Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3) - Talia Hibbert Page 0,16

multiple times. The name FLORENCE LENNOX flashed up on the screen. Eve sighed, hesitated, then pressed Accept. In her experience, the best way to deal with Bad Feelings was to avoid facing them by any means necessary. Whatever Florence wanted would do wonderfully as a distraction.

“Hello?”

“Darling! There you are, I texted twice.”

“Twice?” Eve murmured. “Goodness. Please thank your fingers for their service.”

Florence released a waterfall of tinkling laughter, which was strange, since she never usually laughed at Eve’s jokes. In Florence’s circle, Eve was the Baker Friend—which meant they called her up when they needed event cakes, then invited her to whatever said event happened to be, as a form of payment. Following which, they gently ignored her until the next party.

Eve had a designated status in every friendship group she belonged to. That was how she managed to cling to the periphery of them all.

“Oh, darling, you’re hilarious. But, do listen—I have a proposition for you.”

Eve frowned at the phone. A proposition was not how Florence usually spun, A request for you to bring a three-tiered topsy-turvy cake to my mother’s fiftieth birthday.

“Yeees?”

“Don’t sound so nervous!” Flo had a charming habit of noticing and immediately articulating weakness. A bit like a wolf that could talk. “It’s about your little events company. Now, I know you love to take over the cakes and things for all my parties.”

Love might be an overstatement, but Eve didn’t hate it. Fucking up a favor was nearly impossible—and people were always so pleased when they tasted her double-fudge.

Causing happiness was about the only thing that still made her sparkle.

“I thought cakes were your only real skill,” Florence was droning on, “but it seems you’ve been hiding other talents, you naughty thing. Because I’ve heard amazing things about the wedding you planned.” She paused. “Well, except for that odd rumor about your biting off a dove’s head and spitting feathers into the bride’s face, but never mind that. My point is—it’s little Freddy’s birthday in February, and he’s just given our original party planner the clap, so we need a new one. One he probably won’t give the clap.”

Little Freddy Lennox was Florence’s twenty-year-old brother. Eve considered several responses—for example, I actually just closed my company down, or, All I did was free the doves, that lying cow. But in the end, she settled on stammering, “Er—Florence, does that—well, what I mean to ask is . . . Erm, the clap is some sort of euphemism, isn’t it?”

Florence laughed. “Silly goose. Of course it is!”

Eve relaxed.

“It’s a euphemism for Freddy shagging the party planner and giving her chlamydia, darling. And what a frightful fit she’s thrown about it, too.”

“I . . . see,” Eve croaked. I see was a lovely, neutral phrase. Much more socially acceptable than Bloody hell, Florence, what the fuck is your family on?

But really. If you were going to sleep with staff, practicing safe sex seemed the very least you could do. Or perhaps she was being judgmental?

“Now, darling, we will of course be paying you—you’re an entrepreneur now!” Florence trilled. As Eve wasn’t particularly close to, well, any of her friends, none of them had a complete picture of just how many times she’d been an entrepreneur. Her failures were her own private wounds to lick, thank you very much. “And since the party’s not until February,” Florence went on, “we won’t need to start consultations until . . . September.”

Eve blinked. “That’s six months before the actual party, Flo.”

“Well,” came the frosty reply, “this is Freddy’s twenty-first, Eve. If you can’t take that fact seriously—”

“No,” Eve blurted, that disapproving tone making her stomach roil. It reminded her of being at school, when life had revolved around avoiding too much soul-shriveling attention from students or teachers. “No, that’s not what I meant. But, Flo . . . I’m not sure if I’m up to this at the moment.” Understatement of the year. Eve had rather a lot on her plate, what with today’s mild familial disowning and mild vehicular maiming. Plus, September was only a month away, and she should probably spend that month job-hunting.

She braced herself for a Hurricane Florence tantrum, and possibly for temporary ostracism from one of her many friendship groups. Instead, after a slight pause, she heard . . .

A sniffle?

“Evie,” Flo said, sounding rather damp. “Please. I know it’s a sudden ask, and Freddy can be a bit difficult, but he’s really fluffed things up with this party planner woman and our parents are going