Page 9 of Good Girl's Guide to Love
Plus, today isn’t about me. It’s about Porter, Quinn, and Grace, who’s currently giving Simon the side-eye as he tries, and fails, to make her smile.
“Nothing important. Sorry, though. Did you ask me something?”
I notice that all my sisters are now thoroughly examining me, but luckily, none of them press me on my clear deflection.
“What I was asking was how the Fury visit to the hospital was?” Quinn asks. “I figured it had to be a big one if it made you late today.”
“What!” Maeve yells, who arrived after I did. “Ainsley was late?”
“By like five minutes,” I protest.
Maeve shakes her head in disbelief. “Damn. Even after everything that happened, I think that might be the biggest news of the day.”
“Right?” Stella says. “For the first time in history, Ainsley Banks didn’t follow specific directions andwas late.”
“I mean, what’s next?” Quinn asks. “Porter! Go check behind the bar. I bet she stole a few bottles of liquor.”
I narrow my eyes at my sister as the rest of the table snickers. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m not the one headed for a life of debauchery.”
I add in my own dramatics with an eye roll, which gets a snicker from the rest of the table. “Yes. I was late. I picked up a shift today on Mia’s unit. A few Nashville Fury players came for a visit. Time got away from me. That’s it.”
As I’m not going to mention where my traitorous brain was taking me a few moments ago, I’malsonot going to be bringing up the six-foot-five football player who is the entire reason I was late. If I tell them that I literally ran into one of the Fury’s biggest stars, I’ll never hear the end of it, I just know it.
“Who was there?” Simon asks, suddenly in fan-boy mode. “Was Bryce the quarterback there? I doubt Cole Campbell was there. He and his wife just had a baby. Oh! What about Linc Kincaid? Dude is a fucking beast. Won me a shit-ton of money last year.”
I feel my cheeks heat at the mention of Linc’s name. Or maybe it’s because I’m remembering the smile he gave me that I could feel across every inch of my body. All I know is I need to fix my face immediately and not give anything away.
“I don’t know? Maybe?” God, I’m such a bad liar. I can’t see myself, but no way am I believable right now. “There were a lot of them there. And you know I don’t know football.”
“Do you mean to tell me you don’t know the name of the man whose eyes you were staring into a couple of hours ago?”
My neck whips to Stella, and if I was blushing before, I’m sure it’s as red as a tomato right now. “Excuse me?”
Stella turns her phone to me. “Is this not you and said football player? My, my…Ainsley’s had quite the day.”
I grab her phone to study it closer. The actual picture is of a patient posing with one of the other players I didn’t meet. But in the background, through the glass wall of his hospital room, is Linc and I, having a moment that I’m going to remember forever.
My mind replays the interaction. I’m going to guess, based on that I’m actually looking down and not into his hypnotizing eyes, that I was probably apologizing for the tenth time about running into him. I can tell I’m blushing, so maybe it’s when he said I made his day. Which I’m sure I didn’t, but it was nice of him to say it nonetheless.
“Let me see!” Quinn grabs the phone out of my hands, and Maeve runs around the table to get a look for herself. “Damn, sis. That’s more than a moment. That’s alook!”
“Are you serious?” Simon jumps from his seat, coming to look at the phone, because despite being the only male sibling, he loves gossip maybe more than we do. “Ainsley! What is going on, and why is one of my favorite football players giving you a fuck-me smirk?”
I let out a deep sigh, because despite not wanting to admit all of this, it looks like what I want is not a consideration here. “I ran into him. Literally. And whatever you think, it’s not an eff-me smirk. He was just being polite and making me feel better because it was an awkward situation.”
“Wait,” Quinn says as she sits back down. “Do you mean actually literally, like you physically ran into him? Or like how Stella likes to say literally but she means figuratively?”
I hold up a number one to the question. “The first. I was running out of the nurse’s locker room because I was running a little late to get here—whichwasbecause of the Fury visit, so I didn’t technically lie—and I wasn’t looking where I was going. So yes, ran right into him. Fell on my butt and everything.”
“Holy shit,” Porter says, a little laughter in his voice. “I had an idea what I was getting into with this family, but every time y’all tell a story, I’m amazed a little more that these kinds of things happen to the Bankses.”
“We are one of a kind,” Quinn says. “And now my sister is going to get with a hot football player!” She raises her hands like she just scored a touchdown personally.
“That’s not happening,” I say definitively. “I ran into him. I fell on my butt. I apologized. He didn’t make me feel bad about it. The end. We didn’t even actually exchange names.”
“Neither did Emmett or I at first,” Stella said. “And look where that got us.”
