“Thank you!” Violet gave Iris a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek and Iris laughed.
Lily let out a relieved sigh. She didn’t know if she had the energy to referee a sister argument tonight.
“Anyway, let’s focus on more important matters,” Violet said. “Like Lily’s wedding date.”
“True,” Iris agreed.
Lily blinked. “Wait, what?”
Leave it to her sisters to find common ground with their desire to fix her life.
“What happened with Angel?” Violet asked.
Lily shrugged. “Iris needed help with Calla, so I walked away.”
Iris raised an eyebrow. “Who is Angel?”
“One of Eddy’s clients,” Violet explained. “A singer.”
“Ugh, no,” Iris said. “You don’t want to date someone in the entertainment industry, do you, Lily?”
“No,” Lily said. “I do not.”
“Okay, fine. We’ll just find you someone else,” Violet said. “You don’t want to show up to my wedding stag, Lily. If it happens that you meet someone else at the wedding, even better, but you need to have some fun. You haven’t gone out since you broke up with that guy a few months ago. You know, the one you never bothered to tell us about or introduce us to.”
Lily bit her lip. She hadn’t been completely honest with her sisters about what had happened with Strick. But how could she tell them the truth? That she was heartbroken after being catfished. They would pity her. And they would take that failure only as further proof that she needed their help. So she’d lied and said she’d been dating someone for a while and they’d broken up. She knew her sisters meant well, but she couldn’t go on any more of their orchestrated dates. Strick might have been a hoax, but she’d finally experienced how it felt to talk to someone she actually liked, and she didn’t want to settle for less now.
“I don’t need to meet anyone new,” Lily made herself say. She hated being combative or disagreeable, but she’d drawn a line in the sand and she wouldn’t go back.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it,” Violet said. “I know this really cute sound engineer who works with one of Eddy’s clients. I’ll give you his number.”
“I think she’d be better off with my assistant’s cousin, Richard,” Iris countered. “He’s a law student at Cornell.”
Violet groaned. “Another law student? Boring. This model I worked with on an Elle shoot has a brother who’s a baseball player. She showed me pictures and he was fine. Wish I could remember the name of his team . . .”
“Lily doesn’t like baseball, though.” Iris frowned. In a careful attempt not to wake Calla, she reached for her purse. “Richard is sweet. I have his card here somewhere.”
“I’m not bringing a date,” Lily said, finally getting a word in edgewise. “You don’t have to talk around me like this.”
“Oh, we’re only trying to help,” Iris said.
“I don’t need your help!” Lily burst out, shocking her sisters and herself. They stared at her, and she breathed heavily, rubbing her sweaty palms against her dress.
“I don’t need your help,” she repeated, more quietly. “I’ll find my own date.”
“Really?” Violet asked, exchanging a glance with Iris.
Lily nodded, determined. She might have been a twenty-six-year-old who was stuck at a crappy job with no idea how to move forward, been a recent victim of a catfishing that she’d walked right into, and she might have been living on her sister’s couch because she’d had to escape her previous roommate’s evil dogs, but by God, she was going to find a date on her own and finally get her sisters off her back.
“And when I do get my date, I never want either of you to try to set me up ever again,” she said.
“And what if you don’t get a date?” Violet asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lily paused, considering Violet’s question. “Then I’ll go on your dates until the day I die or I’m an old maid with a million cats. Whichever comes first. Deal?”
Lily held out her hand, and Violet looked at it, skeptical. But then she grinned, grabbed Lily’s hand and shook. “Deal.”
They both turned to Iris, who sighed but reluctantly shook their hands as well. “For the record, I think this is childish,” she said.
But the bet wasn’t childish in Lily’s eyes. Because for once in her life, she was going to try her hardest not to lose.