Page 110 of Fluke
“You want Banks? I’ll let you have him.”
She laughs. “I can’t imagine what it’s like having that bond. Greg and I never had it. He was the golden boy, and I was the kid sister who couldn’t shine bright enough. I was the diamond in the rough who didn’t come out of the rough. I just got in the way.”
Nope. I pull her into my chest and look down at her.
“But it’s fine,” she says, smiling sweetly at me. “They’re my family but not my people.”
“So you wish you had a big family growing up, but you don’t want one now. Right?”
She starts to frown but catches herself. “Exactly.”
I search her eyes, wondering how much I will have to dig through to get to the truth. The diamond in the rough. Because maybe she’s right. Maybe she’s been pushed down for so long—maybe even hiding—so she doesn’t shine too bright and attract all the goodness that’s coming to her.
I’ll help you, Pippa. You just gotta trust me.
“Wanna blow this joint and go back to our room?” I ask, wiggling my brows.
She laughs. “No, I don’t. Bloom Match paid for this. We need to experience it because I have to be prepared to give Bridgit the details.”
I groan, rolling my eyes.
“I’ll tell you what,” she says, playing with the collar of my shirt. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“What’s that?”
“If you can make it through this cooking lesson, I’ll let you pick what we do for the rest of the night.”
My brows lift to the ceiling. “Really?”
“Really.”
“And you have to do it.”
She gulps.
“Deal,” I say before she can change her mind.
She’s going to squirm for the next hour and a half. I’m going to try not to be too bored with chicken tikka masala. But when this is over, I know what we’re going to do.
And it’s not what she expects.
I grin. “Here comes Bobby. Let’s hurry this up and get out of here.”
Then I go to the sink to wash up again, trying not to laugh again at Banks’s reaction to his successful foray into app dating.The fool.
24
PIPPA
“This is what you wanted to do?” I ask, laughing.
“Don’t laugh. It makes me self-conscious.”
“Right.”
I’m sitting at the bistro-esque table on the balcony of our room. Thunderclaps sound off in the distance before bolts of lightning strike through the sky.
Jess hands me a glass of wine and then sits across from me.
