Jada lifted her chin even as her hopes plummeted to the soles of her Crocs. “Okay, then. I understand.”
And she did, but that didn’t change facts. Looked like she was on her own. Nothing new there. She knew something about survival. This was yet another obstacle in a lifetime of obstacles. If she felt a little more alone this time because she’d felt a bit of connection when they’d kissed, then faced nosy Tamara together, then it was all in her head. And he was right. She was a big distraction.
She’d gotten herself in this mess. She’d get herself out. Without Donovan’s help. Somehow.
* * *
At 7:15 P.M., Donovan walked into his house. August was closing Sugar Blitz tonight. Donovan huffed out a breath. Thank God. He was beat. He wanted nothing more than to pop one of the high-protein, nutrient-rich meals his chef prepared for him into the microwave and eat it on his patio as he listened to and watched the ocean waves crashing against the beach. He headed to the kitchen, ready to put his plan into action.
At 7:18 P.M., right when he’d made the decision to go with steak over pasta carbonara, his phone rang. He gave a moment’s thought to not answering, but it was his baby sister, Sloane. He’d always looked out for her, especially given the chaos they’d grown up in, and he’d never been able to stop even though she was now an adult. He dropped into a dining table chair and answered. “Hey, what’s up?”
“What’s up with me? What’s up with you?” she screeched into his ear.
He yanked the phone away before he suffered any permanent hearing loss, then gingerly brought it back to his ear. “Sloane, can I get you to bring it down an octave? Dogs are howling as we speak.”
“Sorry,” she said in her normal, steady tone. “I’m just so excited.”
“Excited about what? Did you get a promotion?”
“No, I didn’t get a promotion and don’t try to distract me.”
Distract her? From what? “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you’re trending on Twitter.”
Donovan stifled a groan. It couldn’t be. That lady couldn’t go viral just because she wanted to. It didn’t work like that. Did it? He’d been truthful with Jada. He didn’t do social media. He had social media accounts, of course. He wasn’t that out of touch. But the main reason he had them was to prevent randos from pretending to be him and posting crazy shit under his name. He didn’t do anything with the accounts, however. Which didn’t really endear him to his baby sister, who made her living as a social media assistant. Soon to be manager, according to her, though apparently not today.
He asked the question he didn’t want the answer to. “Why am I trending on Twitter?”
“Because you were kissing Jada from My One and Only!” There went the screeching again, but that was the least of his problems.
His stomach cratered. Shit. Thank God he hadn’t eaten yet. Okay, that was dramatic, and he didn’t do drama. He needed to chill. He’d listened to his sister enough to know trends on social media were just that. Trends. Trends came and went. In thirty minutes, some attention-seeker would do or say something truly outrageous, and he would soon be ancient history. “Can you forget about that please?”
His sister gasped. “No! I’m calling Shana.”
“Please don’t.” His big sister would undoubtedly love to add her opinion to this matter. She had an opinion on every aspect of his life. This would be too juicy to pass up.
“Too late.”
Yeah, he’d figured that out. The phone was already ringing. His older sister answered a second later. “Hello.”
“Sloane, did you see that Donovan is trending on Twitter? Because he was kissing Jada?” She made Jada sound like some scandalous, two-bit hussy. And now he sounded like some old biddy from a western from the fifties.
“Girl, I did!” Sloane answered. “Can you believe it?”
“Hello, I’m right here,” he interjected before they could really get going.
“Oh, you’re on the call, Donovan. Perfect,” Shana said. “You always were my favorite sibling, Sloane.”
He rolled his eyes and stifled a sigh.
“Now tell us everything,” she continued.
“Don’t leave anything out,” Sloane added.
His sisters were tag teaming him. Why had he not been blessed with a brother or at least a sibling who didn’t love teasing him or digging into his personal life? He took the only option available to him—stalling. “There’s nothing to tell.”