Page 17 of Sweet Caroline
“What about what’s-her-name? The girl from grad school? Emma?”
“What? Sorry. Just picturing Casey in a tux.” Adrian seems to shake it off. “Emma, uh, no. Funny story, though. I’ll fill you in when I see you.”
“Okay. Oh, hey, speaking of funny stories… You don’t readThe Wash, do you?” I grimace.
“Uh, no, I have alife, Caroline.” He gives me a suspicious squint. “Why?”
“Hang on.” Reluctantly, I send him the link. “It’s not a big deal for the charity, but…” I let the dead air hang as Adrian pulls up the website, cringing when his eyes bug out. “Figured you should be aware?”
“What the fuck is this?” he asks, his voice rising in pitch. “You let me go on and on about clay fucking pots when there wasthisto talk about?”
I press my fingers against my temple, trying to fight off a laugh. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Who is this guy? He’s hot as hell!”
My shoulders sag. “Just a guy I met at the gym. Literally like ten minutes before this. Nothing happened.”
“I call bullshit. You’re serving some serious bedroom eyes in this picture.”
“Am not!”
“Moony, Care. You lookmoony.”
Rolling my eyes, I try to bite back a grin.
“And like you wanna mount him like a mechanical bull in a dive bar. I mean,Iwould. Wait…Do I spy a slutty little thigh tattoo?”
I laugh, setting my tea back on my nightstand.
“Hang on, shit,” Adrian says, the other shoe obviously dropping. “Is your family pissed?”
“Yeah, I talked to my parents, and it’s a whole…thing.” An email notification crops up. “Speak of the devil. Dad just emailed me about it.”
I open it and quickly skim the message he forwarded from Linda’s PR firm. As I process what I’m reading, the contents of my stomach slowly turn to a block of concrete.
“Oh, God,” I groan. “They want me towhat?”
4
MILES
“Jude, hang on. I can’t hear for shit out here.” I pull open the door to my truck. When I shut it behind me and the buzz of traffic muffles to comparative quiet, I yank off my hard hat. “Okay, what?”
“You got a girlfriend now?”
“Uh…”
“Thought you weren’t dating.”
“I’m not.” Frowning, I switch my phone to the opposite ear, shoving my empty lunch bag and gear onto the passenger seat. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Olena sent me this link Nat saw. Some political gossip blog thing. She came across it through her government job, I think.”
“Wait. Gossip blog? The fuck?” My phone chimes against my ear and I switch to speakerphone, my mind already scrambling to make sense of what I’m hearing.
Dating? Girlfriend?
I can’t even think of any women I’ve been around lately.
