Worth the Fall (The McKinney Brothers, #1)(103)
Maggie scrolled through headlines, too deep into her snit to commit to any one bit of news. “Ford says he’s in Marketing. Freelance. And he’s from New York I think, renting month to month, so maybe we’ll luck out and he’ll be gone by September.”
“Month to month? Weird. Why?”
“Your brother. You ask.”
Ava let out an indelicate snort. Ford was…distracted. That they’d even gotten this much information was a minor miracle.
Picking through the cookies, she added, “I love it that he thought you were putting a move on him though.”
“I know. Because that’s so me,” Maggie snickered. “Scoping out the meat market twenty-four-seven.”
Talk about a headache she didn’t need. Not when at twenty-seven, her life was pretty well perfect just the way it was. Stable. Secure. On track. Built on a rock solid foundation of priorities any guidance counselor would swoon over. Maggie had completed her education, had savings and a financial plan, a solid job managing the Shrone Gallery and her boss’s cosmic blessing to buy into the business as a partner, hopefully within the next year, and eventually buy her out. Add to that, the friendships that “completed” her in ways no romance could…and she was good.
Better than.
The whole ever-after business? She didn’t have time for it.
Correction. She had plenty of time. It was the inclination lacking.
Maggie tipped her face to the sky, basking in the warmth of June’s sunshine and her contentment with the lot life had given her. Sure, there’d been dues to pay. There always were. But it was because of those rough patches she was able to fully appreciate this tranquil little corner of Platonia she’d carved out for herself. Where her circle of friends reigned supreme and the forecast always called for good times. Constancy, support, and reliability.
Chance of romantic strife or bitter betrayal raining on their parade? Zero.
Yeah, Maggie was satisfied with her life, exactly the way it was. Period.
“So, hey,” Ava drawled, from beside her. “Obviously Apartment Three was a total weenis and I’m not talking about him. But do you ever look around and…you know…wonder?”
“Hmm…About what?” How to reduce her carbon footprint? Whether the new Italian place was as good as everyone was saying? If her buyer for the Stovitz oil was serious about a second piece? If she’d be able to get Hedda to sit still—and not in a meditative state—long enough discuss a timetable for their plans? If her parents would finally relax and believe she was capable of taking care of herself?
Ava squinted, her mouth turning down in distaste. “That.”
Maggie followed her friend’s gaze to the red-checked cliché-in-action nestled into a shady corner of Wicker Park. And blinked. Twice.
“The couple?” she wheezed. Then checking herself, let out a laugh, because, no way.
Ava didn’t date any more than Maggie did—which meant only under the most dire of circumstances. And unless Maggie had missed significantly more than she’d realized this morning, these were not them.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m serious. I think maybe it’s time I stopped shutting down every guy who asks me out and start, I don’t know, opening myself up to the possibilities.”
Eyes cranking around a beat before her head, Maggie gasped. “Wha—?”
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. Except that sour look of disgusted resignation on Ava’s face as she frowned across at the picnic set for two told Maggie…it was happening. Her friend was serious.
“What’s going on? I mean, where’s this coming from?”
Picking at the crumbs on a half-eaten cookie, Ava slumped deeper into the park bench, looking in that moment more like a sullen teen than the coolly confident, ball-busting lawyer she played in real life. She shook her head. “Everything’s so perfect now, you know?”
Yeah, Maggie did know. Hence the confusion.
“But what’s it going to be like in ten or fifteen years?” She let out another heavy sigh. “The guys, Sam and Ford—they’re idiots.”
“Of course.” The best kind. Ford was Ava’s older brother, their landlord and the odd nut behind the number one phone and tablet app on the market, Hibachi Catapult. And Sam Farrow, general man-whore and go-to guy for all things fix-it, was their oldest friend. Maggie loved them like family. Together Sam, Ford, and Ava were her core group of go-to friends. All romantically impaired with their own individual brand of relationship dysfunction.
And it worked. Only apparently, Ava didn’t think so.
“Some morning in the not too distant future, one of them is going to notice a few hairs on his pillow and an extra quarter inch of forehead where it hadn’t been before—and he’ll decide it’s time to stop sleeping his way through Chicagoland and set up house with some nice girl. And because neither of them are trolls and both have next to zero standards, whichever one it is will be married in less than a year. Six months max before the other goes lemming and follows suit. They’ll have kids and dogs and hockey practice at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings and clay models of the solar system due for the science fair to finish on Tuesday nights. And,” Ava swallowed and took a breath, shaking her head, “they’ll take their wives to weddings instead of us.”