Page 341 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
If this is ever going to work, there’s one enormous hurdle I have to leap over first.
I have to get Audrey to agree.
Chapter Nine
Audrey
When I first hearmy sisters scream, my mind automatically jumps to the worst possible scenarios.
Something is on fire. A murderer has broken in to kill us. A tree has fallen on the house and crushed our living room.
It only takes five seconds for my brain to decide that, knowing my sisters, it’s something much less sinister. A giant spider. A wasp caught inside the kitchen. Or—I don’t know. A mouse, maybe? This is areallyold house.
But then my sister’s screams turn into squeals and move down the hallway toward my bedroom.
“Oh-my-gosh, oh-my-gosh, oh-my-gosh,” Summer says as she and Lucy appear in my doorway. Lucy has a hand pressed to her heart, and both wear matching expressions, their eyes wide.
I stay on my bed, where I’ve been reading for the past hour. They look happy, not worried, which means there probably isn’t a murderer chasing them, so I don’t see a reason for me to get out of my very comfortable cocoon. “What?” I motion between them. “What is this? What’s happening?”
“Um, Flint Hawthorne’s on the front porch.”
“What? No, he’s not.” I still don’t move, but my heart starts hammering in my chest.
“Yes,he is,” Lucy says. “We just watched through the living room window as he climbed out of a very shiny truck, and now he’s on the porch.”
A quick knock echoes through the house, and both my sisters gasp, then start to laugh. “We’re going to meet Flint Hawthorne,” one of them says.
I’m no longer paying attention because there is only one person in this house who Flint Hawthorne actually knows.
He has to be here to see me.
I scramble out of my bed and move toward the door, but Summer catches me by the arm, swinging me back into the room. “What are you doing?”
“I’m answering the door?”
“Wearing that?” Lucy says, her voice too high. “You’re braless, Audrey. It’s totally nipple city in here.”
I look down at my outfit—baggy sweatpants and a black tank top. “Oh, geez. You’re right.” I reach for a hoodie to pull over my tank top.
Summer grabs it out of my hands. “NO. That only makes it worse. At least in the tank top, you look like you have a shape. Just put on a bra.”
Lucy tugs open the top drawer of my dresser and starts riffling through it. “Seriously? Do you have anything that isn’t a sports bra?”
“They’re comfortable,” I say as I wrestle my sweatshirt away from Summer. “And it doesn’t matter anyway because Flint Hawthorne is not here to see my boobs.” I head down the hallway, and they scurry after me.
“But he might comebackto see them if you let him catch a glimpse,” Summer says, and I send a silencing glare over my shoulder.
“Stop it. Both of you. I don’t know what this is about, but you’re going to stay hidden until I find out.”
“Hidden?” Lucy squeals. “You aren’t going to introduce us?”
“Just go!” I whisper-yell and motion them back down the hallway. “Not a word.”
I tug my hoodie down and adjust the hood, then take a calming deep breath that does nothing but make me realize hownotcalm I am.
This is not a big deal. I’ve met Flint before. We’ve had a couple of actual for-real conversations. I even had dinner with his family. I can handle this.
I swing open the door.
