Page 23 of Some Like It Hott

“This is me,” Natalie says, pointing to a Honda Fit that hasseen better days. “And hey, we’re at least one-fifth of the way to me not getting fired.”

“And me not landing my sister in the hospital again.”

Natalie’s curious gaze swings to my face. “Is that what happened last time?”

“When Quinn’s letter got read for the will, yeah. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. She had preeclampsia. But the stress didn’t do her any favors.”

“That must have been scary.”

I think about it again, the long wait in the hospital room, not knowing if Hanna or Eloise would be okay.

Natalie’s watching me, interested and curious, and I almost tell her how much it fucking sucked, being afraid you weren’t going to get a chance to fix things with your sister.

Instead, I say, gruffly, “You have my jacket.”

She looks down at herself, like she’d forgotten it was there.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” She tugs it off and returns it to me.

When I get in the car, I throw it next to me on the passenger seat. But even at that distance, I can smell her cinnamon-apple scent the whole drive home.

11

Natalie

The next night, I walk up the front path to my parents’ house, bottle of wine in hand.

I’m still trying to sort out Preston’s contradictions, to reconcile the asshole who tried to get me fired with the guy who clearly loves his sister enough to do anything for her. The guy who offered his suit jacket to me even though I hadn’t let myself shiver with the guy who’d do pretty much anything to end a conversation with me.

The guy who looks like he could cow a roomful of C-suite executives into submission with the guy who blushes when you hand him a Fleshlight.

Though I’ve been trying hardnotto think about Preston and that Fleshlight.

I ring the doorbell, and my mom answers—tall, slim, salt-and-pepper haired, beautiful in middle age, if a bit severe. “Natalie,” she says. “Where’s Lloyd?”

Right. On my own, I’m a disappointment. Story of my life.

“Hi, Mom. He?—”

I almost say it.He cheated on me, and I dumped his ass. Or, you know, the mom-friendly version of that. But I can’t quite bring myself to do it. My momlovesLloyd. In her book, he’s the best thing I’ve ever done—and when she found out he’d helped me make a plan to go back to school… Well. He could do no wrong, ever again.

“He’s busy tonight.”

“Oh,” she says. “That’s a shame. I love that boy. You know how much I love that boy.”

“I do.” I manage to swallow my sigh.

“Come in, come in,” she says and ushers me into the dining room, where my sister and dad are already sitting at the table. I’m inside my on-time window, but like Mr. Fun, my parents are prompt, and if they told me dinner was at seven, they meant it.

That might be why I don’t appreciate Preston’s perspective on time management. It reminds me of how I grew up.

My parents’ house is big, as befits a chief of surgery and a state supreme court justice, and well appointed. The kind of house where you can host dinner parties with important people. The five of us—my parents, my older sister, Jenna, and her husband, Marcus—are spaced too widely around a broad, elegant dining room table set with my mother’s good china, dwarfed by the imposing dining room.

“Hi, Natalie,” Jenna says, getting up and giving me a big hug. My sister smells faintly of something chemical, which makes sense because she’s a big-shot biochemical engineer. She actually works with one of the Hott brothers, Quinn, at the lab he runs in Bend. I almost asked her to call in a favor with him when I applied for the Hott Springs Eternal job—but then decided not to. My sister has never made me feel as small as my parents do, but I don’t want to be indebted to her for anything, either. I want my successes, when they finally come, to be my own.

My dad rises and gives me a hug. “Hi, Nat,” he says.

I sit down and help myself to a spoonful of rice and some stew.

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