Page 2 of Finding Jack
Ranée pushed a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes while she studied the display. “The beautiful thing about a30 Rockmarathon is that it’s there whenever we need it.”
“Right, but the ice cream won’t be, so hurry up before it melts.”
Suddenly she snorted and reached for a paperback on the checkout rack. “Those shoes are wasted on Paul. They’re going to make him nervous. You need this guy. He’d totally appreciate red stilettos.”
I snatched the romance novel she was brandishing at me. It showed a long-haired man in a kilt who seemed to have lost all of his shirt buttons, but the woman in a flowy dress clasped to his chest didn’t seem to mind. “Is this Fabio? Why are you obsessed with me suddenly dating Fabio?”
“Because Fabio can handle your shoe choices. Paul can’t. And that’s not Fabio. Fabio is blond.”
“Why do you even know that?”
“Why do you even know who Fabio is?”
“I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that everyone knows. Like Kenny G. No one’s ever heard his music but everyone has still heard of Kenny G.”
She pointed to the ceiling. “Hear that music? That’s probably Kenny G. Now you know. And I’m just saying, your soul wears stilettos and it needs more than a Paul. I bet Paul loves Kenny G.”
“I don’t know what is with you and long-haired flannel guys today but no. And right now, I don’t even want to think about guys at all. I want ice cream, chips, and 30 Rock.”
“Fine,” she said, returning the book to its shelf. “But this is just proof that I know you better than you know yourself.”
“Then you know how much I want to binge sugar and TV right now. Let’s get out of here.”
“All right,” she said, but she ran her finger over the chisel-jawed face of the long-haired half-dressed Scottish hero. “But I’m right about this.”
If only I would’ve remembered how far Ranée would go to make a point.
If. Flipping. Only.
Chapter 2
I was on mile three on the gym treadmill and chapter seven of a new Sarah Eden audiobook when my phone started blowing up. Instead of hearing the dulcet tones of Sir Toby, I got:
“But darling, you’ve never—”
Buzz
“in as long as I’ve”
Buzz
“how dare you”
Buzz Buzz Buzz
“cannot countenance such”
Buzz Buzz
I growled and snatched my iPhone from my armband and quieted Lord Toby to check the alerts. It had better be a forty-car pileup with every person I’d ever known involved if it was going to interrupt my audiobook and work out.
Oh, it was a wreck all right. Seven Facebook notifications and two more going off as I looked, all saying stuff like, “Hot, girl!” or “When did you and Paul break up?”
And then a text from Paul.What’s going on?
I stopped the treadmill and hopped off so the impatient bro-dude waiting for a free one could have it while I investigated the situation. Two screen taps later and I was staring at a picture of me with a guy I’d never seen before in my life. A guy with his arm around me. It was posted under my name and “I” had apparently captioned it, “New beginnings.”
Only I remembered that picture. It used to show me and my cousin in a selfie from his sister’s wedding. His body had been photoshopped to look more athletic, and the face? This face was a seriously hot guy with high cheekbones, a mysterious half-smile, big dark eyes, and a slight five o’clock shadow. I would normally drink that in like a midwinter hot cocoa, but the whole effect was ruined by his fall of long brown hair.
