Page 33 of Coastal Rewind

She nodded and flicked her bright red hair off one shoulder. “Three kids puked on me today. Three.”

I immediately handed her my drink. Her face glowed with a grateful expression before she took a sip and handed it back to me. Rori was in her last year of general medicine residency at LA Children’s. She was currently working on the GI service and the girl had the drive of a fucking Clydesdale horse. She started telling us about her shift, and after her fourth story regarding the bodily fluids she witnessed come out of children, I’d felt a little nauseous. She worked long days, which I already knew, but it was different to actually see the toll it took on her.

“So, did I miss the update on the hot baseball player?” She looked at Maggie and Maeve and, notably, not in my direction.

“Is everyone brutally aware of Mason’s looks?” I asked the three of them.

“Yes,” they all said in unison.

“Why is everyone so invested?” I sat back, not interested in having this talk with my siblings. I didn’t do girl talk—at least not until now, apparently. When you lived alone, your business was your business. If I hooked up, no one knew about it, and I liked it that way.

Even in high school, I had a boyfriend, but it was short lived and my sisters were young enough that we didn’t talk about him. We never stayed up all night and gossip or swap stories. That was the relationship that Keegan and Maeve had, but I was gone before they were old enough to be into that stuff.

“Don’t take it personally. We’ve all gone through it,” Rori said as the waitress brought her drink to the table.

“When Maeve was dating Colin, she made me fly to California so she could freak out about it.” Maggie poked Maeve’s cheek.

She scoffed and flicked Maggie’s hand away. “Oh, you wanna play that game Miss We’re Just ‘Casual’?” She used air quotes around the word casual.

Maggie smiled and sat back in her chair. “Yeah, well, we had to practically convince Rori to give Aiden a chance.”

Rori hmphed. “You guys were relentless. Lottie literally placed a bet on how long it would take for us to hook up.”

“I won that bet.” Maeve smirked. “Too bad Lottie has an event to work tonight or I’m sure she’d place another on Ryleigh’s current situation.”

“Remind me to text her about it later.” Rori giggled, taking out her phone.

I swiped it from her hand and placed it face down on the table.

“See? We’ve all been the subject of this torture. It’s your turn, babe,” Maggie said as if she was just stating a fact.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

What did they want me say? Nothing had happened between Mason and I…well, except for our exchange before I went out tonight but I would take that interaction to my fucking grave. Even as the words left my mouth I didn’t recognize them as coming from me. I had to look him in the eyes tomorrow and act like I wasn’t mere seconds from jumping his bones.

“So, nothing has happened, but do you want it to?” Rori asked.

“No.” I laughed. “I’m there to watch MJ. That’s it. Mason and I are a horrible idea.” And we were. That was the truth. Mason had a life here and I didn’t. He would want the happily ever after with a house filled with kids and a doting wife. That wasn’t in the cards for me, but my sisters didn’t know that.

They didn’t know why I traveled. They didn’t know I was broken.

They thought I was just hard to nail down, but really, I didn’t want to stay still. Staying still meant feelings and heartbreak and loss. It meant disappointing people.

“Why?” Maggie looked confused. “A little summer fling with your hot boss runs in the family.”

Maeve scoffed while Maggie beamed.

“Are you going to sit here and tell us you and Mason don’t have chemistry? We’ve all seen it. We saw it in Lake Powell. We saw it at Maggie’s wedding and we saw it at Dad’s last weekend.” Maeve eyed me over her glass.

My mind drifted back to Maggie and Nolan’s wedding. After a few too many martinis and the intoxicating love in the air, I had watched Mason like a stalker. I was in a trance as he laughed with the other Sparrows players in attendance. When he asked me to dance, I agreed. Then I ran away like the scared little bitch I was.

I rolled my eyes, accepting that I was going to have to give in a little for them to drop the subject.

“Okay, the man is hot. I’m not blind, but even if I wanted to—emphasis on if—what if we had sex and it ended badly? That would affect MJ and I’d still be stuck in his house until September.”

“Who says it would end badly? Maybe you’ll fall madly in love.” Rori wiggled her brows at me.

“I don’t do love.” I snorted and waved her off. “I’m leaving in September and Mason’s life is here. Even if it did work now, it wouldn’t work in the long term.”