Beg, Borrow, or Steal (When in Rome, #3)(86)
I wonder if I’ll still get to help Jack shop for his house when it’s finished.
And that’s been happening today too. An all-day mental Jack-a-thon (which sounds much dirtier than I’m intending). It’s basically just a frustrating nonstop loop of I love him, I’m scared to love him, but I love him. Round and round it goes.
“My God, Emily! You had him get down and dirty by the front door?” Madison screeches from the couch, knees up to her chest, oversized T-shirt draping her shorts, making her look pantsless. Her eyes are glued to her phone.
That’s the other thing I did today: I told each of my sisters about my book.
I’m glad I did. They’ve spent a solid chunk of time full-on squealing, which has helped me replace some of my it’s trash because Colette thinks it’s trash feelings into she can go to hell feelings instead. Well, not completely, because after looking over her notes, like Jack predicted, I’ve found two points she made that I do agree with and will change. But overall, I’ve decided, as my grandma used to say, someone must have peed in her Cheerios that morning.
The time with my sisters has been healing. When I first unloaded the truth to them, there was a lot of feet kicking and screaming, and then several minutes of oohing and ahhing over my plot. And then a moment I’ll always remember for the rest of my life when Annie looked me straight in the eyes and said: Emily, I’m so proud of you. Annie and I are close, but we’ve never had quite the connection that Madison and I have had, just simply because of our age proximity. But in that moment, I felt the strongest tether to Annie. She’s learned to step into herself over the last year, even when it’s been uncomfortable, even when it meant confronting each of us sisters about the way we’ve treated her with too much fragility in the past. And today, that woman looked me in the eyes and said she was proud of me.
I didn’t, however, have the heart to tell them about accidentally sending my manuscript to Bart, though. Not because I’m ashamed anymore, but because it’s my and Jack’s secret. Something that’s just ours in this world where nothing makes sense, and our futures are uncertain, but . . . at least we’ll always have the manuscript heist.
“I only emailed it to you five minutes ago, Maddie. How are you already to the sex scene?”
She looks at me like my head is a potato. “I searched the document for the word ‘nipple’ so I could get to the good stuff quickly. Do you guys not do that?”
“No!” Annie says in outrage from where she’s curled up on the other side of Maddie on the couch. “That’s terrible, Madison. The steam hits so much better if you let the story build around it. Build the connection first.”
Madison laughs like this is the most hysterical thing she’s ever heard. “Maybe for you three delicate flowers. But for me . . . I don’t care when the steam hits, I’m here for it.”
Amelia bonks Maddie in the face with a pillow. “Yes, we gathered that when you FaceTimed us from the bathroom because there was a man in your bed.”
There’s a beat where Madison tosses me the quickest look. They’ve been a needed distraction from my loneliness. I’m so glad she let me into that part of her heart. And I am nothing if not faithfully loyal, which is why I don’t call her out when she smirks at Amelia and says, “Don’t be jealous just because you’re locked down to my snoozy brother and I’m free as a bird.”
The microwave beeps in the kitchen, signaling that the popcorn is finished, but I’m too engrossed in this conversation to care yet. I also like to stand by in case I need to play referee.
Amelia puts her foot in Madison’s face. “Noah wasn’t snoozy this morning.”
Madison gags. Annie covers her face with her hands. I, too, am barely holding down my lunch at the thought of my brother not-snoozing anyone. But good for them. Healthy relationships and all that. I just don’t want to hear about it.
“Annie,” says Madison, swiveling her face to our baby sister. “How is your sex life with our favorite bodyguard? Wait—why am I even asking? I know it’s incredible. In fact, don’t tell me. I’ll be too jealous.”
“What happened to Ms. Free as a Bird from a minute ago?” I ask, saving Annie from her pink cheeks and having to respond to Maddie’s intrusive question. She’s changed a lot over the last year, but she’s still Anna-banana in a few ways too.
Madison shrugs. “I implied I was having sex. I never implied it was good sex.”
And of course, that’s the moment that James walks into the living room holding a bowl of popcorn. His eyes—I notice—lock on Madison. He steps up to her from behind the couch and sets the bowl of popcorn directly in her lap. “Here’s your popcorn you made that I told you not to make. Thanks to you my kitchen is going to smell like it for a week.”
“Aw, Jamesie,” Madison says, raising her hand to playfully pat his cheek like an old granny showing affection in church. “Admit it, you miss me around here!”
The look James gives Madison makes my insides constrict. He does miss her.
Does Madison know what she’s doing to him? I don’t think so since she’s always playfully antagonizing him. The rest of us know, though, judging by the way we all seem to be wearing matching expressions of discomfort as we observe James’s longing look for Maddie as she pops a piece of popcorn into her mouth with seemingly zero awareness.