Best Dating Rules (The Best Girls 2)

“Oh god! Oh god! This can’t be happening!” He blinked furiously at the tears that rose in his eyes. The picture blurred, but he could still see it clearly in his mind. Brad’s message was brief. Someone sent her this picture.

“What is it?” said Anne. “Is it something about Emily?”

“It’s Becca! Oh god! I’ve lost her. It’s just like you said would happen. I’ve lost her.” He felt a surge of nausea.

“What happened?” demanded Gherring.

“Someone sent this to her.” He handed his phone to Gherring. “It happened at dance class. But it’s not what it looks like. Becca was there, and I had to dance with her. She practically attacked me and then I left. That’s it. That’s all that happened. I ran out and came straight here. And that’s when Emily came back with Josh, and I got angry.”

He couldn’t bear to look at their expressions. The picture was bad—they wouldn’t believe him. Emily would never believe him.

“Who took this picture?” asked a grim-faced Gherring.

“There’s a studio photographer at every class. They put pictures up on Facebook the next day.”

“Well, this certainly explains a lot.” Anne put her hand on Gherring’s arm. “What can we do?”

“You were right,” Spencer told Gherring. “You told me this would happen.”

“I wasn’t making a prediction. I was giving you a warning. But I didn’t actually lose Anne, and yo

u’re not going to lose Emily either.”

“What can I do? She’ll never believe me.”

“Of course she will,” said Anne. “If she knows you love her, she’ll believe you. You just need to tell her again. And again. We have to hear it a lot of times.”

“I’m not exactly sure I ever said the actual words, but I implied it when we talked about getting married.”

Gherring raised his hand before Anne could respond. “Spencer… Son, we need to talk, man-to-man.”

*****

Emily slept for four hours but by noon she was awake, haunted by her own thoughts. She could hear soft snores emanating from the bedrooms. Having slept in her clothes at the hospital, she felt sticky and dirty, and she couldn’t wait to bathe. When she slipped quietly into the bathroom to shower, she noticed a set of drawstring scrubs with a note on top. For Emily. Relieved at the prospect of changing into clean clothes, she stripped and stood under the water, letting the warm torrents pound on her stiff muscles. She toweled off and put on the soft clean scrubs, chuckling as the drawstring bunched the large amount of excess material. The top also hung loosely on her thin frame, but at least she wasn’t wearing her old dirty clothes. She looked in the mirror at the wild mass of long, wet, curls, belatedly realizing she didn’t have a brush. She attempted without success to comb them with her fingers. She’d have to borrow a hat.

She was poking around in the kitchen, looking for food, when Brad walked in. “Hey. Good morning. Feel free to eat anything you can find. It may be sparse.”

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”

“No, we’ve both got to be back at work at two thirty today. It’s already one o’clock.”

“Wow! They don’t give you much time to sleep.”

“No. But we get used to it. Sometimes our schedule’s more normal. Occasionally, we get a whole day off, or even two.” He grinned at her. “You look much better in those scrubs than Josh does.”

“You’re right about that,” said Josh as he entered the kitchen, playfully ruffling her wet hair.

“I’m taking a shower,” said Brad, disappearing into the bathroom.

Emily found a bowl and cereal, and Josh helped himself to a bowl as well. They ate in companionable silence for a while. Josh spoke around bites. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Much better than at the hospital. Thanks for the couch. And the scrubs. And the shower. And the cereal.”

He smiled and nodded.

She added, “And also, thanks for not telling anyone where I was. I don’t think I could’ve handled seeing him.”

“And now? Can you handle it?”