{Insta} Boyfriend

{Insta} Boyfriend Book One Jen Atkinson For Gracie & Halle Who once upon a time, had fake fiancés so they could try on wedding gowns. THE {INSTA} SERIES THIS IS A STAND ALONE SERIES The {INSTA} series will make sense whichever order you choose to read them! But will be most fun, if read in order. {INSTA} Boyfriend {INSTA} Connection {INSTA} Kiss {INSTA} (surprise!) One Iris The sun sits over the horizon, lowering down into the earth—and right in my eyes! Sure, it’s pretty, but the glowing ball of fire right in front of my face is making it a real bugger to follow my GPS at the moment. Driving into the sun and talking to my sister equals one too many jobs for my brain right now. Not to mention the bomb my cousin just dropped on me. “Whoa. Slow down. Say that again, because there’s no way I heard that right!” My sister’s voice bellows through the cab of my vehicle. “Ebony! I can’t talk any slower, I’m driving to go see them right this second. I’m—” A clunking noise stops me short. “Crap.” “Crap? What?” she says through the speakers in my Volvo. My heart jolts. “I think I just hit something.” I hold back my wail and try not to picture anything dead left in my wake. “Hold up, Snow White,” Ebony says. “Don’t panic on me now.” “I think I’m gonna be sick.” My knuckles go white as I grip my steering wheel. “What? Iris, what’s going on over there? Do you need to call someone closer to you?” My eyes prick with unshed tears and my throat swells to an ache. “There is no one closer to me than you, Ebony! We shared the same womb!” I dart a glance into my rearview mirror. A rabbit? Or… no! Bambi? I swear if I just killed Bambi I will never forgive myself. “I mean like someone in the same state. Iris, I’m in Washington. You’re in Colorado—what can I do from here?” She sounds almost panicked and my one minute older, hot shot, sports writing sister doesn’t get panicked. She’s cool, calm, and collected. Everything I am not. “I don’t know!” I squint into the sun, looking ahead and then behind in my rearview mirror—seeing if whatever I hit is limping away or in need of a funeral. “There’s no one else on this stupid road.” Besides me and Bambi. Another clunk sounds, this time followed by smoke rising from my engine. “Crap!” I bellow again. I think I’m in trouble—which hopefully in the yin and yang world means that Bambi is okay. I sigh a little with the thought. “That’s it, Iris. Where are you? I’m calling Shelia.” “Don’t you dare! Not after the bomb that traitor cousin just dropped on me. I’ll be fine. I’ll—” My car lurches and I realize probably five minutes too late that I really need to pull over and assess. “I’ll call you back!” I tap the end call button on my steering wheel. But my car, my little Daredevil slows on its own, before I even hit the brake. “This isn’t good.” I wish Hazel were here. More smoke rises from my little red hood. “Nooo,” I moan. “Poor little, Daredevil.” I rub my hand over the dash of my Volvo and breathe out a tired sigh. I am going to kill Shelia. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and find out that instead of Bambi, I drove over my cousin a mile back.” I like Bambi so much more than Shelia right now. “Bambi would never betray me.” My voice sounds eerie in the quiet of the car. I clamp my mouth closed and look out into the twilight of the evening. The sun winks out, now instead of blinding me, or offering me a little light, it’s hiding. Jerk. Why did Shelia pick a late dinner for this meeting anyway? How in the world am I supposed to inspect the venue with the sun practically gone? My pulse drums in my wrists and neck. My heart thumps—my entire body a live wire. I snatch my phone from its handy-dandy magnetic mount and type in Shelia’s name. Running late. Car troubles. She doesn’t text back. I don’t know if she’s gotten it. But then, she and Travis can sit and wait until they’ve expired for all I care. I step out into the brisk forty-five degree weather, thankful to my trusty Converse for keeping my toes covered. Ebony may have talked me into a skirt for this sorry excuse of a business meeting, but I refused to wear pumps or even dressy flats. No way. Not now. Not ever. One day I will wed in a pair of white Converse tennis shoes. And if he’s the right man, he’ll be in black high tops. If only I had been just as stubborn about this stupid skirt. But Ebony had insisted, “It’s a business meeting. You need to look professional.” “It’s Shelia and some guy who doesn’t care about wedding photos,” I’d told her. But in the end she convinced me. As the wind swirls up my ankles to my thighs, I regret not buying those black slacks last month. Surely, Ebony would have thought black slacks dressy enough. However, my jeans and hello kitty leggings did not impress her. At least my toes are warm inside my tennies. I pop open the hood—to do what? I have no idea. A swirl of steam shoots up with the rise of Daredevil’s top. “Cheese and crackers!” I squawk. I step backward and hold a hand over my mouth. And the smoke keeps rising, as if it’s on a mission. There’s a cylinder-ish metal piece that the smoke seems to stem from. I watch it for a second. I don’t even know what the part is called, let alone what to do with it. I can’t fix this. So, I do what I do best. I grab my Cannon EOS, who