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“Definitely. Let me call my sisters so they don’t wonder where I’ve disappeared to. Then you can have me until the morning.” I am fully prepared to have very little in the way of sleep tonight, and I’m okay with that.
Jackson reluctantly allows me to leave his lap and retrieve my phone. I grab his dress shirt from the floor and shrug into it, reveling in being surrounded by the scent of his cologne.
When I finally do find my phone, it’s blowing up with messages from my sisters that span the last few hours. “Oh no.” I slap a palm over my mouth.
“Is everything okay?”
“I missed a meeting with one of our clients and Harley had to fill in for me.” I scroll through the messages, Harley’s increasingly frantic requests to call, and her fear that she’s going to mess up the meeting because she doesn’t know enough about the account other than they’re really important. “I need to go run interference. Avery had an emergency this morning, and I said I’d manage the meeting, but Selene showed up, and then … well, you know the rest of the story.” I run a hand through my hair and blow out a breath. This isn’t great. And there’s no way I’ll be able to enjoy my evening with Jackson if my sisters are angry with me, or if I’ve messed up with one of our clients.
“Can I do anything to help? Do you want me to drive you back?”
I shake my head and pick up my discarded clothes from the floor. They’re wrinkly, but I need to get back to Spark House as soon as possible and smooth things over. “Can I call you a bit later? I’m hoping I’ll still be able to make the sleepover work, but I need to deal with this.”
“Just let me know.”
Once I’m dressed and Jackson is back in his clothes—although he traded the dress shirt for a T-shirt—he walks me out to my car.
I let my sisters know I’m on my way back and that I will explain, and that I’m sorry, but based on Avery’s frosty messages, I’m far from forgiven. Most of the time I don’t like conflict, and I realize I’ve been seriously mopey lately, but Avery’s wedding planning stress has been going on for months, and Harley and I have been picking up the slack, no questions asked. I miss one meeting, and it’s the end of the world. Granted, it was an important meeting. But still, her personal life doesn’t matter more than mine.
By the time I arrive at Spark House, I’m ready for the fight I’m sure I’m about to get. I love Avery, but she has to see that the way things are running has to change.
The second I walk through the door Avery is in my face. “What the heck happened to you? Do you have any idea how much sucking up we’re going to have to do to smooth things over with the Williamsons? You were nowhere to be found when they got here! And you weren’t answering your phone for hours!”
I cross my arms. “Do you want me to explain, or do you just want to continue to attack me?”
“You left Harley to manage a meeting that I specifically asked you to cover! If you had something else, you should have told me. What in the world could have been so important that you flaked on us!” Avery motions between her and Harley.
Harley looks like she wants to say something, but she’s too afraid to.
“Selene showed up.”
Avery’s brow furrows. “What?”
“Selene, Jackson’s ex, showed up here wanting to talk to me.”
“About her relationship with Jackson?”
“Yes, and about how she had misplaced expectations, and it wasn’t fair to Jackson because he was miserable without me, and she didn’t want to be the reason things didn’t work out between him and me.”
“Wow,” Harley says softly. “That takes a lot of lady balls.”
“It absolutely did,” I agree. “After that, I called Jackson asking if we could talk and he said yes. I forgot about the meeting and I’m very sorry for that, Avery. And even more sorry that it ended up falling on you,” I tell Harley and take a deep breath. “But this is bigger than me missing one meeting.”
“I get that you’ve been upset about Jackson. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, but it sure hasn’t been easy for us either.”
Harley, who usually isn’t hugely outspoken, makes a face. “I don’t really think it’s fair to put this all on London. I remember when you were going through your breakup with Declan that you weren’t the easiest to be around either.” Avery opens her mouth to say something, but Harley raises her hand. “It was your meeting and you dumped it on London last minute when she’s already been under a lot of pressure.”
