Page 90 of From Fling to Ring

“Fine. Fine. Whatever. Personally, I think you should give her more space. According to what I’m hearing from Petal.”

“What? What is she telling you?”

Holy shit. She’s talking about me?

Leave it to Rake not to share that little detail.

“Petal says she’s busy getting settled into her nanny job and fitting in her French classes around that.”

“Dude, did she say whether she’s met a new guy? Because if she’s already met a new guy, I need to know this.”

“Tyler, I don’t know if she’s meeting guys over there. Petal didn’t say anything about that.”

Knock, knock, knock.

“Thanks Rake. I gotta go. My sister’s here.”

Our call ends and I hustle for the door. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

She brushes past me and heads straight for the kitchen.

“Well, aren’t you going to tell me?” I ask.

She reaches into my freezer and pulls out a bag of cookies. “I’ve been dying for some of Mom’s shortbread.”

“That’s why you came over? Just for cookies?”

She bites into a frozen cookie, and it crunches loudly in her mouth. I don’t know what it is about my family, but we all love frozen cookies.

“No,” she says, shoveling another one in. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t come all the way across town just for a cookie. I might, however, come all the way across town for my brother.”

I start to relax a little. If there was something serious going on, like something happened to Dad, she wouldn’t be so cavalier. Nor would she be bingeing on Mom’s best cookie recipe.

Right?

“Want something to drink with that Rubes? I think I have milk that’s not expired yet.”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” she says with a full mouth.

I pour us both a glass of milk and join her in using it to chase down a couple shortbread cookies.

Damn, these babies are good.

I shouldn’t be eating them. I try to avoid sugar during the season. But what the hell, I’ve been under a lot of stress.

“Where the hell is Lucy?” Ruby demands.

“What. What? You sound like I’m keeping her prisoner here or something.”

She sighs with great exasperation. “I know she’s not here, you idiot. I heard from Dad who heard from Rake and Jonas who heard from God knows who that the woman left the country. Like, poof! she’s gone. What the fuck, Ty? What did you do to her?”

My face gets hot. “What do you mean, what did I do to her? Why would you assume I did anything to her?”

Like I’m a freaking mass murderer or something.

“We had a misunderstanding,” I say.

Does she need to know everything?

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