Page 106 of Runaway Bride's Guide to Love

I fill them in on the rest of the details of that night they didn’t know about, and how when I showed up in Florida he was there. How I tried to defend the house with a shoe. How we started spending time together. How that time started becoming more and more and before we knew it, we were inseparable.

“It was only supposed to be a vacation fling,” I say. “Two weeks. He didn’t do relationships, and God knows I wasn’t in a place for anything serious. And it was a great plan…”

“Until it wasn’t.”

I tap my nose to Maeve’s words.

“Oh! Stella!” Ainsley says, leaping over to hug me. “When you got back and you were on the curb crying, it was because of Emmett?”

I squeeze her back. “Yeah. We had just said goodbye. I didn’t expect it to make me as emotional as it did.”

“Well, of course it did. You loved him. And I’m not even mad that you’ve been lying to me about where you’ve been sleeping!”

She’s right. I did love him. I just didn’t know it.

“Back up,” Quinn says. “You two had a vacation sex pact, which, good for you. And for your sake, I hope the orgasms were plentiful and frequent.”

“They were,” I say, smiling down at the FaceTime.

“Great to hear. But, I need to know how we went from ‘only in Florida’ to ‘now you’re together.’ Because I feel like I missed about ten steps along the way.”

I go back and pick up from that first day we worked together. The hot and the cold. The few days he ghosted.

“And then he showed up at Duncan’s the day I was moving out, “ I say. “He said that he thought about us, and him, and his life, and he wanted to try this if I was willing to give it a shot.Then he almost killed Duncan for trying to touch me. The rest is history.”

“So fucking hot,” Quinn says.

Maeve turns the iPad. “Which part?”

“All of it,” Quinn says. “The available men I meet would never come to conclusions like that. Or put their heart out there. Or get all protective and alpha. Maybe I need to move back to Rolling Hills. Does he have a brother, Stel? Maybe a cousin in the twenty-nine to forty-two range?”

I laugh. “No. Just a sister.”

“Of course,” Quinn grumbles.

Ainsley doesn’t say anything, but gives me a side hug. Quinn is rambling on about her lack of man options out in Arizona. Which gives me a second to lock in with Maeve.

“Do you have anything to say?”

I know she does, and I want to hear it. More than my other two sisters. She’s Mama Maeve for a reason. She gives the best advice. She has the levelest of heads. She’s our logical thinker. And I don’t think I’d stop seeing Emmett if she didn’t support me, but I’d definitely listen to her point if she did.

“Do you remember what we talked about in Florida?”

I think back to the phone call I know she’s referring to. “You told me it was a rebound.”

“I did. And now that I know Emmett was your Florida Man, I have to ask again, is this a rebound?”

I take a second to think about my answer. On the surface, it looks like that. I was with a guy for three-and-a-half years who I was supposed to marry. The day that was supposed to happen, I met Emmett. A week after that we were sleeping together. If that isn’t a rebound, I don’t know what is.

Yet, he’s not. And I’m not sure what I know in this life, but I know he’s not that.

“It’s not,” I say confidently. “Emmett…he’s steady. Stable. Thoughtful. So many things I thought I had with Duncan that I’m now seeing I had none of. He makes me feel…whole? Does thatmake sense? I know I’ve never rebounded before, so I have nothing to compare this to. But there’s something about this, Maeve—it feels like he’s the one I was supposed to meet. That I was supposed to go through the shit I did to get here.”

Maeve’s stoic demeanor gradually turns into a smile. “Then you should go for it.”

“Really?” Quinn says. “I figured you’d be the Debbie Downer and saying it’s too quick and it’s just a phase.”

“You’d think that,” she says. “I’ve been divorced for five years. When Josh and I split, the last thing on my mind was dating. Hell, it still is. The thought of trying to meet someone and do that all over again sounds absolutely horrible. Especially as I’m a package deal with Jayce.”

---