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hopeless.”
    “What if Bobby wants to hook up with someone?” Ashley asks sweetly.
    I glare at her. “Stop talking right now.”
    Ashley laughs. They’ve all accused me of being overprotective of Bobby before. I admit, I spent a fair bit of energy my senior year making sure he didn’t spend his freshman year swimming in a vat of beer at the frat house. But in those first years after our mom died, I was the only one looking out for him. Old habits die hard.
    “Hold up,” Sam says to me. “Give me one shot. I say we go to the Perched Owl after dinner tonight and find you a hot guy to be your date at the reception. I promise I’ll find you someone completely fuckable. If not, you can trail after little Bobby tomorrow and worry he’s going to find someone completely fuckable.”
    “Anyway,” I say pointedly, “tell me what happened with your Portland job. I never got to hear the story.”
    She gives me a look that tells me she’s not done, but says, “Well, there’s not a ton to tell.” She’s apparently had her fun for now and is going to let it go. Thank god. The last thing I need is another one night stand.
    “It was a little disappointing because I wasn’t working on anything exciting. Brochures and web copy and crap like that. That’s to be expected when you’re the newbie, I guess. The part that drove me crazy was my department head.” She rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her beer. “Everything had to go through him and, let me tell you, that guy was an ass and a half. If I didn’t need the job and a good reference I would’ve told him to stick it a week in.”
    “He didn’t like your work?” Isabella asks.
    Sam shrugs. “He liked it fine and knew how to make it better. He knows his shit, I’ll give him that. I did learn a lot, but gawd he’s just such an abrasive ass. Normally I like abrasive.”
    All three of us nod.
    “But he had these pet names for everyone in the department, and that just irritated the hell out of me. He thinks he’s being cute, but he’s not and everyone just kind of tolerates it.”
    “How’d a guy like that end up in charge?” Isabella asks.
    “What was his pet name for you?” I want to know.
    Sam makes a face at me. “Munchkin. He even sang the fucking munchkin song to me once. The asshole.”
    I grin as she looks at Isabella. “Because his cousin is one of the partners, and because he’s a damned designing genius. I hate that guy.”
    Isabella and I laugh. Maybe Sam looks upset, but trust me, when Sam’s upset there’s no question about it. No jokes. No calling anyone a genius. When she’s pissed she’s a little flaming ball of napalm and everyone with half a brain knows to get the hell out of her way.
    She spends a few more minutes entertaining us with tales of her old job and filling us in on her new one, then we start talking about Isabella and Shane’s honeymoon plans.
    “How long are you going to be in Greece?” I ask.
    “A couple weeks,” she says, “but we actually just added a week to our trip so we can go to England too. He thinks we’re just doing the London thing, but I have a surprise for him. I hired a researcher to look into his family history, and she finally sent me what she found. She traced one of his lines all the way back to 1684 in Cornwall, England! His family even has a crest. So I’m taking him to check out the little village his family is from.”
    “Oh my god,” Sam says, grinning, “you guys are such nerds.”
    Isabella sticks her tongue out, then grins. “I’m getting his crest framed for his office too. He’s going to be so excited.”
    “Oh yeah,” Sam says, leering, “ how excited?”
    “Shut up, Sam,” Isabella retorts, but her smile says it all.
    Sam laughs, then her eyes light on me suddenly and she says, “Oh, Chloe! I was digging through your archives the other day and found your Turtle Brownie recipe.” Her eyes roll up and she puts her hand on her chest. “Oh my god, soooooo good!”
    I