Read Online Smart Girls Think Twice by Cathie Linz - Free Book Online

that afternoon.
    “It’s a favorite hangout of mine. And I didn’t want Mom interrupting us every two minutes.
    I know she’s not trying to drive me crazy, but she is.”
    “You could have come to my place.”
    “What do you have against the Dairy Queen?”
    “Nothing. I was just saying . . .” The wrong thing , she silently continued. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately where her sisters were concerned. And it left her feeling like an awkward dork.
    “What did you want to talk about?”
    “You know the bridal shower is tomorrow afternoon, right?”
    “Right. Saturday afternoon. For you and Leena both.”
    “We might have to change that.”
    “What?! Why?”
    “Because we have totally different views on what the shower should look like.”
    “I thought you guys had this all settled.”
    “So did I. We’re having it catered in the lobby of the Tivoli Theater.”
    “And there’s a problem with that? I just came from speaking with Skye, and she didn’t mention any trouble for the event tomorrow.”
    “The location isn’t the issue. It’s the decorations.”
    “What decorations?”
    “Leena is using her engagement photos to put on the walls by her gift table.”
    “And?”
    “She’s a former model. It’s hard to get a bad photo of her. Hard but not impossible. There was one shot a year ago for the Regency Mobile Home Sales that she hated, but that’s another story. I don’t have engagement photos to put over my table. I didn’t like the way they turned out.”
    “Then put something else there. Flowers or bows or something.”
    “It won’t look as good as Leena’s table.” Sue Ellen sniffed back tears.
    “Look at me.” Emma grabbed her sister’s hands and made her focus instead of melting down in the middle of the Dairy Queen. “You’re the one who has the interior decorating certificate on her wall. Remember, the one you got from the Internet?”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So you know how to decorate. You can put your own stamp on things.”
    “My own stamp . . .” Sue Ellen thought a moment. “I know! My naked firemen calendars. I could put those up. They are very tastefully done. Nothing flapping in the wind, you know?
    Yes, I’ll do that! Thanks, sis. You’re brilliant.” Sue Ellen tugged Emma to her feet and gave her a hug that nearly cut off her air supply. “Gotta run!”
    Emma sank back onto her chair. She was so not looking forward to the shower this weekend, or Sue Ellen’s wedding the following weekend. What kind of sister did that make her? Guilt nibbled at her. She should be so excited for her sisters. Instead she just wanted the madness over with. She had this tendency to want to make everything calm and controlled, and those two adjectives just didn’t apply to Sue Ellen or Leena. Well, Leena was ultra-organized so that was a good thing. But not the same as controlled.
    Emma also had this need to smooth things out whenever there was trouble. Both her sisters lived by their emotions. Emma preferred logic. She relied on logic. Required it.
    “Dr Pepper again?” Jake slid into the seat Sue Ellen had recently vacated. “Are we looking at an addiction problem here?”
    No, she was looking at another kind of yummy addiction. Jake. His effect on her was entirely too intense. Especially given the fact that she hadn’t known him that long. As in two days. That wasn’t logical at all.
    Her fingers tightened on her drink.
    Jake noticed. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to take your Dr Pepper away from you.”
    No, he was just taking her peace of mind away from her. Was he doing it deliberately? Was he trying to mess with her? Why would he bother?
    No, Jake wasn’t trying to gaslight her. This was an example of her hormones at work. A classic case of the science of attraction. In fact, she’d recently read a study in Evolutionary Psychology regarding the ways heterosexual men and women view first kisses. More than half of both men and women surveyed said they had been