The Best Friend Problem

by Mariah Ankenman

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Find love in unexpected places with these satisfying Lovestruck reads… The Best Friend Incident

  Her Super-Secret Rebound Boyfriend

  The Hook Up

  Meeting His Match

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Mariah Ankenman. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 105, PMB 159

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  rights@entangledpublishing.com

  Lovestruck is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Stacy Abrams and Judi Lauren

  Cover design by Bree Archer

  Cover photography by Lumina/Stocksy

  FollowTheFlow/GettyImages

  ISBN 978-1-64063-848-8

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition August 2019

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance you’ve come to expect, and we couldn’t do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.

  xoxo

  Liz Pelletier, Publisher

  To all the first responders who put their life on the line in the service and care of others.

  Thank you.

  Chapter One

  Men sucked. And Prudence Carlson didn’t mean that metaphorically.

  Her last date had literally sucked her finger into his mouth five minutes after they met. She supposed he was trying to be sensual, licking the bit of whipped cream she’d scooped up from her hot cocoa, but it had just creeped. Her. Out.

  And left her with no whipped cream.

  He’d been the latest disappointment in a long line of horrible dates. Which was why she’d deleted all her dating apps and sworn off men for good.

  After a string of shallow high school relationships—the best of which lasted all of six months—dozens of bad first dates, and Terrence the Terrible, her ex who was supposed to be The One but after two years together, left her the second he got a shiny job offer halfway across the country…she was done.

  Admittedly, that wasn’t entirely fair of her. Terrence had offered her the chance to move with him, but at the time, she’d been starting up her own business with her friends. A move wasn’t in the plan, and long distance hadn’t appealed to either of them.

  I can’t pass up this opportunity, Pru.

  But he could pass up on her. On their future.

  Whatever. She was over it. Over him.

  Now, anyway.

  It had taken almost eight months and an entire store’s worth of rocky road ice cream to navigate that rocky road of abandonment. But when she’d jumped back into the dating game, her heart just hadn’t had any trust in romance.

  Even her parents, rest their souls, most days had been so wrapped up in each other, they’d completely forgotten they had a daughter.

  Pru tugged on her ponytail, adjusting the perfect hairstyle. There was no sense in focusing on the past. Paying the “what if” game only led to heartbreak. If Pru wanted to achieve her goals, she had to think about the future, her heart’s desire.

  Too bad she needed a guy to get her heart’s desire.

  “No,” she spoke to herself in her empty bedroom. “I don’t need a guy. I just need his…stuff.”

  Glancing at the binder in her lap, she turned the page she’d been staring at for the past ten minutes, jotting down her notes in the yellow notepad at her side. Page after page of pictures, facts, bios, and health histories filled her brain, each one going onto the pros and cons checklist she was compiling so she could select the perfect candidate. The perfect donor.

  The perfect second set of DNA for my baby.

  Ever since she’d received her first baby doll at seven, Pru knew she wanted to be a mother, to have a family. One like the families she saw on TV. They always looked so happy and loving. Logically, she knew they were all actors playing roles and that family problems didn’t get solved in half an hour with a laugh track behind you. Still, art imitated life, right? It had to exist.

  And since she’d never had anything like that, she’d create one herself.

  A family.

  Something she lost too young. The void in her heart, the aching, yawning hole, had gotten smaller over the years, filled by her loving great-aunt and wonderful friends, but it hadn’t disappeared completely. She didn’t think it ever would, but she knew creating her own family would help. Start something new—wasn’t that what life was all about?

  At one time, she thought she could start that family with Terrence, but…

  Whatever. That ship sailed long ago. He hadn’t been The One like she’d thought.

  The One is just a silly fairy tale used to sell movies and merchandise.

  Great Aunt Rose’s oft-spoken words rang loudly in her head, as if the woman were sitting right beside her on the creaky ten-year-old mattress instead of resting peacefully in Fairmount Cemetery. A sharp pang struck her chest, dead center.

  “Miss you, Auntie Rose.”

  The silent room didn’t answer, but she didn’t expect it to. Pru didn’t believe in anything as silly as ghosts. Her best friend, Finn, had given her the nickname Practical Pru, and she supposed it fit. Better than wishing on stars and hoping your dreams came true. If you wanted something, you had to work hard and make it happen.

  “And that is exactly what I’m doing.” She glanced at the new information on the page she’d just turned. “With the help of one of you generous gentlemen, of course.”

  The whole traditional way to get a family hadn’t been working for her. And who said a family had to look like Even Stevens? Families came in all shapes and sizes. So she couldn’t find or trust a man to stay by her side through thick and thin. So what? If she wanted a baby, there were advances in science and guys willing to fill a cup for fifty bucks.

  Thanks to them, Pru could take destiny into her own hands.

  An image of a tiny, squishy, squirming baby filled her mind. Moisture gathered in her eyes, and she sniffed as a wave of longing washed over her. Her arms ached to hold her future baby. To shower the little peanut with all the love she had. When she pressed a hand to her chest, the strong beat of her heart pounded against her palm, every thump hitting with a steady surge that seemed to echo one word in her mind…

  Baby, baby, baby.

  For the past five years, she’d scrimped and saved, even with the ups and downs of starting a wedding planning business with her roommates—yes, she saw the irony in a woman who planned happily-ever-afters
for a living not believing in them herself—and she’d managed to stash away a nice nest egg for the fertility treatments and upcoming baby expenses.

  Pru was nothing if not a planner and expert budgeter. That’s why she handled the books for Mile High Happiness, the wedding planning company she and her two roommates ran. Denver had been experiencing a boom lately thanks to all Colorado had to offer: the majestic mountain peaks, the bustling city, and the legal…plant life.

  Starting a business was always a risk, but the picturesque appeal of the Mile High City and surrounding areas made it a premier wedding destination for locals and visitors alike. Six years in and the women were successfully running in the black with no signs of slowing down. She had her awesome friends, an amazing job, and a padded savings account. Now all Pru needed was her baby.

  “So, who’s the lucky fella going to be?”

  A loud chime made her jump before she realized it wasn’t the book of donors answering her but her cell phone indicating a text message. She snorted, silently chiding herself for her silliness, reaching for her phone.

  F: Need a rescue.

  The best friend code.

  She and Finn had made a pact in high school: if either of them was on a bad date and needed rescuing, the other would drop everything and come right away. Though she’d been on numerous bad dates with creeps, jerks, and just plain bores, she’d only used their code a handful of times. She preferred to end things herself. Finn, however, despite his muscular physique and plethora of tattoos, was a big ol’ softie and could never end a date without an excuse—no matter how badly it was going.

  If she had a dollar for every time he’d used the code, she could have paid for ten babies by now.

  P: Where?

  F: Strikers

  Oh, goody, the dimly lit pool hall that still reeked of cigarettes even though smoking indoors had been banned in Colorado since before she’d been legally allowed in bars. She sighed. Time to put on her BFF pants and rescue her sweet but clueless bestie.

  The man really needed to learn how to end a date that wasn’t going well. Maybe she should give him a cheat sheet of easy-out excuses.

  Although, truthfully, she didn’t mind that her friend needed her.

  Taking care of the people in her life gave Pru a sense of warmth deep in her heart. When her friends were happy, she was happy. So she didn’t mind rescuing Finn from bad dates or making sure her roommate, Mo, drank enough water after a midnight margarita party, or even seeing to the needs of her great aunt during her last years, as the old woman’s health had failed her.

  Closing her binder, she tucked it and the notepad into her bedside drawer before heading out of her room.

  “Going out?”

  She glanced into the kitchen table as she passed, spotting her roommate and business partner, Lilly Walsh, sitting in one of the dark oak chairs they’d bought at a thrift store, a pile of seating charts spread out before her on the table.

  “Yep. Best-friend rescue duty calls.”

  “I don’t understand why that man has such trouble dating,” Moira Rossi, her other roommate and business partner, said as she closed the fridge door, a slice of cake in hand. “He’s a solid twelve. How does he have so many bad dates? If I went out with him, I’d have my panties off before we got to dessert.”

  “You have your panties off with an eight before salads, Mo,” Lilly gibed without looking up from her charts.

  “Yeah, but that’s because I enjoy exploring my sexuality. Not all of us live the stifled life of a nineteenth-century crone.”

  Pru chuckled as Lilly sighed with a shake of her head. Mo simply smiled, shoving a bite of cake into her mouth. The three women were as different as night and day, but they’d all been assigned as roommates in college, and somehow, they’d just clicked and been together ever since.

  “Honestly, Pru,” Mo continued, sitting at the table and offering Lilly a forkful of cake. Predictably, the dark-haired woman waved her off, preferring salty snacks over sweet ones. “I do not know how you’re friends with Finn and don’t demand benefits. I bet he gives really, really good benefits.”

  First of all, ew.

  Second of all, she and Finn had been friends since the seventh grade.

  Sure, she wasn’t stupid. She knew her bestie was what some might call insanely hot. His deep blue eyes and sandy blond hair gave him the perfect boy-next-door look. His full tattooed sleeves and the undercut hairstyle he sported gave him a bad-boy vibe. The man was what Aunt Rose had referred to as a walking hot flash. Then there was his job. As a firefighter, Finn was a bona fide hero. What woman could resist that?

  Me.

  Yes, her bestie was hot, and a hero, but they’d been friends too long for her to throw everything away for one night of sex. And it would be one night. Much like he’d given her a nickname, she’d given him one: First Date Finn. Because the women who did make it to a first date rarely saw a second.

  Finn liked to keep it light and fun. And no way would Pru risk their years of solid friendship just for fun. She’d lost too much in her life. She refused to lose Finn, too.

  “I’m leaving before you make me vomit.”

  She grabbed her jacket and headed out the apartment door to the sound of Mo laughing. The elevator was notorious for taking forever, so Pru skipped it and made her way down the stairs. She needed the cardio anyway. A healthy body was important for the plans she had.

  The sharp chill of night air smacked her in the face as she pushed open the exit door and headed outside. Being mid-October, the days were still pretty warm, but the city cooled at night. Not cold enough to warrant hopping in her car, though—the bar was only a few blocks away, and parking in Denver was a bitch.

  It took less than ten minutes to get there. Once she showed her ID to the bouncer, she headed inside. Loud cracks and the smack of hard plastic billiard balls assaulted her ears, and the low din of conversation followed close behind. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light of the room. Strikers was located just off the 16th Street Mall, where large buildings with bright lights and businesses with flashy signs lined the street.

  After a few blinks, she could see the room clearly. The bar along the far wall was packed, as always, with people clamoring for the bartender’s attention. Twelve large pool tables took up the center of the room, all occupied but none of them sporting a six-foot-tall tatted firefighter desperately trying to escape a date.

  She moved farther into the room, ignoring the catcalls and disgusting propositions from a table of drunk men, one of whom appeared to be a future groom, if the Last Night of Freedom T-shirt was anything to go by.

  Ugh.

  In her years planning weddings, she’d seen everything, from solid relationships to disasters waiting to happen. She tried to believe in love—it was a part of her job, after all—but people made it so hard sometimes. Didn’t matter. She handled the finances. Lilly and Mo dealt with the clients, and they believed, Mo especially, in all that mushy crap enough for all of them.

  At the back of the pool hall was a sparse collection of small high-top tables, where she finally spotted the object of her quest. Finn sat at one of the tables with a woman who was chatting away, vibrantly waving her hand in the air as she spoke. She didn’t look like a serial killer. Light blond hair, cute black dress, spiky red shoes Pru knew Lilly would kill for. A pleasant smile lit her face as she continued speaking, barely pausing to take a breath. Pru didn’t see what was so wrong with this woman that Finn needed to text her for backup.

  But he had. So here she was. Duty called.

  “Hey, Finn. I’m so glad I found you.” She hurried over to the table, making sure she sounded breathless, as if she’d run the five blocks from her apartment. Must have worked because Chatterbox immediately closed her mouth. “You have to come home right away.”

  Blondie glared at Finn, a murderous rage suddenly lighting her eyes. “Oh shit, not again!”

  Huh, maybe she was a serial killer.

  �
�You’re married, aren’t you, you bastard!”

  “What?” Finn held up his hands. “No, I’m not. This is my friend Pru.”

  She’d say one thing for her bestie: He may not know how to break off a date well, but he sure as hell would never use a cruel lie to do it.

  “Oh, sorry.” Blondie winced. “I don’t mean to jump to conclusions but I’ve had a few bad experiences with guys saying they’re single when they’re not.”

  Pru nodded. Preaching to the choir, sister.

  “So, what’s wrong?”

  She glanced over at Finn. Oh right, she was supposed to be rescuing him.

  Usually they used the “personal emergency” excuse. Vague, urgent, but nothing horrible. Tonight, though, Pru found herself in a mood. Finn had dragged her away from important donor research. Not that he knew that, because she hadn’t shared her plan with him yet—or anyone else, for that matter. And here he was with a woman who seemed perfectly nice, if a little chatty, and he couldn’t work up a single “I don’t think this is working”?

  Trying her best to hide her smile, she shook her head sadly. “It’s Bruiser.”

  “Bruiser?”

  “His dog,” she said, answering the confused woman’s question.

  Finn’s chair scraped loudly, threatening to tip over with the force as he stood. “Bru Baby? What happened? Is she okay?”

  She felt slightly guilty for the look of panic in her best friend’s gaze. Slightly. He deserved some panic for being such a wuss that he needed a rescue from an easily escapable date.

  “I think she got into your fungus cream again.”

  His eyes narrowed, catching on. “Oh, did she now?”

  “Yup.” She rolled her lips to keep the laughter from escaping.

  “You have a dog?”

  He turned to face his date, panic abated since he knew Pru was messing with him and his fur baby was fine. Finn didn’t have any fungus cream in his apartment. The annoying guy didn’t even have the decency to get athlete’s foot and create a bit of physical disgust she could crow to Mo about.

  “Yes. A rescue. Adopted her two years ago.”

  His date gave a sort of smile-frown. “Oh, that’s sweet, but I’m allergic to dogs. And cats. All animals, really. I tried to get a hamster once, but I ended up with red eyes and a swollen throat two hours in.”