“Okay,” I said, rifling around my cabinets. “I’ve got whiskey…” I glanced over at her and laughed as her nose scrunched.
“Ew,” she said.
“Very well.” I dug deeper into the cabinet. “If you don’t like whiskey, I’m going to guess you’re not a rye drinker, either.”
“Liam, your liquor cabinet needs some work. Don’t you have vodka? A nice tequila? Anything that isn’t brown!” She hopped off the counter and pushed me out of the way, looking through the cabinet herself. “This is ridiculous! You have six different types of whiskey, but only an airplane bottle of blueberry vodka!”
She took it, cracked it open, and dumped it into the diet coke I had already gotten for her.
“Technically, these aren’t all whiskey. This one’s scotch, this is a rye—”
“Liam!” She whined. “Maybe we should have created an alcohol delivery truck instead of a food truck.”
I laughed. “Like a catering service, but with booze.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes! When you run out of alcohol, they would come over, deliver you booze, maybe make you a few cocktails, then be on their way.”
“We could call it Cartini!”
She laughed, then sighed wistfully, falling back on the counter. “We’re really good at coming up with ideas. Just not so good at implementing them.”
“Hey,” I said quietly, nudging her with my elbow. “Go easy on The Dump Truck. We’re not even a week in. You can’t expect it to be an incredible success immediately. Look at my mom’s bakery. We struggled to keep that afloat for years until it became Beefcakes.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me that’s what we have to look forward to! You just got out of debt. The last thing you need is for our new business to land you right back where you left off.”
“I’m just saying relax. There’s time to turn this around.”
At the back of my cabinet I saw a bottle of Campari peeking back at me and reached for it. “Ever had Campari?” I asked her.
“Isn’t it bitter?”
I held up a finger and rushed to the fridge to grab a bottle of orange juice. “Normally, yes. But not when you combine it with this.” I poured her a glass and slid it over. With one sip, her eyes lit up.
“It’s delicious!”
“See? My liquor isn’t all bad.”
She held the glass in both hands, looking down into the liquid like a crystal ball. “Hey,” she said quietly, “Thanks for what you did back there. With Dan. You didn’t need to pretend for my sake—”
“It wasn’t a big deal, Chloe.”
She blinked, moisture brimming in those bright blue eyes of hers. “It was to me. It’s so stupid, but when he saw us together and he seemed to get… I don’t know…”
“Jealous?” I offered.
Her eyes went wide. “Yes! I wasn’t imagining that, right?”
I shrugged, ignoring the pang in my heart at how happy Dan’s jealousy seemed to make her. It was yet another reminder how off-limits she was. It had barely been a few weeks since her world turned upside down—since her wedding was called off. “I don’t think you were imagining it,” I admitted. “Besides, any man with a pulse would be crazy not to be jealous of seeing you with someone else.”
Her lips thinned, pressing together as she took another sip of the Campari. “Regardless, thank you for going along with that. He’ll find out the truth soon enough anyway, I guess—”
“Why?”
She looked taken aback for a moment. “Why what?”
“Why would he need to find out the truth? I don’t see any need to correct it. We really only need to sort this out with our families—especially with Elaina—but other than that, if the rest of the town thinks we’re together… so what?”
Chloe swallowed so hard that I watched the svelte line of her throat contract with the movement. “Then what about moving on…dating? How will either of us meet anyone if the whole town thinks we’re together?”
It was my turn to gulp down my own drink. “Are you ready to date?”
Her mouth twitched, not quite into a smile… but even the smallest curve of those pouty lips was breathtaking.
Her eyes searched my face before she answered, “For the right person, I am.”
My breath hitched and I could feel my pulse slamming at the base of my jaw. Of all the friend zones I’d been slipped into through the years, this one was the worst. And also the best. Respecting her boundaries wasn’t easy. Not when I wanted her so damn badly, I could feel it in the steel rod pushing against my zipper. But she was right. What we had was too good. Too valuable to lose. Unlike the other women from college who’d categorize me as a “friend,” but then wouldn’t make any effort to be a friend unless they needed something from me. Chloe was different. Chloe was passionate and funny and smart and unlike any woman I’d ever met through the years.
“He’s out there,” I finally answered. “The right man for you.” I held up my glass and clinked it to hers as the curve of her mouth widened into that heart-melting grin.
“And she’s out there for you, too. I can’t wait to meet her and eventually force her to be my best friend, too.”
I set my glass down and held up my hands. “Whoa, wait a minute. When I get a girlfriend, you’re just gonna dump my best friend status for her?”
Chloe rolled her eyes and snorted. “Do you know nothing about women? Chances are, she’s not going to trust our friendship at all. I’m going to have to prove to her that we’re cool. And in order to do that, I’ll need to first befriend her. Earn her trust.”
“And you think your future boyfriend will just be totally fine with our friendship?”
She shrugged. “I’m just saying we’ll have some work to do to prove they have nothing to worry about.”
I couldn’t speak for Chloe, but whomever I ended up with would have a lot to worry about. Because I couldn’t see a world where there was anyone else I’d rather spend my time with than Chloe. And if I had to choose? I’d choose her.
Every. Damn. Time.
17
Chloe
I slipped inside my front door, waving to Liam as he drove off in the food truck after dropping me off. Since it was kind of an eye sore, we kept it parked at Beefcakes when we weren’t working.
I barely had shut the door when I spun to find Elaina standing there behind me, hands on her hips, glaring daggers down the hallway at me.
I gasped, pressing my palm to my heart. “Jesus! Don’t do that! You scared the shit out of me.”
“Don’t do what?” she asked, her voice just a little too quiet. Dangerously quiet. Damn. I was hoping I’d get home before she saw the news broadcast. “Stand in the foyer?”
I sighed and walked past her, dropping my purse onto the counter. “You know what you were doing. You were lurking. Waiting for me to come home so you could lecture me. Look Elaina… I know what you saw, and before you say anything, just know he didn’t actually kiss me. I stopped him before—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… who didn’t kiss you?”
I pressed my lips together, my eyes going wide. Shit. Why did I have to open my big mouth, assuming she saw the news when clearly she hadn’t… yet? “Umm… no one?” I said, my voice getting high-pitched and squeaky. “What are you talking about?”
“Kyra called me and said that Liam got in a fight with Nick yesterday outside his pizza shop… that you two were stealing his business.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “First of all, Nick called me a bitch. That’s why Liam punched him. Second, we weren’t stealing his business. We were trying to work out a way to cross-promote.”
Elaina crossed her arms, her blue eyes growing steely in the exact same way mine do when I’m mad. “What’s this about a kiss?” Even though it was a question, she seemed to already know the answer and was opting to make me squirm anyway.
“There was no kiss. There was an almost kiss…”
“That was on the news?”
I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Yes.”
“And who was this almost kiss with?”
I closed my eyes. “Please don’t make me answer that,” I begged.
“Tell me,” Elaina whispered. “I need to hear you say it. I need to hear you say that you broke our promise.”
“But I didn’t break my promise!” A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye and I quickly swiped it away with the back of my hand. “I stopped the kiss before it happened. Liam tried to kiss me, not the other way around. And I stopped it, even though the stupid news footage doesn’t look like it. Ask him yourself, he’ll tell you!”
Elaina’s face twisted, and as she shook her head, her eyes filled with moisture. “I’ve never asked you for much, have I, Chloe? I’ve been a good big sister… I’ve taken care of you. I’ve been your friend. This is the one thing I’ve asked—no, needed—from you. Not to date my ex-boyfriend’s brother. And you couldn’t even do that. You’re so incapable of being alone, so needy for male attention, you just had to get involved with Liam!”
I sniffed as more tears spilled down my face and took a step closer to my big sister. “Elaina, I swear to you… Liam and I are not together.”
She countered my movement by taking a step back. “Oh, I believe you that you’re not fucking Liam Evans. But you want to be. And without me, you probably would be. Even without the romantic component, you still entered a business with him. You could have gotten a job anywhere. You could have just started a consulting business and had Beefcakes as a client—even that would have been fine. But starting a food truck with my ex’s little brother? You’ve never expressed interest in working in the food industry before and now, because one guy suggests it—bam! You’re a food truck entrepreneur. This is just like Dan all over again. A hot guy tells you to do something, and because it’s shiny and new, Tasmanian Chloe jumps right on board.”
“Don’t say that,” I cried, my voice hoarse. “This is different. And it wasn’t Liam asking me to do it, it was the other way around. It was my idea. I practically had to force Liam into the food truck idea—”
“That’s even worse!” Elaina erupted, pacing back and forth across the kitchen. “You don’t think the fact that you sought out his friendship and partnership is strange?”
“I like Liam! I like him and yet I’m keeping him at arm’s length for you!”
“This is arm’s length? Almost kissing him on the local news and apparently some sort of weird act of chivalry where he punches a long-time friend in your honor?”
“Not all of us are so good at putting up walls Elaina,” I snapped back.
“Those walls are the only thing that helped me keep it together after Neil and Brad. I will not apologize for them.”
“And what about now? Are those walls helping now with Neil? Because from where I stand, this fight seems like a miscommunication that could be worked out if either of you would bother to just try.” My anger was rising higher and higher to the surface. I loved my sister, but she had no right telling me who I could and couldn’t be friends with. And the fact that she was mad about my friendship and partnership with Liam spoke so much more about her than me right now.
“You are so selfish,” Elaina shouted. “How many breakups have I sat with you through? How many times did you cry in my lap as we watched romantic comedies and polished off gallons of ice cream? What would you have done if I had started dating even one of the brothers of your exes? Let alone the one you most loved?”
A lump lodged in my throat, burning, because I knew what she was saying was true. I would have been pissed if she’d started dating any one of my ex’s brothers. And if I was being honest, I might have even been pissed if she became friends with one of them.
I opened my mouth to apologize to Elaina, but before I could, she spun, grabbing her purse and slapped a stapled document on the counter. “Well, you won’t have to worry about me being in your hair for much longer,” she said. “I put in an offer on a house today. It’s a cash offer, so I’ll be moving out in no time.”
Heat flushed to my face as I swallowed the apology. She was moving out? Already? Was I that unbearable to live with that my own sister couldn’t stay with me for more than a few weeks? Was that part of the reason Dan left me—why he chose another woman instead?
I spun, stomping toward the liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle of tequila, then pushed past Elaina, heading to the front door.
“Where are you going?” she called after me.
“Out!”
“At this time of night? And what, you’re going to drink and drive—” I slammed the door behind me, cracking open the bottle and taking a swig as I walked into town.
Hell no, I wasn’t going to drink and drive. I didn’t even know where I was going. I just knew that I couldn’t be at home in that big house that was not only a reminder of my failings as Dan’s fiancé… but now a reminder of how I failed as a little sister.
18
Liam
I stood in the kitchen of Beefcakes mixing buttercream for tomorrow. After dropping Chloe off at home, I tried everything to relax and go to sleep, but I couldn’t get her out of my head. And everywhere I looked, I saw her. Smelled her. She lingered and I needed to get out of there to clear my head.
I had no doubt that tomorrow when I was running on fumes I would deeply regret my choice to stay up late tonight… but for now, I couldn’t just lie in bed, rehashing what happened with Chloe tonight. On the surface, it was nothing. We ran into her ex and his new girlfriend… and they assumed Chloe and I were a couple. Clearly, lots of people were assuming that—especially after the story aired on tonight’s news. But that conversation back at my place… How would this work? How could the two of us be friends and also date other people? I couldn’t stomach the thought of Chloe on a date with another man, and she somehow expected the theoretical four of us to all be best friends?
I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the buttercream, and when I looked down, it had curdled in the mixer.
“Fuck,” I grunted, turning off the machine and grabbing the bowl to dump it in the sink.
I tore the apron off my body and shoved through the back door out toward the shop area when I heard it. Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way playing from the parking lot. When I peeked out the window, The Dump Truck’s lights were on.
Holy shit! Was someone stealing our truck? I ran out the door, lunging up the back steps of the van and yanked the door open, ready to fight whoever had managed to break in.
Instead, I found Chloe on the floor of the van, double-fisting tomorrow’s donuts, a bottle of tequila resting against her thigh and tears streaming down her face.
She shrieked as I came barreling into the van, probably looking like a crazed monster ready to punch her. In truth, I sort of had been ready to punch her—when I thought she was a car thief.
“What are you doing here?” she asked between her hiccupped sobs.
“What am I doing here? I’m baking for tomorrow. Jesus, Chloe… what are you doing here? Eating all our inventory for tomorrow?”
“I-I’m sorry,” she sniffled and took another bite of donut, talking with her mouth full. “Elaina and I had a huge fight. The biggest fight of our lives. I didn’t know where to go…”
I winced and lowered to sit beside her on the floor. She wasted no time, dropping her head to my shoulder. Tears saturated my t-shirt as she nuzzled against me. “Your fight… it was about me?”
Chloe nodded. “Some of it was about you. But mostly, I think it was just all the things that had been left unsaid for too long.”
I reached around her for the bottle of tequila, but noticed as I slid it away from her that the cap was still on and the bottle was full. “You didn’t drink any of this?”
She shook her head. “I started to. But then as I walked, I ended up here and realized I wanted donuts more than I wanted to be drunk. Especially if we had to be up and in the truck tomorrow morning.”
&nb
sp; “Probably wise.” I set the bottle aside. “Wanna share that donut?”
She held her half-eaten donut up to my face and I took a big bite. “Hey!” she laughed. “Don’t eat all of it!”
“Says the girl literally double-fisting baked goods.”
“Well, I had nowhere to go,” she said. “Nothing was open and I wasn’t about to resort to gas station Sara Lee cakes.”
I stared at Chloe sitting there with sweets and tear-stained cheeks as a thought slammed into me. “Oh, my God,” I whispered.
“I know, that’s how desperate I was. Like Little Debbie could compare to these.”
I shook my head. “No… Chloe… we’ve been doing this all wrong.” I scrambled to kneel in front of her. “We’ve been selling baked goods to people who are dumped… during the day? No one gets dumped in the morning on their way to work. Or at lunch Monday through Friday. People wallow at night. In the privacy of their own homes.”
Chloe’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit. You’re right. No one needs junk food during the day. You need them in the middle of the night!” She shoved the remaining donut in her mouth and pointed to the counter above our heads. “Hand me my phone!”
“Why? What are you doing?”
She grinned at me and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Tell me we have enough inventory and that I didn’t eat it all?” she asked, crossing her fingers.
I nodded. “We have… enough.” I had pre-baked a few dozen donuts. There were plenty of Mac and Cheese balls, cheesecake, and ice cream sandwiches left, too.
“Good. Because I just instagrammed our location now to our followers! Let’s get to the town square.”
I stood and offered Chloe my hand. Hers slipped into my palm delicately and I tugged her to her feet. The bravado from moments ago wavered as she stood there looking up at me. “Do you think anyone will come?”
I shrugged. “I think we have literally nothing to lose.”
Sugarlips (Beefcakes Book 2) Page 13