Page 4 of One Bride for Three Single Dads

But it is too late, I know that now. As though they smell us, or hear us, or just have some kind of psychic superpower, Boone and Harrison both simultaneously pivot toward Ambrose and me.

For a moment they don’t do anything.

For a moment, we all just kind of stare at each other, four deer in four sets of headlights.

“Well, all right,” Boone finally calls out, his voice dripping like honey.

Harrison pulls his T-shirt off over his shoulders, revealing his sweaty, sunburnt, manly glory.

“This took way too long,” he agrees.

My heart pounds like a jackhammer.

Boone claps his hands together once.

“Let’s do this!”

Chapter 2

JOLENE

Four months earlier

At the crack of dawn, I am up. No messing around. I just kick off the fluffy blankets and stand right up, using the action of folding them and stowing them in the little cupboard next to the sofa to get the blood pumping in my body.

I do it all completely quietly, knowing that the walls of this apartment are pretty much paper-thin. Even the thin carpet wouldn’t do anything to muffle the random noises I will make by being awake.

And yet, this is it. This is the last stop on the train to homelessness. Sleeping on Emily’s couch is the end of the line in a very real way.

And I am not going to do anything to screw it up.

Even though we have been friends since the fourth grade, Emily wasn’t 100 percent enthusiastic about letting me crash here after Tony and I broke up.

I don’t blame her. I did spend the first couple of weeks crying like a middle-schooler. I did spend every waking moment rehashing all the gory details of my life, when she might have had things happening in her own life she wanted to talk about more. I did that, which is not my proudest friend moment.

And after I wrung myself out like a dishrag, I was suitably embarrassed. After all, Emily had warned me that Tony was kind of a loser. She told me not to move in with him. Hell, she even told me not to date him. Did I listen? No.

I like musicians. I am just weak like that.

But after a year, it was pretty obvious that I was basically the maid, the cook, and the house sitter. Tony fancied himself something of a rock star. When he wasn’t doing a gig with his college buddies, he was “doing research” which basically meant going to every bar in a twenty-five-mile radius and listening to whatever band was playing there.

Without me. Because it was research. Obviously. He had to seem like the “cool rock star” that he saw in his mind’s eye, and apparently that imaginary character is single and ready to mingle. Having a girlfriend around would only make him look less rock ’n’ roll.

I hope that the sarcasm in my tone is coming through okay. Is it? Because it is dialed up all the way to eleven.

Anyway, I got bored. That’s what happens when you have a fantastically hot girlfriend you ignore all the time and who longs for fantastically hot sex at least… atleast…four times a week. I mean, we are talking bare minimum. Four times a week will keep me from going insane. Less than that? Roll the dice, pal. Good chance your girlfriend is going crazy, and that’s on you.

So, overall, what happened with Tony was… predictable. I will say that. At least predictable to Emily, because she predicted it pretty much word for word.

I got bored.

I got lonely.

I got cranky.

I got in the car and drove out to where Tony was, dressed in what could generously be called a “cocktail dress.”

It had sequins and not much else, is what I’m saying.

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