Page 24 of Single Mom's Guide to Love

She pretends to think about it before her smirk gives her away. “Fine. Maybe sometimes Ihappento walk by in just one of his T-shirts. And I might accidentally drop my phone. And sometimes it slides under the table so I have to crawl under. And?—”

“That’s enough!” I yell, holding up my hands in surrender. I might love that my sister is finally in a loving and healthy—and apparently very active—relationship, but I don’t always need to hear the details. Especially with my six-year-old in listening range.

“Sorry,” Stella singsongs, though judging by the smirk on her face, she really isn’t. “So, how was your trip?”

I feel my cheeks flush the second she brings it up. Shit. My face needs to quit giving me away. I feel like I’ve blushed more in the past forty-eight hours than in my entire life.

“Fine,” I choke out, striving for casual but sounding like I’m strangling.

Judging by Stella’s arched eyebrow and head tilt, she doesn’t believe me. “Fine? Really? That’s it?”

“Yup.”

I move to start putting things away in kitchen cabinets that don’t need to be put away, all in the name of turning my back to my youngest sister so she can’t see my traitorous face.

“Nothing happened? At all? Your cheeks are just getting red because you’re warm in here?”

Why is she pressing so hard?

“Nope,” I say, feeling more confident to turn back to Stella. “Nothing exciting. Speaking, decorating, black leather sectionals. Same ol’, same ol’.”

Stella’s face grows a little sad. “That’s really it?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I reply as I pour myself a glass of water. “Were you expecting more?”

I do feel bad lying to my sister, but I’m barely able to admit to myself what I did, let alone voice it out loud. Also, telling one sister means I’m telling the other two, and I’m not ready for that conversation. Maybe ever.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I mean, you were gone for ten days. Well, eleven with the delay. I was maybe hoping there’d be some report of a drink with a guy at a bar. Or maybe an impromptu dinner with a fellow designer at a five-star restaurant that just happened to be on a patio looking out over the ocean.”

“It’s November,” I deadpan. “And I went to Atlanta. There is no ocean.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, my dear sister, I don’t.”

She looks into the living room, I’m assuming to make sure Jayce isn’t coming in. “Maeve, I know I’m not the sister to give advice, or to tell you how to live your life.”

“No, because I’m that sister.”

And that’s not tooting my horn, that’s the truth. Out of the four Banks sisters, we all have our roles in the family. I equate them to the duties we’d have if we ever needed to dispose of a body.

Stella is the one who will dig the hole and ask questions later.

Quinn is likely the reason the body needs buried in the first place.

Ainsley is the eternal optimist who, while driving to bury said body, is spouting off all the reasons why this is a good thing and we aren’t bad people.

And me? I plan the disposal and call the lawyer and make sure we have alibis set up. Oh, I also called our brother Simon to make sure he paid off whoever needs to be bribed.

That’s how it goes. So Stella here, trying to give me advice, is really throwing my world off its axis.

“I know you are. And you always will be. I’m just saying that maybe it’s time you start living a little. Using your work trips to have some no-strings-attached fun? Might not be the worst idea…”

She had to say it like that, didn’t she? Just that slight mention of no-strings fun immediately transports me back to the penthouse suite where I had exactly that. Where I forgot my responsibilities. Where I was selfish for one night.

“There!”

Goddamn it, is there some medication that will stop my chronic blushing?

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