Sugarlips (Beefcakes Book 2)

by Katana Collins

  Despite my chuckle, my heart bottomed out into my stomach. Chloe was single. Which means, if she and I were only friends, I’d have to watch as she started dating again. That fact hadn’t quite sunk in yet.

  I took a step back. “Neil and I have this covered. Why don’t you head home?”

  She blinked, seemingly surprised. “Oh. Yeah… sure. My sister’s probably waiting for me, anyway.”

  At the mention of her sister, I felt Neil’s awareness of us like an electric charge over my skin. “I’m glad you stayed for dinner though.”

  “Me too,” she said, grabbing her purse. Then, with a light nudge of her elbow, she leaned into me. “Even if you didn’t want me staying initially.”

  “What? I didn’t say that—”

  She rolled her eyes and draped her sweater over her forearm. “Oh, please. The Evans family really needs to learn to talk quieter.” She hitched her thumb over her shoulder down the hall. “Can I use your restroom before I go?”

  I nodded and she made her way down the hall. Neil’s palm pressed against my back, nudging me after her. “Go walk her out,” he whispered.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Not you, too. I’ve already got Mom playing matchmaker. And I’m not going to date your ex-girlfriend’s little sister.”

  “Jesus, dude. I’m just saying you should walk her to her car. You don’t have to shove your tongue down her throat.”

  I gave him a look and shook my head, drying one of the wet plates with a towel. “You’re really not upset by our… friendship?”

  Even saying that word regarding Chloe felt weird.

  Neil shrugged and packed away the leftovers into Tupperware. “I can’t say I’m not surprised. You two seem so opposite. But she makes you laugh. Which, let’s face it—anyone who can make your sourpuss smile is someone worth being friends with.”

  I ignored the pointed way he said friends. In response, I got a huffy sigh from my big brother. “Look, it’s almost nine and dark outside. Your condo parking lot only has one little light in the center. Mom would kick your ass if you didn’t walk her to her car.”

  He was right about that. Mom valued chivalry and manners above most things.

  I set the dry plate in the cabinet above the stove. “You sure you’re okay with this food truck thing?”

  Neil shrugged. “It’s not really my place to be okay with it. I’m just… surprised. You never really mentioned it.”

  “I guess the share stick was never passed to me.” And you never asked, I thought, immediately cringing at the accusation in my head. It wasn’t Neil’s fault I didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up. In a family of five, it was sometimes hard to be heard above the noise. Neil was the famous one. Even if he wasn’t home a whole lot, he got the attention, not me. Addy was the loudest—the squeaky wheel of the family, and especially between us twins, she was the boisterous one. And then there was Finny… the baby of the family. He was quirky and fun. Cute. Sporty. Everyone loved him.

  Neil smiled—or at least, his mouth turned upwards. It wasn’t quite the smile he’d had these last few months, but it was something. “If it’s your dream, I’m excited for you. Let me know if you want any help baking or prepping before I leave for Budapest.”

  “You’d do that?”

  He nodded. “Of course. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me. But if you’re going to be spending some of your time outside Beefcakes on the food truck, we should probably start interviewing people to help at the bakery in my absence.”

  “And beyond,” I added. “With your stunt facility and the food truck, we’re going to need the help even after you come home.”

  The bathroom door shut from down the hall, and Neil jerked his chin in the direction of the sound, whispering, “Go.”

  I shuffled down the hall, catching Chloe as she exited the bathroom, shaking water off her hands. She grinned that infectious smile of hers, and warmth radiated down my body.

  “Thanks again for dinner,” she said.

  I opened the front door, holding it for her, ignoring the tingling sensation that surged up my arm where her knuckle brushed against mine. “Any time. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “I think you mean my truck.”

  “You’re… you’re driving that home?”

  She nodded, holding up a set of tarnished keys between her pinched fingers.

  I blinked. She wasn’t serious, was she? “Is it even safe to drive?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I drove it here. How do you think it arrived? Magic?”

  “I—I guess I didn’t really think about it. Do the lights even work?”

  She shrugged, seeming completely unworried by this death can on wheels. “Probably.”

  My mouth gaped open. “You didn’t even check when you bought it? Earlier tonight, when you said you had some sort of look at it… was that a lie?”

  “Of course not! I’m not a total idiot. I wouldn’t buy a vehicle without someone checking under the hood.”

  “Who looked it over? Jake? Riley?” They owned the auto body shop in town, and if they gave it the thumbs up, I had no doubts it would be safe to drive.

  “Mack,” Chloe stated simply, as if I should know who the hell that was.

  “Who?”

  “Tanja’s, um, friend.”

  I blinked, staring at her completely flummoxed. “Is he a mechanic?”

  “He’s… an enthusiast.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, a small thrumming headache blossoming behind my eyes. “Okay,” I said, inhaling deeply before letting the breath out slowly. I snatched my keys out of the bowl by the door. “First thing’s first… I’m giving you a ride home.”

  “Mack said it was safe—”

  “Great. And we’ll get a professional to verify that tomorrow. But tonight, at 9:30 p.m., I’m not going to be responsible if the brakes on that fail and you go over the guard rails on Juneway Cliff.” And forgive me for not trusting Tanja’s flavor-of-the-week boy toy, I thought, but didn’t add.

  I didn’t give Chloe a chance to respond, shuffling her out my front door toward my car. But if her sigh was any indication, she thought I was overreacting.

  Hell, maybe I was. But I’d rather be safe and have Chloe alive than risk it and find that truck in a ditch tomorrow.

  “I don’t even drive over Juneway Cliff to get home,” she muttered as I opened the passenger door for her.

  I shut her carefully inside the car, muttering to myself as I walked around to the driver’s side, “Not the damn point.”

  The drive to Chloe’s house only took about five minutes—and while I didn’t want to admit it, I knew the way by heart. Not that I was stalking her or anything. I just remembered when she and Dan bought the house. Her mom had ordered a cake from us to celebrate. That was back when my mom was still baking, but I was helping out, assisting and delivering for her. I brought the cake to them one morning and on the way, I saw Dan walking a woman—who was decidedly not Chloe—down his driveway. I remember thinking it was a little strange, but only a sociopath would cheat in the new home he had just bought with his fiancé that week, right?

  Well, I was right… Dan was basically a sociopath.

  I cleared my throat, pulling into her driveway and putting the car in park behind Elaina’s sensible sedan. The lights were on in the house, casting a warm, yellow glow across Chloe’s face. “I’m going to call Riley tomorrow to come check out the truck for us,” I said.

  Chloe nodded and handed me the rusty keys. Her long, blush-pink fingernails scraped my palm, and for a fraction of a second, I imagined those nails digging into my shoulders. I felt my face go hot and looked away from her. Why do men do that? I remembered reading once that men think of sex every eight seconds… but when I was near Chloe? It felt more like every two or three seconds.

  “Text me what time and I’ll be there, too,” she said. Her fingers closed around mine and she squeezed my hand, then added, “I’m really excited we’re doing this.”
>
  I laughed. “I can tell. You very exuberantly bought a truck without consulting me.”

  She winced. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll eat the cost if it’s really unfixable.”

  I shrugged. “You drove it to my house, so at the very least, it’s running. It can’t be that bad.” I was still suspicious, but frankly, couldn’t do much about that until we had it checked out.

  Her eyes went wide, the blue irises looking nearly green in the yellowish light. “Exactly! We’re like one mind!”

  I barked a laugh but nodded. “Sure,” I said. Her hand was still wrapped around mine and I could feel her rapid pulse thrumming against the inside of her wrist. Was her heart racing, too? Or was that just my imagination?

  “Well, I should go.” Her fingers peeled away from mine, and a shiver rocked down my spine in the wake of her touch.

  She got out of the car, quietly shutting the door, and walked the path to her front door.

  Rolling down my window, I called out to her, mindful of the neighbors and time in this quiet neighborhood. “Chloe,” I said. She turned to me, half of her face a blue shadow from the moon and the other half glowing yellow. Dark and light. Happy and sad. It was Chloe as she’d been the last few months—even before she knew about Dan’s infidelity. There was a sadness, a darkness to her that hadn’t been there before she and Dan got engaged. I found myself wanting to see her entirely lit—entirely in the sunlight and bright and happy. Then again, there was a beauty in the sadness, too. A beauty in the blue.

  She tilted her head to the side, and I realized that I’d just been staring at her standing there. “Liam?”

  “I just wanted to say… I’m really excited we’re doing this, too.”

  Her smile split her face, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Nodding silently, she turned and walked into her home, shutting the door.

  It was the truth. I was excited we were doing this. Maybe more than I wanted to admit. That’s the thing with dreams: when they stay a fantasy, there’s no fear of failing. But now? It was time to sink or swim. Prior to Chloe, I felt like I had cement blocks strapped to my feet. But she had finally cut them free.

  She had cut me free.

  10

  Chloe

  “Well, it could be worse…” Riley said, wheeling herself out from under the truck.

  “See? Told you it would be fine!” I pumped a fist triumphantly in the air and did a little victory dance around Liam, who was standing stoically beside me with his arms crossed.

  “But it could certainly be better,” she added, grabbing a black-smudged rag and wiping her hands.

  Liam’s left eyebrow popped higher, arching over his mossy green eyes. “See?” he murmured, and even though his smug little smirk was infuriating, it also made me smile.

  The sun was edging its way down to the horizon, and it was that beautiful time of day when the sky was turning from sunny and blue into a creamy orange sherbet color. We probably had another three hours before the sun set.

  Turning our gaze to Riley, we joined her as she peeked under the propped open hood. “How much better are we talking?” Liam asked.

  “The battery is old. And if you’re going to be frying and cooking inside, you need a strong one. There’s also quite a bit of rust, but maybe you can live with that for a while?”

  Riley looked between us, and I scrunched my nose. “Rust isn’t very professional looking,” I said.

  “She’s got a point,” Liam agreed, and I nearly clutched my pearls and fell over dead at that. “Customers are buying food—rust doesn’t exactly look appetizing, even if it is on the outside and will never come in contact with the food.”

  Riley grimaced. “I hate to tell you this, but detailing rust and paint jobs are pricey. Only because they are time intensive. The money goes entirely to labor. But if you’re willing to do the work yourselves, you could save a few thousand dollars.”

  My face twisted, but Liam looked at me, brows up, smiling. “Right here is where we start paying for the food truck… in sweat,” Liam said.

  My groan slipped into a giggle as I realized where that quote came from. “Did you just quote the movie Fame to me?”

  His smirk twitched higher in that typical Liam fashion I was coming to know better. “Another classic.”

  “Agree.”

  Riley snorted and tugged her ponytail tighter. “I have no idea what you guys are talking about,” she said. “But I can order you a new battery, new brakes, and an alternator—that should probably be replaced.”

  “How much?” Liam asked.

  Riley put her hands on her hips, glancing at us, then at the truck. “I’m going to estimate… fifteen hundred.”

  I grinned. “That’s not bad!”

  But Liam narrowed his eyes at her. “A new battery, brakes, and an alternator? Those three things alone can cost about several hundred dollars… that’s just for parts. How much is it going to cost really? Without the Jake and Riley friends discount.”

  Riley smiled and placed a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Just give us some cheesecake and we’ll call it even.”

  Liam’s head fell, his biceps tensing. “Riley—”

  “Dude,” I nudged Liam with my elbow. “Don’t argue the price up.”

  “Listen to the girl,” Riley said and gathered her tools. “Truthfully, the most expensive parts of a food truck are the cooking appliances you’re going to have to buy for the inside. Save your money for those things.” She hiked her toolbox into the back of her truck and tossed the keys to Liam who caught them with barely a glance at the jagged metal being hurled toward his face. “But for now, it’s safe to drive. The parts you have work, they’re just old. All in all…” Riley’s gaze flicked briefly to me. “It was a good find.”

  I beamed, unable to stop the triumphant grin taking hold of my face. Riley tugged out two of the same tool that sort of looked like a more intense ice scraper… but metal. She handed them to Liam. “You’re going to need these,” she said, then got into her truck and drove away.

  “Don’t get too cocky, there,” Liam said, flipping the scraper thingy in his hand. “We’ve still got a lot of elbow grease to put in to make this thing presentable.”

  “But… it was a good find. Admit it.”

  “Fine. It was a good purchase. You happy?”

  I nodded. “Very.”

  His gaze trailed over my jeans and Kate Spade blouse. “You want to borrow some clothes?”

  “For what?”

  He tossed me one of the scrapers. “We’re going to start on this rust.”

  “Now?”

  “The sooner we start, the sooner we finish. And the sooner we can begin earning money.”

  I groaned and forced my features to rearrange into some semblance of a smile. “Fine. I’ll go change.”

  Forty-five minutes later, I was wearing one of Liam’s t-shirts and a pair of his basketball shorts that kept slipping down my hips, even when I tied the little strings at the front as tight as I could. I was on my knees, crouching near the bumper of the truck using that stupid scraper thing to scrape rust off the edge of the truck.

  Pausing, I tossed the scraper onto the hot, sticky tarmac and used Liam’s shirt to wipe the sweat off my brow. God help me if I had to do this for another two hours until the sun went down.

  I buried my nose into the cotton shirt and inhaled under the guise of wiping sweat, enjoying that subtle scent of vanilla and espresso that seemed to cling to Liam.

  When I lifted my eyes off of the cotton, I caught Liam staring at my bare stomach, exposed as I tugged the shirt to my face.

  I wasn’t going to acknowledge the way my heart did a little flip at that discovery. Nope. I’m just gonna ignore that.

  “This sucks,” I whined, gripping the scraper once more and resuming the tedious work. This wasn’t exactly what I signed up for, and it certainly wasn’t where my talents were.

  “Unless you have a few thousand dollars lying around to pay Riley, I sugges
t less whining and more scraping.”

  I scoffed, some sort of guttural sound that rolled in the back of my throat. “Are we going to paint the truck ourselves, too? You saw my frosting unicorn… I can’t say I’m much artsier with a paintbrush.”

  Liam stretched to scrape a bit of rust above the door, and as he did so, his t-shirt lifted, revealing a strip of very tanned skin pulled taut over strong ab muscles. With a sigh, his arm fell to his side. “No, I guess not. But if we can at least get rid of most of the rust, maybe the cost can be cut in half.”

  His words would have been a relief except for the stressed-out look creasing his face. I hated that look. I hated seeing how worried and sad he looked. “Hey, let’s talk about fun stuff while we work. We can kill two birds with one stone, making this a business meeting as well as a labor session.”

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  What’s there to talk about? I had a list about a mile long in my head. “Well… to start with, what day do we want to soft open?”

  “Uh, shouldn’t we wait until we have an idea of how long this work will take?”

  “Absolutely not. We need to give them our dates so that they stick to a schedule.”

  “Who is ‘them’?”

  “Them. The people. The media. Then, if we need to adjust our soft open, we can!” I stood up from where I was kneeling and winced at the indents on my knees from the pavement. As I stood, the back of the basketball shorts got caught on the heel of my shoe, and since they were already several sizes too large, the elastic band of the shorts slipped right off my hips and fell down to my ankles.

  Not thinking straight, I squealed—which only made Liam look down at me.

  If I’d just kept my dang mouth shut and pulled them up, maybe he never would have known… never would have seen my little yellow ducky turquoise panties. Why couldn’t I have worn my sexy lacy pink panties today?

  Whoa. Whoa. Mayday. Where the hell did that thought come from? Of all the people in Maple Grove to choose from, I did not and should not want Liam Evans seeing me in any sexy panties. I’d promised Elaina as much.