringy dress with beading that makes clicking sounds with every step she takes and as she throws her arms around her brother’s neck.
Sighing, Brayden pats her back. It’s as close as he gets to excitement. “JJ conned me into a night in.”
“Oh, I always knew you’d find your way to the other side,” she teases. “I can’t believe Tabs turned you off women completely, though,” she says to me. “Then again, if there was ever a woman who’d send a man running for dick?—”
“Oh my god.” Adeline huffs. “Could you at least try to go five freaking seconds without talking about sex?”
Savannah sidles up next to Josie and pulls her in for a hug. “No, and that’s why we love her so very much.”
Savannah is a shit stirrer. I’ve only met her a few times, but the more time I spend with her, the more I like her. She’s good for Adeline. She’s outgoing and loud and not at all concerned about what others think.
Josie winks at her. “Right back at you, babe.”
Brayden pulls out a stool and scans the papers laid out on the counter. “What are you guys doing?”
Adeline scoops them up quickly, shuffling them together. “Nothing.”
A hint of unease seeps into my veins. “Why are you acting weird?”
“I’m not acting weird. You’re acting weird.”
I cough out a laugh. “Okay.” I study her again quickly, then the girls to her left who are both doing a terrible job hiding their smiles. “Bray and I were going to grab dinner. You want to come?”
Savannah and Josie shake their heads. “No can do.”
“Sure we can,” Adeline says.
“No, I need these answers by tonight so we can enter them,” Savannah says, snatching the papers from her. “And we still have”—she riffles through them, her long red hair falling forward—“ten pages to get through.”
Adeline groans. “Why do you need seven thousand questions to set me up on a date?”
My stomach bottoms out.A what, now?
Brayden’s the one who asks the question, though. “A date?”
Josie’s eyes flick my way, and then she grins at her big brother. “Yup, Adeline is the next girl for our New Romantics campaign.”
“The what?” I frown at Adeline, who refuses to meet my eye.
“It’s the column I write forJolie,” Savannah tells me.
“You know, the magazine your mother runs,” Bray deadpans.
I glare at him. “I’m aware. I just?—”
How do I diplomatically explain that I don’t read my mother’s magazine because while I am extremely proud of her, she’s alwayspopping in with editor’s columns, and I’ve learned far too much about my parents’ sex life that way.
I fight a shudder and focus instead on the questionnaire Adeline is holding. “So what’s the role?”
“The point of the column,” Josie explains, “is to follow our leading lady,Adeline, on dates until she meetsthe one. Then Savannah will tell the love story all the way through a happily ever after.”
Lungs seizing up, I blink at Adeline. “And you signed up for this?”
For maybe the first time since I walked into the kitchen, her dark eyes land on mine. “Yeah, I’m not getting any younger.” It’s a quiet admission, but a pointed one. Like she wants me to accept this without question. Like she’s telling me it’s none of my business.
I might have an aneurysm.
