Page 27 of The Kiss Keeper
“You should stop. That could be why all those Jakes treat you like a doormat,” he replied.
She gasped. “A doormat! How dare you! You don’t know the first thing about me.”
His features hardened. “I know your cheating boyfriend dumped you via text and that you’re unemployed.”
Dammit! He did know everything. Still, it didn’t give him the right to judge her.
She took a step forward, grabbed his tie, and pulled him down to meet her eye to eye. Their breaths met in the millimeters between them, and a shiver ran down her spine. A delicious tingling that made her want to close her eyes and pull him in that fraction closer where their lips could meet.
She steadied herself. “There’s a lot more to me than that. I’m—”
“Natalie, is that you?”
Like nails on a chalkboard, Leslie’s voice rang out.
“Shit,” she whispered, holding Jake’s gaze.
“This must be the Jake of the hour,” her cousin added.
“Which one? There are like twenty of them.” Lara giggled, still piggybacking off her sister like they were kids.
Natalie swallowed hard. She couldn’t go back to Camp Woolwich, a complete failure with no job and no boyfriend. For once, she wanted her family to at least think that she had it together.
“You have to help me, Jake,” she whispered.
He frowned. “Help you how?”
She flicked her gaze to her cousins, standing with their husbands. Unsurprisingly, both men’s eyes were locked on her feet.
“Be my last Jake for one week,” she whispered, hoping he could see the desperation written all over her face.
“Your last Jake?” he threw back, eyebrows nearly hitting his hairline.
“Now, don’t be so selfish and keep him all to yourself, Nat. Introduce us.”
She took a step back and glanced at the women. With matching bob haircuts and sensible shoes, it had been a few years since she’d seen them in person. But when it came to her least favorite family members, absence didn’t make the heart grow fonder.
“Jake, these are my cousins, Leslie and Lar—”
Leslie cleared her throat. “Natalie, you’re forgetting something,” Les said with a condescending smirk.
Natalie plastered on a grin. It would take everything she had to make it through this week.
“Jake, these are my cousins, Dr. Leslie Dixtown, Dr. Lara Dixtown, and their husbands, Dr. Leo Dixtown and Dr. Marcus Dixtown.”
“Dicks town?” Jake repeated slowly.
“Dix-ton,” Les corrected, repeating the two syllables at light-speed. “It’s meant to be spoken quickly.”
“D-I-X-T-O-N?” Jake spelled out.
“D-I-X-T-O-W-N.TheWis silent,” Les threw back.
Dammit! She’d forgotten the silentW.
“Or you can shorten it to Doctor Dix. That’s what our patients call us,” Lara’s idiot husband chirped.
“I bet they do,” Jake murmured under his breath.
