Page 7 of Good Girl’s Guide to Love (Guide to Love #4)

My neck whips to Stella, and if I was blushing before, I’m sure it’s as red as a tomato right now. “Excuse me?”

Stella turns her phone to me. “Is this not you and said football player? My, my…Ainsley’s had quite the day.”

I grab her phone to study it closer. The actual picture is of a patient posing with one of the other players I didn’t meet. But in the background, through the glass wall of his hospital room, is Linc and I, having a moment that I’m going to remember forever.

My mind replays the interaction. I’m going to guess, based on that I’m actually looking down and not into his hypnotizing eyes, that I was probably apologizing for the tenth time about running into him.

I can tell I’m blushing, so maybe it’s when he said I made his day.

Which I’m sure I didn’t, but it was nice of him to say it nonetheless.

“Let me see!” Quinn grabs the phone out of my hands, and Maeve runs around the table to get a look for herself. “Damn, sis. That’s more than a moment. That’s a look! ”

“Are you serious?” Simon jumps from his seat, coming to look at the phone, because despite being the only male sibling, he loves gossip maybe more than we do. “Ainsley! What is going on, and why is one of my favorite football players giving you a fuck-me smirk?”

I let out a deep sigh, because despite not wanting to admit all of this, it looks like what I want is not a consideration here. “I ran into him. Literally. And whatever you think, it’s not an eff-me smirk. He was just being polite and making me feel better because it was an awkward situation.”

“Wait,” Quinn says as she sits back down. “Do you mean actually literally, like you physically ran into him? Or like how Stella likes to say literally but she means figuratively?”

I hold up a number one to the question. “The first. I was running out of the nurse’s locker room because I was running a little late to get here—which was because of the Fury visit, so I didn’t technically lie—and I wasn’t looking where I was going.

So yes, ran right into him. Fell on my butt and everything. ”

“Holy shit,” Porter says, a little laughter in his voice. “I had an idea what I was getting into with this family, but every time y’all tell a story, I’m amazed a little more that these kinds of things happen to the Bankses.”

“We are one of a kind,” Quinn says. “And now my sister is going to get with a hot football player!” She raises her hands like she just scored a touchdown personally.

“That’s not happening,” I say definitively. “I ran into him. I fell on my butt. I apologized. He didn’t make me feel bad about it. The end. We didn’t even actually exchange names.”

“Neither did Emmett or I at first,” Stella said. “And look where that got us.”

“You two are different,” I say. “You did it because you were running from a wedding. I did it because I was panicking that I was late. It’s not like I’m ever going to see him again.”

“But you want to,” Quinn sing-songs as she wags her eyebrows.

I narrow my eyes at my sister, because she knows I can’t lie to her. They all do. It’s not in my blood. I’ve always been a rule follower, and telling the truth is my number-one rule.

But Linc isn’t my type. I might not’ve met my match with Jonathan, but that’s what I’m looking for.

He’s my speed. Not a six-foot-five, larger than life, tattooed football player who gives smirks and winks to embarrassed nurses.

Sure, he might be hot, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Plus, if what Mia said is true about his past, then he’s definitely not my type.

I’m the good girl of the Banks bunch and bad boys are not my scene.

“No, I don’t,” I say as confidently as possibly. “You know he isn’t my type.”

“Oh, and Jonathan was?” Quinn says sarcastically. “I love you, but if you honestly tell me that a five-foot-seven, balding, clingy twerp is your type and not this guy? Then damn…we as sisters didn’t do our job.”

“Jesus Christ, Quinn,” Maeve says, shaking her head. “You need a fucking filter.”

“Did I tell a lie? Tell me the lie, and I’ll take it back. And I didn’t even mention his weird weather fascination. Who logs daily humidity levels?”

“I still don’t get that one,” Simon says. “I asked him to go golfing once and for the entire round he told me about the dew points and barometric pressure. It was horrible.”

I almost forgot about his weird weather-tracking hobby. Though the information I learned involuntarily via being around him has come in handy when I’m trying to decide if I need to bring my rain boots to work.

“Y’all, we’re missing the bigger picture,” Stella says. “You ran into him, Ainsley. Literally bounced off of him. How is that not the movie meet-cute that you’ve been dreaming about since you were a little girl? How is our soulmate-believing sister not saying this is fate?”

She’s right. I do believe in that. Soul mates. The invisible string. If it has even the smallest hints of a happily ever after, I’m the champion of it. But this wasn’t it.

Right? No. My moment isn’t coming at the hospital with me on the floor and a bruised butt.

“I’m just saying, if you run into him again—literally or figuratively—I’d maybe drop your name.” Stella sets down her phone on the table, the picture now taking up her whole screen. “Because if any man ever looked at one of us like that, you’d be telling us to marry him on the spot.”

I don’t say anything in response to Stella, and thankfully, the conversation flows to another topic, and within the hour, everyone is saying their goodbyes and heading home.

When I slip into my sensible hybrid sedan, I turn it on but don’t go anywhere.

After the conversation turned away from me, I thought I was over my sad single blues.

That’s until I watch as Emmett helps boost Stella into his massive truck.

And look on as Logan kisses Maeve’s forehead before closing the door behind her.

Quinn and Porter stand hand-in-hand at the door of The Joint, waving goodbye, Grace opening and closing her small hand too.

They’re all going to go home and fall asleep next to their people. Someone that isn’t blood related is going to say “I love you.”

Then there’s me. I’m going to climb in bed and curl up with my Kindle and read about an epic love that might one day find me. No one is going to kiss me goodnight. No one’s going to hold me in their arms as we fall asleep together. I could’ve had it…but I sent it away.

“No, Ainsley,” I whisper to myself as I turn on the car. “You’re better off single. He wasn’t it. So as lonely as you are, you are not, under any circumstance to call him. Or text him. Don’t like a social media post. Don’t go look up his hospital profile. Just drive.”

I let out a breath and put my phone on the dock when I notice a text come through. And thank God I wasn’t driving, because when I see who it’s from, I would’ve no doubt driven into a concrete road divider.

Jonathan

Hey you. Can we talk?

I quickly close out of the text and throw my car into drive. I know I won’t text him back if I’m on the road, and maybe after my drive back to Nashville I’ll conveniently forget he messaged me.

Or by the time I get home I’ll convince myself that it’s a sign and message him back.

Only time will tell.