Even my mom had her gaggle of friends in town.
So, it was just me. The lone wolf.
Except I wasn’t a wolf. Wolves were alpha and masculine. I was something smaller… sweeter. Like a lone… otter.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have friends. I did. I just didn’t see them much. With my schedule, it was rare that I had the time or the energy to meet up with people, and through the years, those friendships just… waned.
God, that was pathetic. I guess I needed Chloe more than I realized.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice far quieter than I intended it to be. “For being…” My words faded, but as always, Chloe jumped in to the rescue.
“Your person?”
Her words made my heart kick faster against my breastbone. In fact, I was going to say ‘for being here for me,’ but I decided not to correct her. Instead, I nodded, repeating, “For being my person.” But that statement also made a dull sense of loss spread through my stomach. As much as I wanted to believe that to be true, she wasn’t mine. Not really. Despite the other night. Despite all my efforts. And even despite the fact that I knew she had feelings for me, too.
I studied her for the length of an inhale. The sky outside the window was fading to a light bruised color; the deep blues and purples of the night edging away as a faint hue of yellow split between the wispy clouds. Yellow light streamed in, cascading over her face and golden hair. For a long moment, I was distracted by the glow of her skin beneath the sunbeam.
She didn’t look over, or meet my stare, but kept her hands clenched on the wheel and her eyes straight ahead. I forced my gaze away from her face, but not before catching the pink flush that crawled up her neck, deepening along the tops of her cheeks.
“That coffee’s yours,” she said simply, pretending not to notice the way I’d been staring at her. But I think we both knew better. To my left, waiting for me in the cup holder, was a steaming cup of coffee in one of Chloe’s to-go mugs. “I even added that disgusting pinch of nutmeg you claim is so good.”
I snorted, taking the handle of the cup and bringing the steaming brew to my mouth. It smelled heavenly. “Maybe it’s an acquired taste, but it is good. You’re just stuck in your ways.”
She hurled a quick scowl in my direction. “And you’re not?”
I made a noise with my mouth that resembled a tire losing air. “I’m flexible as hell.”
She barked a laugh and nodded. “Yeah, okay.” Chloe stole a quick glance at me as she turned toward 95 South. “So… are you nervous about today?”
I began to shake my head no but stopped myself. I didn’t want to lie to Chloe. To put on some false bravado that I was fine; everything was fine. That’s the sort of bullshit I might have pulled with other friends in the past, but Chloe and I were different. And that required me changing old, bad habits. It required me opening up more. I took a deep breath and answered honestly. “Nervous isn’t the right word. I’m confident the surgery will go well—mastectomies are pretty common. I’m more nervous for what comes next. Wondering if the surgery will work overall and get Mom into remission”
I skimmed the tip of my finger over the plastic lid and dipped it into the pool of warm coffee that settled in the seam.
“Did the surgeon say what the rate of success is with this kind of surgery?”
I shrugged. “It’s good. But they’re careful about their statistics. They don’t want to give false hope, and cancer is a tricky bitch. They thought the chemo and radiation was going to be enough to send her into remission initially—and yet, here we are.”
We’d been so hopeful when her chemo ended; she was looking and feeling so good… better than we’d seen her in months. Maybe we just got too cocky. It was a real kick in the gut when her scans didn’t come back clear.
“How soon after surgery will they know if she’s in remission?”
“It takes a few weeks.”
More waiting. More wondering. More silent stress that will loom like an imminent rain cloud over my family while we all pretend we aren’t on the precipice of a potential hurricane.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I asked.
“Of course,” she answered simply, as though there wasn’t even a question of her hiding her vulnerability. It was one of the many beautiful aspects about Chloe. She wore her heart—as well as everything else—on her sleeve.
“Do you miss Dan?” That question had been plaguing me, burning in me. Anytime he came up in conversation, Chloe would either spit his name or change topics really quickly.
If I wasn’t mistaken, her grip on the wheel tightened, and for half a second, I thought I had screwed up by asking that.
“Sometimes,” she said after a pause. “But then… I don’t think it’s actually Dan that I miss. I miss having someone to wake up beside. Someone who held my hand and took me out for cocktails. Someone to go to parties with. Someone to cook for…”
“You? Cook?” I joked.
Her laugh was a balm, soothing in an otherwise raw moment.
Biting her bottom lip, she smacked the backs of her knuckles against my arm. “Hey! Anyone can make a casserole!” She continued her thought. “Anyway, I think I miss being in a relationship. But I don’t miss Dan.” After a sigh, she added, “And if I’m being honest, even though he cheated on me… humiliated me… I don’t think I was all that great of a partner to him, either.”
My spine straightened protectively at that as she slowed to a stop at a red light. “What the hell are you talking about? You quit your job because he asked you to.”
With a tilt of her chin, she boldly met my gaze. “I’m not saying he wasn’t a dick. He clearly was. I’m just saying that maybe I wasn’t entirely faultless. Not that it’s my fault he cheated, but I think I cared more about the idea of having a husband than I did about the actual person who shared my bed. And I’m sure that on some level Dan sensed that.”
“Or,” I offered as an alternative, “You sensed that Dan was never going to be one hundred percent in the relationship, and therefore you guarded your heart by not letting yourself fall completely in love.”
Her lips pressed thoughtfully together. “Maybe. It’s hard to know which was first.” Her gaze clouded and she shifted her weight against the driver’s seat. “It’s nice to have someone to talk about this with.”
My surprise at her statement brought on a quick bark of laughter. “What are you talking about? You have tons of friends! All those women at your bachelorette party… Tanja… your sister—”
She shook her head as a look of tired sadness tightened her features. “My sister would just say I told you so. And Tanja…” her words trailed off and she exhaled a nearly silent sigh. “She’s always busy.”
Too busy to be there for her friend? I never really liked Tanja that much, and now? Those feelings grew.
“You’re really lucky to have your siblings,” Chloe said quietly.
I didn’t point out the obvious fact that she also had her sister. Then again, I kind of knew what she meant. I have one know-it-all brother, and I can’t imagine the challenge that would have presented if he’d been my only sibling. It didn’t mean she didn’t love Elaina, but I could empathize with not wanting to talk about certain things with her. Look at me and Neil. It took me years to tell him about my food truck dream. And even then, I was strong-armed into it.
I glanced over at Chloe as the air conditioning blew cold air against my otherwise sweaty skin. Even this early in the morning, the humidity was high, and the day promised warmth and sunshine. “I’m really lucky to have you,” I admitted. It was risky, baring myself to her like that. Chloe wasn’t necessarily someone I would call skittish, but when it came to me, at least in a romantic sense, she seemed resolved to keep me at arm’s length. Even now—or maybe especially now—that we’d seen each other naked.
I didn’t hear her breath hitch, but I saw it in her tightened shoulders and the lift of her breasts as her ribcage expanded with the sharp inhalation.
Her face shifted, taking on a jovial, almost cartoonish grin. “Well,” she said, her tone animated in that way she does when she’s trying hard not to be serious. “Anyone would be lucky to have me.”
I stared at her, my heart pounding, ignoring her joke. That’s what she did when things got serious; she played them down as much as she could.
Even though her eyes were on the road, I felt her awareness of me, and despite the blasting AC, the temperature in the car rose a few degrees. “When you first said we were going to be best friends, I thought you were having some sort of mental break down. Honestly, who says that to essentially a stranger?”
“We weren’t strangers. Strangers haven’t had their tongues down each other’s throats.” Her mouth kicked up into a small smirk.
“I’m serious, Chloe.”
“So am I. We weren’t strangers. We may not have been friends, but we weren’t nothing to each other, either.” She bit her lip and I watched as her teeth slid across her bottom lip, the curve of her mouth dipping into a frown. “At least, you weren’t nothing to me.”
“You weren’t nothing to me either.” Of course she wasn’t. I rarely let myself admit it, but I’d been in love with Chloe Dyker since I was fifteen years old.
There was so much more I wanted to say to her… how I had thought about her for years since high school. How I always watched from afar as she moved from boyfriend to boyfriend, or rather asshole to asshole. I watched her get her heart broken time and time again desperately wishing for a chance to show her how much I could care for her. It wasn’t even a fair statement to say I watched from the sidelines—because team members are at least aware of the people on the sidelines. I was like a spectator way back in the nosebleed section, waving my hands, desperate to be seen. But since high school, I didn’t think Chloe Dyker knew I existed. She made out with me at age 16, and then she barely glanced in my direction again.
But I didn’t say any of that. Settling back in my seat, I simply said, “Thank you for being here today. For being my person.”
But the bitter truth behind my words left a terrible taste in my mouth.
Because she wasn’t truly mine.
Not yet, anyway.
24
Chloe
I sat in the hospital café, holding a warm paper cup of weak coffee in my hands. I had managed to sneak away, giving the Evans family some much needed alone time. Their mom’s surgery had taken several hours, and when she was finally awake, we all went in to see her.
But it was painfully clear, as the Evans family held each other and wept, that I didn’t belong in that room with them.
“Here you are,” a deep voice rumbled from behind me. “You hiding from me?”
I spun, the plastic seat groaning its protest as my bare thighs slid across it. “Of course not. You have a big family stuffed into a tiny room,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just giving you all some space.”
He slid into the seat across from me. His brown hair was tousled and messy in a way that had me thinking of our night together, and I ached to run my fingers through it. My pulse raced with the memory. “What if I don’t want space?” The question was so clearly not about the hospital room or his mother.
I gulped. “Well, it’s not entirely up to you.”
He sighed and dragged a hand down his weary face. “After this surgery and everything with my mom is stable… do you promise we’ll talk about what happened between us?”
Us. One simple word and yet it had my heart sputtering like a leaky engine. “Once we know she’s in remission, yes. But until then, we just need to…” What? Act like that night never happened? Go back to just being friends? I was a champion at suppressing my feelings, but I wasn’t sure even I could accomplish that. Not with my business partner. And certainly not with my best friend.
Even still… I had to try.
“Pretend?” Liam offered. I shrugged, not sure of what else to say. “I guess your sister would be pretty upset if she found out.”
My breath caught. He thought this was about Elaina. Of course. And why wouldn’t he? I had told him as much months ago when we kissed. But he didn’t know she had given me her blessing. I swallowed my sip of coffee and it went down like a pile of sand. “What are you doing down here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be up with your mom?”
“She sent me to get you.”
“She… what?” That didn’t make sense. I shook my head and clutched the coffee tighter in my palms, blowing at the steam billowing off the top. “She only just got out of surgery a couple of hours ago. She needs to rest. And she needs you. And the rest of her kids. I’m the last person who should be in that room—”
“But she’s asking for you. And what Mom asks for, Mom gets. Especially today.” He matched my smile with a thoughtful grin of his own. “Just don’t get too cocky… she’s also asking for coffee.”
I rose fluidly from my seat, grabbing my own mediocre coffee. “If she’s asking for coffee, she must be feeling pretty good.”
With a tip of his head, he nodded. “She looks great… not even just for having just had major surgery. She’s alert and talkative. I can tell she’s in pain, but overall, she’s doing well. I need to find the doctor to check and make sure she’s actually allowed a cup of coffee, though.”
“Oh, I can do that for you—” He caught my elbow, stopping me just as I pivoted, turning in the opposite direction.
“Don’t you dare. She’s asking to see you. Then we’re all going to let her rest up before the going away ‘party’ tonight for Neil.” He put the word party in finger quotes. By most standards, it was going to be pretty lame—they were only allowing us thirty minutes in the common room before Linda was required to be back in bed. But a few of Neil’s friends were driving down from Maple Grove… because that’s the sort of town we were. Unfailingly loyal.
I didn’t argue with Liam and let him go in search of a doctor while I made my way back down the hall to her room, poking my head inside with a light rap of my knuckles against the doorframe.
Linda was alone in the room, which was pretty surprising considering there were four Evans kids roaming around this hospital.
She blinked her eyes slowly open and deeply inhaled, shifting in her bed. “There you are,” Linda said, smiling warmly at me.
I grinned and edged closer into the room, shutting the door behind me. “You look good,” I said honestly, noting the warm, rosy color in her cheeks. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t wake me.”
“Where is everyone?” I slid into the seat at her bedside and tucked my purse between my feet.
“Neil had to call the new employee they’re hiring. And Addy and Finn went off to make sure we had enough food for tonight.”
“Are you sure you’re up for this party—”
She waved my concern away. “The last time my oldest son left town, he did so in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye to his family or your sister. I’m not letting a little cancer let him slink away again.”
Elaina. I almost forgot she had given me a card to give to Linda. I tugged the sealed envelope from my purse and handed it over to Liam’s mom. “Speaking of, this is from my sister. She wanted you to know she was thinking about you today.”
Linda’s painted lips pulled into a smile and she set the card, unopened, on her bedside. “Thank you.”
With a tilt of her head, wisps from her gray-blond hair slipped from her braid and coiled around her heart-shaped face.
I put on a braver smile. If Linda can maintain her bravado throughout all this, then I had no excuse. “So… Liam said you wanted to see me?”
Her grin widened. “I just wanted to say thank you for being here today for Liam. It’s amazing how with four children, only one of them has a friend loyal enough to come down and wait with him all day.”
I searched her face, noting that she had already put lipstick on. That small fact made me smile. I never thought I had much in com
mon with Linda Evans until this very moment. “I’m sure others wanted to be here,” I offered, not knowing at all if it was true or not. I knew nothing about Neil, Finn, or Addy’s friends.
She smiled graciously. “Probably. But you … you’re always there for my son. And I’m not just talking about today. He’s the happiest that I’ve ever seen him, even back when the food truck wasn’t doing well.”
I snorted, with a shake of my head. “He’s exhausted and overworked and—”
“And finally living his dream. Not mine. Not his brother’s.” Her expression stilled, turning serene. “So… thank you. For lighting a fire in my otherwise even-keeled son.”
There was a double-entendre to her words that I willfully chose to ignore. Warmth filled my chest, and even though we were inside a cold, clinical hospital room, a golden beam of sunlight filtered in through the window. “I like to think he’s helped me hone in on my dreams, too.” I chuckled. “Who would have thought that Liam could tame Tasmanian Chloe, right?”
She shook her head, slowly, giving me a scrutinizing gaze. “That name never suited you.”
My brows jumped at that. “No? I think most of Maple Grove would disagree with you.”
“Well then, they never really knew you, did they?” She reached out and took my hand in hers. It was warm and soft, her nails painted a soft, heather shade of lavender.
Um, even my parents called me Tasmanian Chloe—but I didn’t mention that. Instead, I laughed in an effort to lighten the mood. “If I’m not a Tasmanian devil, then what am I?”
“You’re like the ocean,” Liam’s voice from behind me startled me. He was leaning casually against the doorframe, one long, muscled leg crossed over the other. How long had he been standing there? He cut the distance between us in half with slow, purposeful strides, pausing to kiss his mom on the cheek and deposit a small cup of coffee on the table beside her. “The doctor says this is the only coffee you’re allowed for today, so savor it. Otherwise, it’s a liquid diet until tomorrow night.”
Sugarlips (Beefcakes Book 2) Page 17