12 Steps to Mr. Right by Cindi Madsen

Author:Cindi Madsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Entangled; Select Contemporary; Contemporary Romance; Cindi Madsen; 12 steps to Mr. Right; Mr. Right; Twelve; Twelve Steps to Mr. Right; 12; rules; reunited lovers; second chance
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC (Select Contemporary)
Published: 2016-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

“I think I hate it,” Ivy said, frowning at the bright yellow wall she and I had finished painting. Since she finally picked a color for her living room, we decided to trade our Wednesday run for painting, figuring it’d at least be an arm workout.

Sure enough, my arms burned, as well as my thighs, thanks to all the squatting to get the bottom part of the wall. “It looks good.” I dropped the roller I’d been using on the plastic next to the paint tray. “Once we get it all done, you’ll see.”

The dismay filling her features increased, furrowed brows joining the frown. “It looks too happy.”

“Your house is supposed to look happy.”

“I feel like it’s rubbing its happiness in my face.”

I flopped down on her hardwood floor, grunting when the landing wasn’t as soft as I expected. “Then why’d you choose yellow?”

“The cute guy who was mixing the paint was busy,” she said, as if that were the only explanation I needed.

“I’m failing to see the correlation.”

“If no one else was around, I could’ve walked right up and done a little flirting, but when the line got longer instead of shorter, I realized I’d need an excuse to interrupt his work. So I grabbed a color swatch and got in line. He ended up being super boring, though—like, nothing going on upstairs at all—but he’d already mixed a can, and I thought it was good, because then I’d just have to stick with it.”

Yes, Ivy had commitment issues with men. I didn’t think the paint was so much a commitment issue, but more a result of being shuffled from house to house growing up. Small, rundown houses when her mama was single, and wherever her boyfriend or new-and-always-temporary husband lived during the duration of the relationship. This was Ivy’s first place that was all hers, and she wanted her haven to be perfect.

“By the way, how is your mama?” In the craziness of last week, from the ballgame to Session Three of my workshop, not to mention dinner on Sunday with my family, I’d forgotten about the call that’d taken her away from Azure over a week ago. I felt like a bad friend that it took me this long to ask about it, even though it was the first time we’d been able to hang out since.

“Not great.” Ivy dropped her roller next to mine. “She and Brett broke up. She was a mess, but we found her an apartment in Jonesboro, and I was able to get her mostly moved in before I had to go back to work.”

Ivy wiped her yellow splattered hands on her equally splattered jeans and then lowered herself next to me. “She wanted to live with me until she”—Ivy made air quotes—“got back on her feet. Which we both know means until she finds another boyfriend who’ll ask her to move in with him.”

Ivy pulled her knees to her chest and tucked her chin on them. “Was it mean to

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