Page 42 of Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail

Astrid nodded. “I’m terrible. Truly.”

Jordan narrowed her eyes, then glanced over at her brother. She watched Simon talk with Jillian for a second, before she turned back to Astrid and grabbed her club from where she’d set it on the floor to clean up.

“Okay, Parker, let’s do this.” Then she tossed her ruined cup into the trash and flourished her arm toward the French doors, indicating Astrid should go first.

Astrid swung her own club onto her shoulder, much like she’d done with the sledgehammer during demolition, and walked onto the course without a backward glance.

Chapter Thirteen

JORDAN HATED TOadmit it, but she wasn’t one hundred percent miserable right now as she watched Astrid Parker struggle with the par three on hole number four.

“God, you really are terrible,” she said.

“I told you,” Astrid said. She was attempting, for the fifth time, to get her lime-green ball over a tiny Golden Gate Bridge that was in the process of being damaged by a city-ruining earthquake. Every ten seconds or so, the iconic red metal bridge rattled and undulated, causing Astrid’s ball to slip and slide everywhere except where she wanted it to go.

Jordan would have thought that the way Astrid huffed and muttered a quiet “goddammit” under her breath was a little bit cute, if she were allowing herself those kinds of thoughts at all.

Which she wasn’t.

Nor was she letting herself check out Astrid’s surprisingly curvy ass in her jeans as she bent over her club. This little tête-à-tête with Astrid was just good business sense. That’s all it was.

“So,” Jordan said loudly—a little too loudly, as Astrid startledand knocked her club into her ball before she was ready—“that’s quite the group you have with you.”

She waved her own club toward the rest of their group, who were only on hole two because they kept stopping to talk, or someone ran back to the bar to get refills, or Delilah—who was evidently even worse at mini-golf than Astrid—accidentally tossed her club into hole one’s chemically blue pirate lagoon.

Astrid reset her ball but then straightened up and sighed, eyes narrowing softly on her friends. “Yeah. They’re one of a kind, that’s for sure.”

“Are they always so...”

“Loud?”

Jordan laughed. “I was going to sayspirited.”

“You’re polite.”

They fell silent as Astrid hit the ball—the bridge burped and rumbled and spat it right back to her—while Jordan watched her brother and the others.

Simon was laughing while Iris laid out her case for why she should get an extra swing, which apparently had something to do with the full moon and the fact that her drink didn’t have enough ice.

“Are you always so maddening?” Simon asked.

“You have no idea,” Iris said, grinning at him and slurping at her cup.

Simon laughed even louder, his eyes glowing, his smile bright, his posture relaxed and confident. Jordan loved her brother, probably more than she loved anyone else on earth other than Pru. But sometimes, a little twinge of jealousy flickered to life in her chest. Her twin truly loved life, and it loved him back.

Fiercely.

A bestselling debut novel, undeterred faith in true love despite getting his heart crushed more than once, coming out. Deep in her heart, she knew she wasn’t being completely honest with herself—Simon had experienced some very real heartache in his life, and he was bulliedpretty heavily when he came out as bi their freshman year of high school. Still, as soon as the quarterback on the football team came out as pan a mere three weeks later, the bullying magically stopped. Not that she wished it had been harder for him. Of course she didn’t. But sometimes she just... she didn’t know. His smiles, his success, his endless search for a great love that kept him so goddamnhopefulall the time—it all made her feel like she was on an island by herself.

The feeling had gotten worse since Meredith. Everything had gotten worse, of course, her whole life imploding, while Simon glided into a feature in the SundayTimes. She could charm theInnside Americacrew, but that was work. She had a context there. Drop her in the middle of this boisterous group, and she was lost.

“They make it look so easy,” Jordan said now.

Astrid had halted her journey across the bridge and gazed at her friends.

“Make what look easy?” she asked.

A tiny smile lifted the corners of Jordan’s mouth. “Life. Fun.”