Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3) - Talia Hibbert Page 0,86

breakouts weren’t limited to one’s teenage years (horribly unfair, if you asked her), but she didn’t need to come to terms with the signs of autism listed on these websites. She knew very well who she was and who she wasn’t, and she’d already spent a long, difficult time learning to like herself despite those differences. Having a possible reason for them didn’t change much.

But then, she also couldn’t see herself following the steps on this page that described how to secure a diagnosis. Whereas plenty of other people might want to. So perhaps this was different for everyone.

No, it almost certainly was.

Satisfied, Eve locked the tablet and tucked this latest development safely against her heart. She was still ruminating over what she’d found—and painting her toenails, of course, which was the best way to ruminate—when someone knocked on the door an hour later. Jacob. Would she tell him?

No. Not yet. These thoughts were just hers, for now, until she’d explored them fully.

That decided, she heaved herself off the sofa, her toes spread for maximum safety and minimum smudges, and waddled over to answer the door.

It swung open to reveal a disgracefully tall and alarmingly attractive woman with hair like a thunderstorm, or a ’50s lounge singer, or a ’50s lounge singer who was also a thunderstorm. Not Jacob, then. The woman flipped her dark, riotous waves over one broad shoulder and said in a low, throaty voice, “Hi.”

Eve blinked. Gosh. She’d very nearly blurted out, You’re pretty, like some sort of overwhelmed toddler.

“We’ve come,” the thunderstorm ’50s singer went on decisively, “to take you out.” By the set of her sharp jaw and the flint in her doe eyes, that was not a request.

“For God’s sake, Tess, you sound like a hitwoman,” came an irritable voice from the hallway. “Maybe start with the fact that we’re Mont’s sisters.” The goddess was thrust aside by an equally tall, brown woman with razored short hair and narrowed eyes. While the first woman—Tess?—wore a tight gold dress with enough sequins to confuse air traffic (Eve approved), the second wore jeans and a crisp, white shirt that made her look rather dapper. “Hi. I’m Alex Montrose and this is Tessa. You’re Eve, yeah?” She held out a long-fingered hand, and it took Eve a heartbeat to reconnect her brain to her . . . other brain and realize she was supposed to shake.

“Erm,” she said. “Yes.” She squeezed Alex’s hand limply, murmured, “Enchanté,” then wondered why the bloody hell she’d said such a thing. Oh, well. She was alarmed, she was taken aback, and her toes were still slightly wet. Under such circumstances, she could not be blamed for a little ridiculousness.

Alex arched her eyebrows, one of which was sharply bisected by a pale scar, before continuing. “We are here to bully you out of the house.”

“Well,” piped up Tessa, “the B&B.”

“Which is a house, Tess.”

“And if I called a camper van a—a car, you’d be horrified.”

“I wouldn’t give a flying fuck,” Alex said calmly, and somehow sauntered past Eve into the room.

“Liar,” Tessa said, and flipped her hair some more, and followed. She turned to Eve, who was still standing, slightly dazed, by the door. “Do you like my hair? Roller set. Twenty-four hours and seven different YouTube tutorials! I had to sleep on the rollers. What a nightmare. Anyway, get dressed.”

“You’re doing this all wrong,” Alex told her. Eve noticed that Alex had made herself comfortable on Jacob’s weight bench, of all things, lying back and propping up one knee, staring at the ceiling with her hands over her stomach. She had a thick, dark scar wrapped all around her wrist like a bracelet.

“I’m doing it wrong? You’re lying on the furniture,” Tessa said, but by now Eve had noticed their bickering held zero heat. As if they were simply annoying each other for the fun of it. “Now, Eve, I know this is all very sudden, but Jacob told us you urgently needed to socialize, and we are his only friends aside from Mont—”

“Friends?” Alex snorted.

Eve found herself suddenly scowling. “Jacob’s only next door, you know. He can probably hear you.”

“Good,” Alex grinned, raising her voice, at which point Eve realized this was a gentle in-joke, as opposed to actual Jacob-hating, and felt rather silly.

“Well,” Tessa said thoughtfully, “we’re probably not his only friends. He gets on very well with that older lady who runs the cheese counter at the supermarket and also the man who washes out the wheelie