Her “cousins” each carried in bags of food and bottles of some sort, and within minutes, the house rocked with laughter.Izzy and her sister, notorious for fighting, even managed to get along for the most part.
Zoey excused herself to take a call and went outside to better hear.The screen door slammed gently behind her when she returned, but it was her expression that drew everyone’s attention.
“What’s up?”Hadley asked.
Zoey remained silent for a long moment.
“Zo?”Izzy asked.“Come on, you’re freaking us out here.Did you get bad news?”
“N-no.It’s not bad.I’m just…confused?”Zoey said.
“Who called?”Izzy asked.
“Logan,” Zoey said, referring to one of Adaline’s twin sons.“He’s in town and, um…he asked to meet me.”
“What?”
“Like a date?”
“What did you say?”
“Are you going to go?”
Hadley listened while the girls bombarded Zoey with questions, but she remained quiet, not wanting to pressure Zoey or coerce her in any way.
“Zo,” Lily said.“Do you want to go out with him?Date him?”
Despite the Babes’ many attempts to matchmake and set their children up, all of the pseudo-cousins had made a pact not to date amongst themselves in order to keep things from getting awkward.The pact came after Michael’s best friend, Oz, and Devon dated and were engaged to be married—until Devon chose a job in New York City over settling down with her fiancé.
The news had rocked not only their families but the entire community, who inevitably chose a side while sharing the latest gossip.But that was back when they were young, with their whole lives ahead of them.
Now?
Zoey was thirty-three.Logan thirty-eight, a twenty-year military man in the process of retiring from service to join the public sector as a doctor.They were adults with established careers and life experience, not two kids still living at home.
“I said I’d have to get back to him,” Zoey said, searching their gazes before landing on Hadley.“I mean, he’s probably just wanting information on working at the hospital, right?He didn’t mean an actual date.I just misunderstood.I’m sure of it.Right?”