“No. And he prefers Remy, by the way.” he grumbled. “Finny kicked me out.”
I chuckled. “Did you call him Finny? You know he hates that.”
“I call him Finny when he’s acting like a bratty kid.”
I arched my brow, sneaking a quick glance at Liam. “Then what should I call you right now?”
“I am not being petulant!”
I’d never seen Liam like this…and I kind of loved it. Most days, he was so damn unflappable. It was kind of nice to know he wasn’t impervious to stress and meltdowns like the rest of us. I grabbed the nutmeg, sprinkling some on top of the grounds before hitting the start button.
There was a soft laugh from beside me—the first of the morning—and I slid a glance toward him to catch the moment.
Liam leaned against my sink, arms folded, his cocky smirk aimed directly at me like a torpedo, ready to take me down. And it did. “Told you you’d grow to like nutmeg in your coffee.”
I swiveled to face him, planting a hand on my hip. “You sound pretty cocky for a guy covered in buttercream.”
“Buttercream or not… you’re using nutmeg in your coffee.”
“I’m using nutmeg in my coffee because there’s a ranting, frosting-slathered lunatic here and that’s how he takes it.” It wasn’t exactly the truth. I’d been brewing my coffee with nutmeg for at least a week now… if for no other reason than it makes my house smell like Liam. And yes, I was starting to like the taste. But hell if I was going to admit that to him. Not now, not ever.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Go use my shower and change. I have some of Dan’s old t-shirts up there and I’ll cook us some breakfast. I’ll even do that thing… with the eggs inside the toast for you.”
“Birds in a nest!” he said, eyes wide. “How did you know those were my favorite growing up?”
“You have a picture of you on your birthday as a kid… and that’s what you’re eating.” For all of a second, his green eyes flashed with admiration and a hint of something I couldn’t quite read.
I jerked my finger up, pointing in his face. “But you have to promise me that after breakfast, you’re not going to rush back over to Beefcakes for the rest of the day!”
Liam rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“I mean it.” I held out my pinky to him. “Promise me.”
“Ah, yes. The infallible contract that is the pinky promise.” Despite his objections he hooked his pinky into mine. “Fine. I won’t go back today. But then you’re also taking me to dinner tonight. Because I cannot sit around all day and all night with nothing to do.”
I arched a brow in his direction. “We’ve seen each other constantly for months. It’s our first day off in God knows how long and you want to spend it with me?”
“Yeah,” he said, voice soft. “I do.”
My stomach jumped. Damn him. “Fine. Dinner tonight. Just go shower. You’re getting buttercream all over my kitchen.”
He launched up the stairs and within a few minutes, I heard the shower running. The patter of water and pipes was quickly drowned out by the sizzle of bacon and eggs in my frying pan.
My body sang, coming alive at the thought of him up in my bathroom. Naked. Soap and suds gliding over those tanned muscles.
Once the eggs were cooked, I moved the cast iron skillet to the oven to keep the food warm and filled two mugs with coffee. I’m just going to leave it outside of the bathroom for him. That’s all. I lifted both mugs into my hands and glided down the hallway.
A loud knock at the door jerked me from my thoughts as I got halfway down the hall. Now who the hell was here? My parents knew that this was my one day off, and there was no way my dad or mom would bother me. And Tanja wasn’t ever up before nine, unless she had an audition.
I changed direction and padded my way over to the front door, coffee cups still in hand as I pulled the curtain back with my elbow.
A gasp strangled in my throat, and as I jerked myself away from the window, a bit of piping hot coffee sloshed over the side of the mug, burning my thumb.
I hissed, not sure which was worse—the burning pain of my thumb or of seeing Dan standing on my doorstep, wearing that stupid brown suit I had picked out for him last year at Brooks Brothers.
Could I hide? What were the chances he saw me?
“Chloe, open up. I know you’re in there.”
Dammit. With a deep breath, I balanced the two cups of coffee in one hand, and opened the door, twisting my mouth into some semblance of a smile.
“That happy to see me, huh?” he said, his voice dry and emotionless. That was Dan for you. I slid a quick glance at my face reflected back to me in the hallway mirror and quickly dropped the ruse. My “smile,” if you could call it that, was basically a sneer. Not that he didn’t deserve it.
I observed my ex closely, taking inventory of his thick, dark brown hair that was trimmed neatly and fell in a straight line to his collar. Well-groomed, clean, and tidy. Handsome… but not the kind of guy you wanted to tear the necktie off and ravage.
Basically, my libido gave a lazy yawn.
“What do you want, Dan?” I glared at him. Since we were dropping the pretenses, I had no need to keep pretending I was anything but annoyed to see him here at our—or rather, my house.
He rolled his dark brown eyes as I glared harder and pointed out the obvious. “It’s 8:00 a.m. … a bit early for a house call, wouldn’t you say?”
His shoulders slumped with a sigh and damn if he didn’t look defeated. “I have an early filling at the office and wanted to come by for my chair.”
My brows quirked. “You’re going to take your chair now?” I glanced behind him to see if he’d brought anyone to help, but it was just Dan. “Alone?”
The chair was not only heavy, but also awkward to lift, especially with only one person. I should know… I tried to heave that thing out of my house the day after I took a knife to it. Unsuccessfully. But after a few days, I’d grown to enjoy the presence of it, sitting there in the center of my room like a defaced statue; a warning to men everywhere what can happen to their precious leather massage chair if you fuck with Chloe Dyker.
“I got it in the house alone,” he said.
I snorted. “Hardly. You needed my help getting it in and out of your truck.”
“Your help? Chloe…” He chuckled and shook his head. “If I remember, you’d just had a manicure and the most you did was help me hoist it off the truck bed and balance it on the dolly.”
“Well once it’s on the dolly, you don’t actually need help, do you?”
Another sigh. Dan sighed a lot, I noticed—at least he did when he was around me. Liam didn’t sigh like that. Not in a way that suggested I was exhausting.
Dan tugged the metal dolly into view from where it was leaning on my stoop. “Don’t worry. I brought reinforcements.”
I stepped to the side, allowing him to enter, and shut the door behind him. “It’s right where you left it.”
He paused as we walked through the kitchen and his brows creased in the center of his face. “Are you cooking?”
“Yep,” I said, popping the ‘P’ at the end of the word, and set the coffees onto the counter. “Birds in a nest.”
“It doesn’t smell burnt,” he said, shock written across his face.
I could have been insulted, but it was no great secret that I sucked at cooking. “Yeah, yeah. Chloe Dyker learned to fry an egg.” I waved a dismissive hand through the air and guided him toward the TV room. Only, he didn’t follow me. His gaze was locked onto the plate of cookies I had made last night for practice. Even though it was my night off, I wanted to try to bake them all on my own without Liam’s help.
“And… you bake.” Again, with the incredulous tone. I should be insulted.
“Well, yeah. You know I own a food truck, right?”
He paused and ran his hand through his neatly combed hair. “Yeah. I guess I just thought you were… I don’t know… less hands on.”
“Well, let me show you how hands on I’ve been lately.” Especially when it came to his damn chair. He finally followed me into the TV room, where his chair still sat right where he’d left it two and a half months ago.
God, I was going to enjoy this. A blanket draped over the damage, and with an inward smile, I tugged it free, revealing the stabbed and broken leather and fluff that was spilling out like guts.
“What the—goddammit, Chloe!” Dan cried. “This chair was expensive.”
“I know.” I said simply. “But so was our wedding and I’m not really getting a refund on that.”
“So you took it out on my chair?” He gaped at the wreckage, jaw slack, and I braced myself for the wrath of Dan; the explosive yelling and the expletives from his sailor mouth that I knew would come.
Oh, he may look like a prep-student, goody-two-shoes, but that man had a temper and a mouth on him.
But instead of yelling, his scowl slipped into a smile. Then a chuckle. Then the chuckle developed into laughter that shook his shoulders as he lifted his hand to his eyes and rubbed at the weary lines.
Taken aback, I didn’t know what to do. The way he laughed with wild abandon was bizarrely incongruous with his normally rigid demeanor.
But that was the thing about laughter… it was contagious. And soon, I was laughing right along with him, too.
“I can’t believe you did that,” he boomed, placing his hands on his hips, hinging at the waist. “You castrated my La-Z-Boy!”
“Better than castrating what I wanted to, wouldn’t you say?” I flicked a glance at Dan’s crotch and he laughed harder, taking a playful step back.
“Okay, okay, take the chair, Chloe.”
Eventually, our laughter subsided and Dan sighed, his shoulders and chest deflating. A bit of morning light caught the side of his face and I saw a semblance of what looked like stubble… which on Dan was utterly unheard of.
“What’s this on your face?” I teased, poking at his jaw. “Are you heading into the office unshaved?”
He grinned sheepishly and scrubbed his palm across his jaw. “Yeah. This morning was… hectic.”
Trouble in paradise, maybe? He seemed tired. Run down. Which was pretty typical for Dan. He was usually stressed and exhausted when he was around me… which I thought was just the stress of work and wedding planning. But after I found out about his affair, I’d realized, it wasn’t that he was just stressed. It was that another woman was getting the fun Dan. The playful guy who would drink wine and go out to nice dinners. Another woman was getting the Dan I had fallen for once upon a time.
Maybe he was the kind of man who could never be happy with one woman. Maybe he could never find joy and happiness amongst the stress of daily life and relationships… and affairs were his escape.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Dan’s maybes were no longer any of my concern… and holy hell, that was liberating.
His brown eyes dulled and I saw as the joy faded from his laughter with a final sigh. “You were always fun, Coco. We never lacked for laughs.”
A thick coating clogged my throat at hearing him use his nickname for me, and my heart sputtered. I hated that nickname. It was the sort of nickname that ladies named Muffy at the tennis club gave you. I hadn’t heard “Coco” used in reference to me in over two months and it was like someone grabbing at stitches that were almost healed and giving them a good, hard yank.
“Please don’t call me that,” I whispered.
He rubbed his palm across his forehead. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
“What’s going on?” Liam’s booming voice from the bottom of the stairs caused me to jump.
He was shirtless, wearing only jeans with a red t-shirt slung over his shoulder as he walked with swift steps, full of virility and purpose, across the open floor plan to the living room where Dan and I stood.
The muscles of his broad, tanned chest peppered with crisp, brown hair tensed and rippled with each step. His mop of damp hair dripped over the rich outlines of his shoulders and my eyes followed a droplet of water as it rolled down his broad arms to where his fists were clenched at his sides.
“Dan came to pick up his chair—”
But I didn’t get to finish the sentence. Before I knew it, Liam’s lips were on me, claiming mine. His hands scooped up my back and into my hair, grasping me.
My squeal of surprise melted as my fingers found his shoulders, digging in and as he released me, I panted, unable to catch my breath.
Liam gave me a cocky smile, before spinning to face Dan, keeping his hands on my waist. His statement rang loud and clear—I was his. “The chair, huh?” Liam asked.
“That’s right.” To Dan’s credit, he didn’t cower away; he didn’t blush or run. He stood strong, looking at us with quiet resolve and maybe a little jealousy. “I’m only here for the chair.”
“Sure, you are.” Liam’s smile was unlike anything I’d ever seen from him. It was menacing; a threat. “Why don’t I help you out with it?”
“You know…” Dan said. “It’s weird you kept it like this in here for this long, Coco.”
Oh, shit. Now my face was flushing red. Liam’s grip on my hip tightened.
“I think I wanted to see your face when you realized it was demolished,” I responded. That’s right, asshole.
He huffed a small, short laugh. With his hands stuffed into his pockets in a false show of apathy, he leaned in, just a couple inches. There was still plenty of space between us, but he looked me dead in the eye as he said, “Or maybe, you just wanted to see my face… period.” His gaze flicked quickly to Liam before he turned and strolled to the door. “I’ll see myself out.”
Liam and I stood in front of the chair in silence until I heard the engine of his truck idle and growl as he drove away. I whirled around to face Liam. “What the hell was that?”
Liam shrugged, taking on a seeming nonchalance. But shirtless, I could see the tension knotted in his shoulders. “He thinks we’re dating. It made sense to keep up false pretenses in front of him.”
“Or you wanted to mark your territory,” I snapped. “I’m not a fire hydrant, so don’t piss all over me.”
Liam rolled his eyes. “You’re being a little dramatic.”
“And I think you’re being a little jealous.” Maybe a lot jealous.
“Maybe. But regardless of whether you see it or not… that man realizes how much he fucked up.” Liam stalked toward the front door, pointing. “Right this very second, he’s driving to the office wondering why the hell he ever let a woman as beautiful, smart, talented, and driven as you slip through his fingers. One of these days, he’s going to come crawling back to you.”
In so many ways, my ego wanted that to happen. Not because I would ever consider taking Dan back… but because it was the dream of every girl who’s ever been cheated on. Even still, my chest ached with Liam’s words. I dated a lot. Even before Dan, you couldn’t throw a stone in Maple Grove without hitting a guy in my age bracket that I’d at least made out with. But Liam? I don’t recall ever seeing him with a girlfriend.
“What was your last relationship?” I asked and I was mad at myself that I hadn’t asked the question sooner. How self-absorbed was I that Liam could know the entirety of my dating history and I didn’t know a single one of his ex-girlfriend’s names.
He snorted and shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do.”
“I haven’t had a girlfriend since college,” he groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cheer.”
My brow furrowed. “Cheers? Are we toasting to your ex?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “No… Cheer. That was her name. It was a nickname… short for Charlotte.”
“Oh.” That was actually sort of an adorable name… even if she was probably playing tennis with Muffy right this second. “How long were you together?”
“A couple years in culinary school. But she moved to Chicago after graduation and… well, you know my story. I came home to tr
y to help my mom’s bakery.” He gestured, palm up in front of him, as though his story were a picture laid out before us.
Even before she was diagnosed with cancer, Liam had come back to help Linda try to get out from under her debt.
“Were you in love?”
He shrugged… a non-answer. So I elbowed him in the ribs and asked again. “Come on. We talk about my exes and Dan all the time and I know nothing about Cheer. Were you in love?”
“I think so,” he said. “Young love. Love that probably wouldn’t have lasted into adulthood. But yeah, I loved her.”
I nodded, my throat growing tight. It never bothered me before, hearing about my partner’s ex-girlfriends. But Liam wasn’t even my boyfriend and the thought of him in love with another woman sent a searing hot stab of pain into my chest. I never thought of myself as a jealous person, but the idea that there was a woman out there that Liam had been in love with—and it didn’t end because they fell out of love, but just because circumstances had changed—it struck a chord with me. A bad chord. An ugly chord. Like an irate toddler strumming guitar for the first time.
Liam’s chuckle crawled under my skin and I jerked my gaze back to his. “What’s so funny?”
He lifted a finger and poked my nose gently. “That face you’re making,” he said. “So, now picture this: you come downstairs after a shower and find Cheer and me standing here, staring at each other longingly.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dan and I were not staring longingly.”
“You weren’t. He was.” He walked to the kitchen, grabbing one of the mugs of coffee I had left out there and sipped it. “Dan thinks we’re a couple… so I leaned into it.”
He sure did. My body was still buzzing with how hard he’d leaned into it.
And I couldn’t say I didn’t like it.
29
Chloe
“Why in the hell are we painting our nails ourselves?” I winced as Tanja’s whine pierced through my quiet living room.
“Because,” I said prudently, “gel manicures at the salon run thirty dollars. More with tip.” And for me, that would normally be sixty dollars because I usually paid for Tanja’s, too. At the time, it hadn’t bothered me. Dan and I had more than enough, and my best friend was an out-of-work actor. I didn’t mind footing the bill for manicures and dinners and wine tastings. But now? I didn’t exactly have that luxury. And for the first time in our entire friendship, thoughts buzzed around me, whispering in my ear that maybe she’d been taking advantage of me.
Sugarlips (Beefcakes Book 2) Page 20