How You Get the Girl

Book 3: Nashville Love

by Anita Kelly

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Chemistry sizzles in this workplace rom-com set in the world of high school basketball from the author of Love & Other Disasters, named a "must-read" by USA Today, PopSugar, SheReads, and Harper Bazaar. 

When a smart-mouthed junior joins East Nashville High’s basketball team, Coach Julie Parker’s ready for the challenge. What she’s not prepared for is the teen’s new foster parent, a super-hot ex-WNBA baller and star of Julie’s fantasies. Julie knows the cool and confident Elle Cochrane is way out of her league. But despite being completely tongue-tied around her, somehow Julie persuades Elle to step in as her assistant coach. 

Elle has not been on a court since her career-ending injury, but she can’t seem to resist Julie, who is just as adorable as her nervous babbling. Maybe because being around her makes Elle feel sparks for the first time in long while—which is why she offers to help when Julie reveals her lifelong insecurity about dating and how she wishes she could practice at it…like sports. As Elle helps Julie navigate dating life, lines grow increasingly blurred, and the two must decide whether they’ll stay on the sidelines—or finally take their shot.

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

The angry girls always made her smile.

There were other truths Julie Parker had learned during her first season as head coach of the East Nashville High girls’ basketball team. That she was officially too old to understand what teenagers were ever doing on social media. That the smell of a high school basketball court—stale sweat and floor wax—never, ever changed.

But more than anything, she’d discovered that the players who approached each team huddle with a scowl were the ones who lingered in her brain. Who most often made her burst into unexpected laughter.

It was the honesty, the openness in showing their annoyance and their fear.

And every afternoon, from mid-October through February—March, if you were lucky—Julie got to toss a basketball around with them for a while. Spend a couple hours a day being a bit more honest.

So even though Julie knew she should have been irked by the front office throwing a new player onto her team today, a full two weeks into practices, she struggled to keep her face stern as Vanessa Lerner stomped across the court toward her, BTS T-shirt damp with sweat.

“Sorry, Miss Parker,” Vanessa huffed. “But I’m not doing this shit.”

The tips of Vanessa’s dark blond hair were dyed lavender: pretty pastel pops inside her messy bun that seemed incongruous with the stomps and grunts she had filled Julie’s gym with for the last two hours.

Julie bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning.

“As I’ve told you three times today, Lerner, call me Coach. And sorry to say, this is how we end every practice. If you want to be part of the team, you have to be part of the team.”

Julie opened her palm toward the endline, where the rest of her players were shaking out arms, stretching hamstrings before the ritual end-of-practice sprint. Throwing looks at where Julie and Vanessa stood outside of Julie’s minuscule office.

The questions on their faces were warranted, and Julie didn’t have answers. Yet.

Because Julie wasn’t sure Vanessa did want to be part of the team. All Chloe from the front office had said was “Trust me, you gotta take her,” before scuttling away at the beginning of practice.

But almost despite herself, Vanessa had put in the work today. She wouldn’t be as sweaty and disgruntled in front of Julie right now if she hadn’t.

Which was why, no matter the reason for her appearance, Julie knew she had to get Vanessa to stay. Because if she stayed, Julie could show her how a perfectly executed pass, a shot that swooshed just right, could take all that anger and make her feel like a badass instead.

If only Jacks were here.

Julie had led these initial weeks of practice pretty well by herself. At least, she liked to think so. But she couldn’t deny that she missed her assistant coach. That there were moments, like now, where she longed for the extra hands and comfort of Jacks’s steady, no-bullshit presence. Jacks could’ve led the sprint while Julie had a heart-to-heart with Vanessa, helped figure out her deal. And then, after they’d all run off to the locker room, Jacks would turn to Julie to say, in her signature rocks-in-her-throat rumble, “Well, that was a hell of a thing, huh?”

But Jacks wasn’t here. And they hadn’t been able to fill her position in the entire month it had been posted on the district website. Julie was on her own.

“Yeah, sorry,” Vanessa said again, scratching her elbow and sounding not very sorry at all. “But I think I’m done.”

Julie glanced once more at her team. They’d gone along with Vanessa’s presence today, most likely because Julie had pulled aside her co-captains, Ngozi and Sasha, and asked them to help keep the peace.

But the peace was getting restless.

“We all want to be done.” Julie kept her voice low and calm. “But we’re not. Not yet. This sprint is hard, but doing something hard when you’re already beat is what makes a great basketball player.”

Vanessa rolled her eyes.

“Whatever,” she muttered, before shaking her head and adding, “No, you know what? That’s nice and easy for you to say, Miss Parker, when you’re just standing here on the sidelines. But we’re the ones who actually have to do that hard shit. And sometimes, you’re just beat.”

With that, Vanessa returned to scowling into the distance.

Julie tilted her head. Considered her.

Don’t smile, she commanded herself. Do not.

Because Vanessa Lerner, angry BTS fan, would likely read a smile as condescending. A challenge. And the Vanessas of the world didn’t need challenges. They only needed to be listened to.

“All right,” Julie said. “Fair point.”

She joined her players on the line.

“Listen up, Bobcats.” Julie nodded to her left, her right. “Let’s see if any of you suckers can beat Coach.”

She stretched out a knee. Made sure Vanessa had made her way to the line, too.

And then she blew her whistle.

And Julie Parker ran like hell.

To the foul line, and back. To the half-court line, and back. To the opposite endline, and all the way back. She repeated the routine again, sneakers squeaking against the court, the players around her huffing and puffing, the thud of her own heart pumping against her chest.

Laughter from the pure, painful joy of it bubbled up her throat.

Ngozi passed Julie at the timeline, a full court length ahead. She grinned and clapped her hands, braids slapping her back as she yelled across the gym: “Come on, Coach!”

Julie groaned as she pivoted for the final stretch.

This had been easier when she was sixteen.

She propelled herself toward the endline anyway, leaning her body to help spur on her feet. Her players pumped fists, hollering where they waited for her.

Maybe it was a small thing, coaching a high school basketball team.

Certainly smaller than the things Julie’s closest loved ones had been doing these last few years—appearing on nationally televised cooking competitions, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, starting dream careers—while Julie sat in the same cubicle at Vanderbilt University where she’d sat for years, completing the same tasks she’d never truly cared about.

But for a few months out of the year, Julie also helped a few teenagers get a bit better at this one thing. Watched them make friends. Taught them what it meant to be part of a team.

Maybe it was a small thing.

But it was important to them.

Julie glanced to her right in the final stretch, at the only player left sprinting across the court. Made sure Vanessa’s sneaker toed over the line a split second before hers did.

And the Bobcats burst into applause.

Their laughter reverberated in Julie’s chest, cementing her determination more than ever.

Her first season with the Bobcats had been okay, record-wise. They’d won more games than they’d lost, which Jacks had assured Julie was a more impressive showing than the previous few years.

But Julie wanted better than okay for Ngozi, for Sasha. For Katelyn, for Gray. And for Vanessa now, too.

She would get the East High Bobcats to district playoffs this year.

“Next time, Lerner.” Julie breathed heavily, resting her palms on her knees. “I’ll get you next time.”

Vanessa rolled her eyes, walking off the sprint in a circle.

“You’re corny, Miss Parker,” she wheezed. “Shit,” she added a second later, for good measure.

Julie straightened.

“All right, everyone, you’re done for the day. Lerner, hang back a sec.”

Vanessa trudged over, chin tilted toward the scoreboard on the wall.

“Look. I have a feeling you don’t want to be here,” Julie said as her own heart rate galloped back to normal. “But you had a good practice today.”

Another eyeroll.

“Pretty sure I came dead-ass last just now.”

Julie gave her a look. “Pretty sure that was me.”

Vanessa threw the look right back, eyebrow raised. Like she knew Julie had made sure that was the case, and was here to call her on it.

Julie bit her cheek again.

“You’ll keep improving. But, Vanessa, you have to curb the cussing. The team’s been practicing together for two weeks; they’re already confused about why you’re here—”

“Join the party,” Vanessa muttered.

“—and if you keep breaking my rules, the ones they’ve already learned, they’re going to be even more annoyed. I fully understand you’re going to want to cuss me out, possibly frequently, so I suggest coming up with some special words of your own to get your feelings out. That way, when you’re pissed at me, you can just say something like… snap crackle pop instead.”

Vanessa stared at her.

“Snap crackle what?”

Julie bit her lip, trying to think. “Maybe… balderdash?”

Vanessa backed away, shaking her head.

“Just think about it!” Julie shouted, pointing finger guns in encouragement.

“You’re weird, Coach.”

And with another headshake, Vanessa disappeared into the locker room.

Julie raised her fists in triumph.

Vanessa had called her Coach.

Vanessa was going to be just fine.

“Excuse me… Coach Parker?”

Julie twirled, dropping her hands.

And promptly swallowed her tongue.

“Holy shit,” she breathed, breaking her own rule immediately.

But snap crackle fucking shit.

The face of the woman in front of her appeared older than the last time Julie had seen it on TV, although her body was the same. Tall, lean, fit as hell. Olive skin, with the lightest spattering of freckles underneath those electric-blue eyes. Sharp cheekbones, strong jaw.

The biggest difference was her hair. No longer swept up into a thick ponytail, it was cut neat and clean over her ears. On top, black tangles curled over her forehead. Julie couldn’t stop staring at the surprising streaks of silver that popped now among those curls.

She wore slate-gray slacks, a white dress shirt opened at the collar.

In short: she was hotter than she had ever been.

The words tumbled out of Julie’s mouth.

“You’re Elle fucking Cochrane.”

Later, Elle would wish many things had been different that day she met Julie Parker.

Mostly, that she hadn’t been distracted by the familiar beginnings of a migraine.

That it had been even just a few more days since Vanessa had come into Elle’s care. That she would have been less overwhelmed, more in control.

And last, that Julie would not have recognized her so instantly. That she would not have called her Elle fucking Cochrane.

This one was the most complicated. Because that Elle fucking Cochrane had also made a frisson of flattery zip up Elle’s spine.

She was recognized less and less these days, a fact Elle normally welcomed. But she was also human. A very gay human, to be exact. And, well. What queer woman wouldn’t feel a bit of a thrill, being greeted with an emphatic fuck by a pretty girl?

Because Elle wasn’t confident about many things that day. But she had known, the second she’d walked into the East High gym, that Coach Parker was pretty, in a way that was specific to Elle. In a way Elle hadn’t let herself observe in a long time.

She held herself with the poise of every baller Elle had ever known, spine straight under her well-worn T-shirt, those loose, men’s style basketball shorts that signaled Coach Parker was either nostalgic for the game of the nineties—and who wasn’t—or also extremely gay.

In the case of women Elle had most frequently been attracted to in the course of her life, both things tended to be true.

And when Coach Parker talked to her team, her confidence was underscored by humor, a kind, charismatic enthusiasm. Traits Elle increasingly found captivating on a basketball court as she got older, the years perhaps making her soft. Her former ruthless competitiveness stripped away by time.

Not that Elle had spent much time herself on basketball courts, these last eight years.

To be more precise, she had spent… none.

Which was maybe one reason why, when Coach Parker stared at Elle with her jaw dropped, her eyes so wide, so clearly stunned, that it should have made Elle want to laugh—

Elle could only stare back.

Those wide eyes were the most arresting shade of hazel, peppered with flashes of gold, complementing a face full of freckles that Elle, helplessly, could only classify as adorable.

Then there was the hair. Sunset-colored, thrown into a ponytail, glowing in the fluorescent lights.

It was close to physically impossible to look good under the lights of a high school gymnasium. But somehow, Coach Parker was pulling it off.

And the longer Elle took her in, the more she realized there was something vaguely familiar about those freckles and that hair. A ghost of a memory flitted through Elle’s brain, even though Elle was fairly certain she’d never seen her before. This woman with huge, New Year’s Eve confetti eyes. Elle would have remembered.

“That’s me,” Elle eventually replied, once her senses returned to her. She tried to ignore the impending migraine’s pull behind her eyes, the reality of standing on a basketball court again, as Vanessa’s coach continued to gape.

Elle opened her mouth to explain about Vanessa, and—

“Oh my god. You used to be my idol.”

Elle blinked.

She should have been ready for it. The used to.

Coach Parker used to think Elle Cochrane was special.

Along with the rest of Tennessee.

“Yes, well—”

“I had posters of you on my wall. Next to my posters of Pat Summitt. It was like, Pat, Pat, Elle, Pat, Elle.”

Elle rubbed a hand over her forehead.

“Elle Cochrane,” Coach Parker went on. “Elle Cochrane is in my gym.” She broke eye contact to touch her own forehead. “Elle Cochrane is in my gym, and I’m wearing my boob-stain shirt.”

Elle’s mouth opened before she could stop herself. “Your—”

And then good sense kicked in once more. Elle glanced at Coach Parker’s faded Kacey Musgraves T-shirt for exactly one second before snapping her mouth shut.

“My boob-stain shirt,” Coach Parker repeated, gesturing at herself, her own mouth apparently heeding no such command. “Dropped some pulled pork right on my left nipple two years ago. Knew it was hopeless as soon as it happened. But it’s such a good shirt, I could never let it go. Always just hope the general public is too distracted by Kacey to notice it.”

Coach Parker stared past Elle, scratching her head, eyes gone hazy.

For a second, Elle was so fully focused on not looking at Coach Parker’s left nipple, she was almost able to forget her migraine, or the court around them—or anything, really—entirely.

“Anyway,” Coach Parker said, still staring at something beyond Elle’s vision, “remember when you took that last-second shot against Notre Dame in the Elite Eight?” An unnatural laugh escaped her lips. “I almost passed out. God, you were—”

Elle closed her eyes.

She did not, in fact, remember taking that last-second shot against Notre Dame. She remembered the aftermath, the feeling in her ribs when Mara had collided into her side. The din of the locker room, after. The flash of cameras.

But like the majority of her most noteworthy moments on the court, it always felt to Elle, even back then, like she had simply blacked out. That she ran so fully on gut instinct in those moments that the memories weren’t so much tangible, but rather like the impressions of a phantom limb.

Mostly, she tried to not remember them at all.

When Elle opened her eyes, the gym had gone suddenly blurry, the lighting piercing into her skull.

She’d hesitated, fifteen minutes ago, when she’d texted Rose that they might need a ride, but now she was glad. It would only be minutes before the migraine collapsed everything good. And while Elle hated asking her mother for help, especially last minute, when she didn’t know what Rose’s pain levels had been like that day, she’d promised she’d keep Vanessa safe. And driving home with a migraine wouldn’t keep anyone safe.

Even after a lifetime of living through them, every migraine was frustrating, somehow felt like a failure. Like her body had once again overpowered her current medication, which was supposed to reduce their frequency.

And lord help her, if Elle had to switch up her medication again, she might lose her mind.

Distantly, she realized Coach Parker was still saying something. About UConn, and the Vols, and—and Elle could no longer make out the gold in her eyes.

Just like that, the low-level panic that had ruled her system for the last week took charge once more.

And only once it returned did she realize. That these last ten disconcerting minutes standing in front of Coach Parker—her eyes and her freckles and her nervous, charming energy—were the first time that low-level panic had receded at all, in the five days since she had received the call from the Department of Children’s Services.

But that call, she’d do well to remember, was why she was here.

“I’m here about Vanessa,” Elle made herself interrupt. And, okay. If she had to analyze the tone of her voice there, perhaps the sentence had been more of a bark. An air-stealing, unintentional reprimand.

“Right.” Coach Parker’s voice immediately sounded so much smaller. “Of course.”

Dammit.

Elle wanted to explain. About her head, her desire to not relive her past. But there wasn’t time. She knew getting Vanessa onto the team late was inappropriate, and she needed to at least provide Coach Parker with the basics before Vanessa came out of the locker room.

“I wanted to apologize,” Elle went on in a more Reasonable Human Being tone of voice, “for putting her into your program two weeks late. Vanessa was only put into my care recently, and I needed somewhere for her to go after school, and…”

And the truth was that Elle had realized picking Vanessa up from school directly conflicted with her daily three o’clock work meeting. And while she knew Vanessa could take the bus and take care of herself until Elle was done with work, the social worker had explained that Vanessa should be watched as closely as possible, since this was her first time in the system and her flight risk was uncertain.

And so, even now… Elle’s only solution had been basketball.

“I thought it might be good for her,” she finished. “I appreciate your accommodation.”

Coach Parker nodded, bringing her hands to her hips.

“So you’re her… foster parent, then?”

“Yes. I think. I mean, yes.”

Double dammit. Elle hated tripping over her words. It simply still felt so strange, hearing the word parent applied to her. Hearing the word foster in relation to Vanessa.

“Sorry. I’m technically her foster parent at the moment, yes. But Vanessa’s mom, Karly, is my cousin. I’m only helping Karly out for a while, while she takes care of some things.”

And Elle needed to shut her mouth now. For heaven’s sake. One of the first things Elle had learned from the gentle CPS woman on the phone—whose name she still couldn’t remember, because her brain had only been half-functioning, as it apparently still was now—was that she shouldn’t overshare Vanessa or Karly’s business, to protect their privacy and the process. But Elle hadn’t yet found a neat, tidy way to explain the situation.

And it felt less awful, less awkward, when Elle explained they were related. Like this was some voluntary arrangement she’d made with her cousin, to be helpful while Karly moved houses or started a new job. Like there were no state agencies involved. No addictions, no shady ex-boyfriends. Like it hadn’t totally upheaved Elle’s—and Vanessa’s—and Karly’s—world.

“Got it. And you’re Elle Cochrane, the best basketball player this state’s ever seen, so that’s why the office was so desperate for me to take her on.”

Elle at least had the self-awareness to blush. At least she thought she was blushing. Mostly, she was trying to not pass out underneath these excruciating lights.

“I’m sorry; I wouldn’t normally… This isn’t—”

“No, no.” Coach Parker waved a hand. “It’s totally fine. I’m just processing all of this out loud. I’m happy to have Vanessa join the team.”

“Really?” A lightbulb of hope flickered on, dimly, in Elle’s brain. “So she did okay?”

“Oh, well, she freaking hated it. Has she ever played basketball before?”

Elle blushed a bit more, opening her mouth to respond, hoping something would appear in her mind to say in the next 0.2 seconds that wasn’t I dunno. Since, upon trying to ask Vanessa that same question yesterday, the only response she’d received was whatever. A word Elle was becoming intimately familiar with.

But before she could come up with something that sounded like she sincerely knew the child under her care, Elle was saved by the bell. Or rather, the distant clanging of ancient lockers slamming shut, the rumble of teenagers pouring back onto a basketball court.

“She’ll be fine,” Coach Parker said quickly, tone closer to what Elle had heard when she’d first slipped into the gym at the end of practice. Both authoritative and reassuring. “If we’re both patient with her. All right?”

“Thank you—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your first name.” The office had only told Elle to go see Coach Parker. And she hadn’t thought to ask. She was going to kick this migraine in the shins.

“Julie.”

“Julie. Thank you again.”

And for a small, yearning, irrational moment, Elle wished she could listen to Julie talk, about Kacey Musgraves or basketball or anything at all that wasn’t related to Elle’s current life, for just a bit longer.

Because those ten minutes without panic… they had been nice.

“Um. Are you… okay?”

No, Elle wanted to say. Not even a little.

“Um,” Julie said, again, when Elle didn’t respond. “Vanessa just walked out of the gym. In case… you wanted to know.”

Shit.

Elle turned, pain racking her head, a roil of nausea hitting her stomach.

It was only when she’d caught up to Vanessa, almost to the parking lot, that she realized she hadn’t even said goodbye.

Julie pulled out her phone and dialed London’s number halfway up the stairwell, a sudden thought entering her mind.

“Listen, you guys aren’t, like, doing it right now, are you? Because I’ll be at your door in two seconds, just FYI, so get ahold of yourselves if so.”

London’s sigh rattled in Julie’s ear.

“We are fully clothed. Well, mostly. Thanks for the head’s-up, though; truly, you know I just love spontaneous, unannounced—”

“Visits from your twin sister?” Julie finished, stepping through the door as London opened it. “I know. But I had an emergency. And what are you talking about?” She shoved her phone back in her bag. “You’re totally fully clothed.”

London scratched at the back of their head, nodding toward the couch. Where their girlfriend, Dahlia, was sprawled, drooling onto a pillow. One of London’s T-shirts covered her torso, but her bare legs stretched across the gray cushions.

“Please.” Julie waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve seen Dahlia in her underwear before. I know how she feels about pants.”

“Pants bad,” Dahlia mumbled.

A thud sounded from the bedroom, followed by the scuffle of paws making their slow way across the hardwood floor.

Julie sighed in relief as she scooped up the ugly, one-eyed dog, shoving her face into his wiry fur. She had been in desperate need of a Schnitzel hug.

“What’s the emergency then?” London perched on the piano bench in the middle of the room, which accompanied the baby grand hardly anyone ever played. But London still owned it, because they were London, and they were the worst, and Julie loved them terribly.

“So.”

Julie dropped her messenger bag and began to pace the length of London’s annoyingly hip apartment, Schnitzel stuffed under an arm. The personality she’d been able to craft, somehow, in the East High gym these past couple of years, the one she put on for the team, where she was a competent, mature adult worthy of respect, had disappeared the moment she’d walked through London and Dahlia’s door. Now, she could simply be herself. Which was… the opposite of all those things.

“So Elle Cochrane showed up at my practice tonight, and I think I possibly talked to her about my nipples.”

London stilled.

“You—” Their face went blank. Before their lips contorted in the way Julie knew meant they were trying not to laugh. “Julie. I’m going to need you to go back and start that story over.”

Julie groaned before letting Schnitzel go and flopping onto a love seat, covering her face with her hands.

Dahlia rose to a sitting position with a yawn. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on”—and now London was not even trying to keep the laughter out of their voice—“is that Julie’s teenage idol supposedly showed up at her basketball practice tonight. And apparently Julie said something about her breasts, but I’m ignoring that little factoid for now.”

“The teenage idol’s breasts or Julie’s breasts?” Dahlia asked, suddenly alert.

“Mine.”

Julie dropped her hands from her face to gesture to Kacey Musgraves.

“My idol appeared in front of me, and I realized I was wearing my boob-stain shirt. Which I think I might have pointed out. Out loud. I don’t know. I sort of blacked out.”

Dahlia leaned forward, squinting.

“Oh yeah. I see it now.”

“You can’t unsee it once you do. Which means I can never wear this shirt in front of Elle Cochrane again. Which is a sentence I never thought I’d say. Are we by chance living in an alternate dimension right now? Would there be signs?”

“I don’t know, but I, for one, would like to stop talking about your boobs,” London said.

“Oh, shut it. Having a boob-stain shirt is a universal experience.” Julie scowled, hugging a throw pillow to her stomach.

“Okay.” Dahlia held up a hand. “Let’s go back and have someone explain to me who Elle Cochrane is.”

“It is extremely offensive to me that you’ve lived here for over a year and don’t know who Elle Cochrane is,” Julie grumbled, her annoyance at herself and how she’d reacted back in the gym spilling over to anyone in her general vicinity. “That’s like saying you don’t know who Pat Summitt is.”

A silence filled the apartment.

Julie turned her head slowly.

“I’m concerned that you’re not saying anything,” Julie said.

“Um.” Dahlia blinked.

“Oh my god.” Julie threw her head back against the love seat. “I do not have the capacity to process this right now. London, how the hell did you let Dahlia move here without telling her… anything.”

London held up their hands.

“I don’t know how I’m a part of this.”

Julie glared. “You are my twin. Bonded by blood. You should know that falling in love with someone requires you to give them at least a bare minimum history of the Tennessee Volunteers before you introduce them to me.”

“Obviously.” London rolled their eyes. “What was I thinking.”

“Guys. Jesus. I’ll google Pat. Someone tell me who Elle Cochrane is.”

Julie gave London one last look. “Obama gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, you know.”

“Elle Cochrane,” London said on a weary sigh, moving from the piano bench to the couch to drape an arm around Dahlia’s shoulder, “was the star point guard of the Tennessee Vols when we were teenagers, leading them to two Final Fours and one national championship. The Tennessee Vols, made legendary by Pat Summitt, who never coached a losing season. Who coached an Olympic team to a gold medal. And who was apparently also given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

“Thank you,” Julie muttered.

Dahlia turned to London, a curious look on her face.

“I didn’t know you knew sports.”

London shrugged, face smug. “I know some stuff.”

“Hot,” Dahlia assessed with an approving tilt of her chin.

Now Julie rolled her eyes. London only knew whatever stuff they’d learned from Julie.

“Can we please get back to me completely humiliating myself in front of the hottest person in the world?”

“We’ve been trying to,” London said, at the same moment Dahlia abruptly turned on the couch and said, “She’s hot?”

“Well.” Julie sank further into the cushions. “Yes. Obviously. Like, that is another fact. About her.”

London raised a brow.

Julie picked up Schnitzel, who had retreated to the corner of the love seat, and placed him back in her lap. That sentence about Elle’s hotness had just sort of… plopped out of her mouth, and its existence left Julie… disconcerted. Julie wasn’t typically a person who examined people’s hotness out loud.

Mercifully, London cleared their throat.

“Did you know she was coming to the practice? Is she doing outreach to local high schools or something? I haven’t heard anything about her for a while.”

“No, that was the shocking thing. I had ab. . .