AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hang up the phone and start walking back in the direction I came from. When I get to Murphy’s, sure enough, there’s a cosmo waiting for me at our table.
Juliette stands to greet me with a hug as I approach the table. To avoid rubbing my sweat on her, I lean into her for one of those awkward butt-out hugs.
“Sorry. I don’t think you want my sweat on you,” I say, sliding into my seat.
Juliette swats the air at my comment. “Please. I already have Harper’s tears on me. What’s a little bit of sweat going to hurt?”
“WhereisHarper?” I ask, noting her lack of presence at the table.
Juliette rolls her eyes. “In the bathroom fixing her makeup.”
“What happened this time?”
“Some guy she met off Bumble. I keep telling her Plenty of Fish is where the real ones are at.”
“So, another bad date?”
Juliette shakes her head. “Anotherstood update.”
The problem with our friend Harper is her lack of social cues when it comes to dating. Harper Sinclaire Maxwell, voted Most Beautiful for our senior superlative, has never had a clue on how to date successfully. She’s too naive and too…much. Always smothering the guys right away, talking marriage and babies and white picket fences. She makes herself too vulnerable, believing the cut and paste lies they tell every woman to get her into bed. I know part of her problem is she’s too trusting but she needs to guard her heart and stop trusting every penis that tells her she’s amazing. We’ve tried to tell her this gently before, but it didn’t work. It just resulted in tears like it always does.
But out of the four of us—Juliette, me, Harper, and Aspen—she has the purest heart.
“So, how’s your love life going? It’s been a while since we’ve talked about it,” I ask her.
Juliette shrugs her shoulders. “Same old, same old. Josh is great. Can’t complain. Anything new with you?”
I give her theI had a shit day and it’s because of a boylook.
Juliette’s mouth drops. “Spill.”
I take a long sip of my cosmo, savoring the slight burn as it travels down my throat. My, oh, my, I can’t wait to see how she takes this news.
“You remember that night I went out with that guy Jimmy?”
Juliette narrows her eyes as she tries to recollect. Seconds later, she loudly gasps and her eyes widen. “Harper’sbrother?”
“Yes. That one.” My voice is flat.
“Oh my God, is he hot?” She smiles.
“Yeah, well, I’m stuck with him now.”
“You’re what?”
“It’s a long story. Basically, he’s my protection now.”
“I’m so fucking confused,” she says. “You need to spell this out for me.”
I feel hunger and annoyance beginning to build in me. I briefly wish I would have just gone home after the gym and fueled up on lo mein and egg rolls instead of rehashing today’s unfortunate events.
I take a deep breath and reposition in my seat as I start to explain my situation, double-checking Harper isn’t returning to the table. “My dad has apparently gotten himself in deep shit and, for some reason, thinks that I need a bodyguard atall hours of the day. So, who’s the lucky man? Jimmy fucking Maxwell.”
I chug the rest of my cosmo and set it down hard on the table. I glance around again. Where is Harper?
“Oh my God,” Juliette says in a low voice. “Does your dad know about you two? Does Harper?”
I shrug my shoulders. “No, and I don’t know. I don’t think so or she probably would have said something to me. After the way things ended between him and I the first time we met, I’m sure Harper would be blowing my phone up if she knew he was hired to babysit me. It’s all purely coincidental, which is the crazy part about it.”
