Suddenly Sexy(30)

"Maddie," Linda said on a loud sigh, "stop being so melodramatic. You dumped Sam remember."

"I didn't dump him. You have to be dating someone to dump them. We weren't dating, we were just..." She waved her hand in the air because she had no idea what to call her brief encounter with Sam.

But Linda jumped to her own conclusion. "Oh my God! You slept with him! Oh my God! I want details. I want to know everything. What were you wearing? Where did it happen? How big is it?" Her eyes were wide and Ronan gawped at the strange woman who'd possessed his mother. "I bet it's huge," she added. "Dotty McQueen says it's the best she's ever seen, and she's seen a few."

Maddie screwed up her nose at her sister. "Too much information. And before you burst a vein, I didn't sleep with Sam."

"Oh." Linda thought about that for a moment. "Oral sex?"

Maddie shook her head.

"Phone sex?"

"No. I didn't even see him naked. Okay?"

"No." Linda sniffed. "Not okay. I'm disappointed in you. You got my hopes up."

Linda loved Pete, Maddie knew that beyond a doubt. But sometimes she wished her sister had lived a little before they'd got married because Linda's idea of a good time was to get all the juicy details out of Maddie after every date. Since none of her dates in the last six months had ended with her doing the horizontal mambo, no wonder her sister was behaving like a starved animal.

"Well, I did see him naked from the waist up," Maddie conceded.

"Oh my God! What was his body like? I bet he's got a fantastic chest."

"Hmmm, he sure has." Maddie curled her fingers round the mug and squeezed. "His skin's tanned and smooth, and there's a small scar on his left shoulder."

"Sexy," Linda said on a breath.

Maddie fanned her cheeks. "Is it hot in here?"

"Yeah." Linda grinned. "Lucky you didn't have sex or this room would be on fire." The sisters giggled into their mugs. "I know you don't like me prying," said Linda, "but—"

Maddie groaned

"Why aren't you still seeing him? What went wrong?"

Maddie sighed. She'd been thinking about that all night, ever since Sam had dropped her at her front door. Around midnight, after two glasses of wine and a tub of cookies and cream ice cream, she'd decided she could wear Pheramour for the rest of her life. It wouldn't cost much since the formula was in her notebook.

But she'd fallen asleep on the couch before she could harness her courage and by morning the idea’s original appeal had worn off. It was juvenile, stupid. Maddie didn’t do juvenile or stupid.

"He thinks I'm a nerd," she said, not wanting to tell her sister about Pheramour yet. It was like admitting she'd cheated, and she'd never cheated at anything in her life. Not even at Monopoly as a kid, which was probably why Linda always won.

Linda shrugged. "You are a nerd."

Maddie didn't bother glaring at her because it would go unnoticed. Besides, her sister didn't really mean it. Not anymore. Ten years ago she had, and Maddie had taken the teasing to heart, but now Linda only called her a nerd when they disagreed. It had almost become a term of affection between them.

"But I don't want Sam thinking I'm a nerd. Calling each other names is not a healthy way to begin a relationship."

"Unless that name is Sweet Cheeks."

Maddie held up her hands and cringed. "I don't want to know what Pete calls you."

"It's not. It's what I call him."

"Eeew."

Linda smoothed down Ronan's hair, a smile on her lips. "Kidding aside, tell me what he said, Mad. We need to get to the bottom of this before, um, Ronan's nap time."

Maddie recounted the previous day's events, explaining that she didn't want to go in the water because she was wearing too-thin underwear, and he'd called her a nerd because of it. Linda roared with laughter when she got to the part where she'd ended up in the lake anyway, giving Sam and everyone else an eyeful.

When she stopped laughing, Linda said, "So that's why Pete and Sam used to bump us off the boats. I always wondered about that." A smirk crossed her lips. "Now I know why Mary Ellen got so many dates. I thought it was because she had a swimming pool."

"Linda! Forget about Mary Ellen and tell me what I should do."

Linda sighed but ended it with a giggle. "Okay," she said, "so you broke up because he sort of called you a nerd—which he didn't really."

Maddie rolled her eyes. Semantics. "Well?"

"I love you, Maddie, because you're my sister, but you fit the Aunt Mad title perfectly." She threw up one hand, the other still wrapped around Ronan, and let it fall on her knee with a slap. "You just dumped Sam Hennessy because you think he called you a nerd. You're insane!"