Page 73 of My Lucky Charm

Don’t go out with Jimmy.

“Eloise.” Poppy narrows her eyes. “Do you have feelings for Gray?”

“What?” I scoff. “No. I’m just—curious.”

She stares at me. Raya stares at me. I’m caught in their crosshairs, and there is no escape.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I say. “I’m just curious.”

“Eloise, curiosity is bad enough,” Raya reprimands. “Don’t make it worse.”

“But also, are you seeing something in him that the rest of us aren’t?” Poppy’s forehead pulls. “I mean, he’s good-looking, sure, but even Dad thinks he’s rude. And Dad loves everyone.”

I think about Gray. Poppy’s right. He’s rude. But there’s something else there, something misunderstood.

He took pity on me in the bar when I asked him to kiss me. He was kind to me when I crashed his car. He was even okay when he found me asleep on his bed—and thoughtful when he covered me with a blanket and slept on the couch.

“You’re doing it again,” Raya says.

“Doing what?” I hear the defensiveness in my own voice.

“Trying to save the lost puppy,” Poppy says, resigned. “This is what you do.”

“Like the time you brought home the baby raccoon and cried for three weeks because Mom and Dad wouldn’t let you keep it,” Raya says.

“This is not that,” I say. “But I am still mad about Kevin.”

“Kevin?”

“The racoon,” I say, like they should remember. “He was sweet.”

“He was hairless, Eloise,” Raya says. “He probably had rabies.”

I cap my soda and walk the five steps from the kitchen to the living room. “Look, I don’t have feelings. It’s just attraction. I’m attracted to him.”

“That’s not like you,” Poppy says. “And you know it.”

I do know it. Anytime I’ve dated anyone, I’ve believed in the potential for something serious. Something that might last forever. I’m not a person who guards my heart, I’m a person who offers it freely, willingly, pathetically. I’ve been searching for my person for as long as I can remember.

“We just don’t want to see you get hurt,” Raya says.

I hear what she’s saying. Gray isn’t a relationship kind of guy. He doesn’t date during the season, and I’m not going to be a fling.

“Fine. I get it. I’ll make sure that was the last time,” I say.

And I’ll relish every sweet memory of that kiss.

“I’ll tell him today that it was a giant mistake,” I say. “And that I agree with him that it can’t happen again. Because I need this job.”

“And also because he’s cranky,” Raya says.

Poppy and I look at each other, and don’t look away fast enough to hide what we’re thinking from our oldest sister.

“What was that?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Poppy says.

“Except it’s a little like the pot meeting the kettle and all that,” I add. “You calling Gray cranky.”

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