Page 33 of If This Was a Movie

I blink a few times, staring at her. “How did he find that out?”

“My man is good,” she says, a smile on her lips. “Also found out two years ago, his ex-girlfriend, who he had his daughter with, decided she didn’t want to deal with the whole being amom thing. Signed over full rights to Nate, ran off to bumfuck Montana where she’s a bartender.”

Huh. Well, that’s good to know, I suppose.

“Wait, wait, wait. Can we reverse things? Who are we talking about, and why does Ava know this and I don’t?” Harper whines.

“Technically, I don’t know anything except for the fact that Jules called me last night to talk to Jaime.”

“To talk to Jaime?”

“She needed him to run a background check, make sure the guy she’s moving in with isn’t a serial killer. You know, normal things.”

“Moving in with?”

“Oh, yeah, according to Jaime?—”

“God, that man gossips like an old lady,” I mumble under my breath.

“To be fair, I can be very convincing if I want,” Ava says with a wicked smile before continuing. “Anyway, as I was trying to say before I was rudely interrupted, according to Jaime, there was a water main break at her building, and the fire department closed it down. Word on the street was that they called the whole department there, though this guy is a contractor, so I’m not totally sure?—”

“Can I tell my own story?”

“Oh. I mean, yeah, I guess,” Ava says.

I roll my eyes before stepping in.

“My apartment flooded, and it leaked into the studio, so all of the police and firefighters showed up, shut down the entire road, and turned off the water main. I was standing outside in the winter recital costume because I was subbing in for Gina because she was sick, waiting for them to let me know when I could go in and get a few things. “

“You were standing outside in the middle of November in your leotard and tutu?” Ava asks.

“Pretty much,” I say with a laugh. “I had a sweatshirt, too, but it was also pink, so it matched.”

“What shoes were you wearing?” Harper asks like that’s a pressing statement.

“What?”

“Were you in your dance shoes or?—?”

“Uggs. I hadn’t changed into my pointe shoes yet, thank God.”

“Huh,” Harper says, probably picturing the complete fashion faux pas in her mind.

“And then you’re standing there and…?”

“A little girl comes running up to me. She grabs my hand and tells me I need to meet her dad because I’m her Christmas wish.” Eyes go wide, and I think they’re starting to put the pieces of my chaotic night together. “Yeah. Then I see a man walking up, clearly worried his daughter is gone, only to realize it’s Nate.”

“The guy with a whole-ass family you thought was the love of your life after a one-night stand?” Harper, who’s always to the point, asks. I glare at her. “Sorry! I’m just getting my facts straight.”

“It turns out the woman I saw him with that day was one of his sisters.”

“His sister? Oh, babe, that’s the oldest—” Ava starts, her face falling like she knows she’s about to break my heart all over. Though my heart is much more guarded than it was the last time I met Nate, she doesn’t have to worry this time around.

“She introduced herself to me as his sister,” I say, knowing exactly what she’s going to say. Before Jaime, Ava had just as much luck with men as I have had. “And Claire, you remember her, right? My assistant, we’ve gotten drinks with her before?”

Nods before Ava says, “Gorgeous blonde, and a great sense of humor?”

“Yeah, she’s his other sister. He has three.”

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