by Jill Shalvis
Becca swiped her finger across the screen and brought up another picture, the one of Callie and Tanner.
“Okay,” Callie said. “That’s a little deceiving.”
“And this one?” Becca accessed the next pic. It was of Eric and the blonde leaving the bakery. “It says he’s your ex-fiancé, who left you at the altar.”
Well, wasn’t this fun. “I…didn’t see that one.”
“I’m glad,” Becca said, her usually mild-tempered eyes hard. “He’s an ass. A good dentist but a complete ass.” Becca shook her head. “I’m sorry you had to run into him like that when you were alone. I’d have liked to be with you.”
Callie shook her head. “It wasn’t a big deal. He just…startled me.”
At this Becca reached out and squeezed her hand. “I’d like to startle him into next week.”
Callie smiled because it wasn’t so far off from what Tanner had said. She couldn’t deny that it felt good to have people care enough about her that they wanted to defend her honor. But she could handle herself. Probably. “Not necessary,” she assured Becca. “It was all a long time ago.”
“Good,” Olivia said. “But that’s not even the most interesting part.”
Oh great, Callie thought, having a bad feeling that she knew what was coming next.
“True,” Becca said. “That honor goes to the fact that it’s rumored you’re no longer going to the bakery because you’re holing up with—” She looked at Olivia. “What did they call him?”
“Mr. Sex Walking,” Olivia said helpfully.
Callie grimaced.
“Mr. Sex Walking,” Becca repeated, and burst out laughing. “Tanner’s going to love that.”
Olivia grinned too. “No, he’s not.”
“No, he’s not,” Becca agreed.
Callie sighed and reached for the syrup. She was going to need a lot more sugar to get through this. “It’s a very long, very boring story.”
“I love long, boring stories,” Olivia said.
Great. “Okay, well…I had a crush on him in high school,” she admitted. “A big-time crush.”
“Tanner’s pretty crushable,” Becca said, and when Olivia slid her a look, she shrugged. “What? I’m engaged, I’m not dead. Those dark eyes, that hard body.” Becca sighed dreamily. “His body language always seems to say that he’s been badass before and he has no problem being badass again if the need arises.” She shook herself. “The man is hot.”
“Yes, well,” Callie said, “he’s also out of my league.”
“Don’t make me set down my fork to smack you,” Olivia said. “Because I don’t want to stop eating but I’ll totally do it.”
“I mean it,” Callie said. “Look, I was the nerd in school. You know, the girl that guys like him paid to do their homework. And I know it sounds stupid, but when I see him sometimes my tongue gets all tied up like it used to.”
“Because he’s hot,” Becca said. “Not because he’s out of your league. Honey, whatever you were, you’re the equally hot girl now. Brains are in. Own it.”
Callie smiled at her. “You’re sweet.”
“Yes,” Becca said. “And I’m smart too, so believe me.”
Callie did. Maybe she’d felt a little invisible at first, but that had been before Tanner had brought her doughnuts.
And kissed her.
She hadn’t been invisible then. Tanner had been as gobsmacked by their chemistry as she. Nope. She no longer felt invisible at all.
Now she just felt…longing.
“Okay, so now that that’s settled,” Becca said. “Explain the bakery breakfasts.”
Fine. This was easier anyway. “I was there first and Tanner came in and took the only empty seat.” She paused. “Next to me.”
“Three times?” Becca asked.
Hmm. Maybe not so easy. “Well, the first time anyway,” she said, diving back into her pancakes. “Maybe the next two times I sort of saved a seat for him.”
Becca and Olivia grinned at this, and Callie sighed. “We told each other we were sitting together in order to not have to socialize with anyone else.”
“Interesting,” Becca said slowly.
“Very,” said Olivia. “Which do you find more so, the evasion technique or the out-and-out lie?”
Callie rolled her eyes. “It was stupid. Hanging out with him renewed my stupid high school crush. And then he saw the whole thing with Eric, which was mortifying. So I didn’t go for coffee the next day. And…
“And?” Becca and Olivia asked in unison, leaning forward.
“And…” Callie grimaced. “Tanner showed up on my doorstep with coffee and doughnuts.”
“What kind?” Becca asked.
“An entire baker’s dozen. Assorted.”
Her avid audience sighed dreamily.
“No,” she said, pointing her fork at them. “Don’t do that. No sighing like that. It wasn’t cute.”
“No,” Becca said. “It was sexy.”
“Sexy as all get-out,” Olivia agreed. “I heard the whole thing as it happened.”
Callie stared at her. “What? Then why did you ask me about it? And how? How did you know?”
“No insulation,” Olivia said.
“Oh my God,” Callie said. “I’m calling our landlord!”
“Good luck,” Olivia said. “And I swear I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. At least not at first. Cole and I were in bed and then you two started talking, and before we knew it we were trying not to listen with our ears pressed against the wall.”
Becca grinned.
Not Callie. “Cole heard?” she asked on a moan. “Oh, God.” She dropped her head to the table and thunked it a few times, which didn’t help whatsoever. “Okay, you know what? It doesn’t matter. It’s done. Seeing Eric reminded me that no good comes from crushes. Or relationships. And since Tanner agrees, subject closed.”
Becca’s expression went from amused to troubled. “He said that?”
“Didn’t have to,” Callie said. “He left in a pretty big hurry after the kiss.”
“There was a kiss?” they both screeched together.
Callie went back to thunking her head on the table.
“It’s okay. I know how to fix this,” Olivia said.
Callie lifted her head. “We wipe Cole’s memory?”
Olivia ignored that and turned to Becca. “I really thought out of the three of us, I was the most screwed up and that you took second place.”
“Hey,” Becca said. Then she sighed. “Okay, true.”
“But it’s her,” Olivia said, and looked at Callie. “You’re the most screwed up.”
“Gee,” Callie said. “Thanks?”
“Oh, no worries,” Olivia said. “We can fix this.”
Becca nodded.
“Fix what exactly?” Callie asked warily.
“Well, Tanner’s in a bad head space,” Becca said. “He’s had a lot on his plate and it’s all about the people he cares about. It’s time for him to do something for himself for a change. And you’re perfect as that something.”
Callie opened her mouth but Becca kept talking. “And you. You work for crazy people and don’t get out much. You need something for yourself too. Tanner’s that perfect something. So together, it’s all perfect, you see?”
Olivia was nodding her head. She saw.
Callie did not. “Listen, I don’t think—”
“Go with that,” Becca said. “Don’t think. We’ll do the thinking for you.”
“And our plan is…?” Olivia asked Becca.
“Get Tanner to crush on Callie,” she said like she’d just solved world hunger. She was beaming. “It’s perfect.”
“Not quite,” Callie said. “He’s not the type to crush. And I’m not—”
Olivia pointed her fork at her. “If you finish that sentence, I will totally stop eating to smack you. I swear it this time. You’re totally crush-worthy. In fact, I have a crush on you. If I swung that way, we’d rock the hell out of a goo
d mutual crush. Now just leave this to the masters.”
Becca nodded. “That’s us. The making-a-guy-crush-on-you masters.”
Since Callie couldn’t imagine anyone making Tanner do anything he didn’t want to, she left breakfast secure in the knowledge that things would remain status quo.
The next day when she picked up Troy, he wasn’t scowling. He looked a little proud of himself.
“Oh, crap,” Callie said. “I know that look. She talked you into trouble. What did you two do?”
“Huh?” He shoved his hands into his pockets and slouched. “Nothing. I just helped her with a little camera work.”
“Camera work for what?”
“Her new blog.”
“For…the art gallery?” Callie asked.
“No, she said this was her personal blog.” He paused. “It’s a YouTube channel.”
“Oh my God.” Callie gave him a quick glare. “You were supposed to keep her out of trouble!”
“Hello, have you met her? No one person can control that old lady. And she moves fast!” He shrugged. “And anyway, you should be thanking me. I talked her out of her first idea.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Callie said.
“She wanted to do Live from the Gym, where she planned on interviewing guys with their shirts off.”
“Oh my God.”
“But I talked her into doing a Live from Bingo Night thing instead.”
Callie sighed. “Good. That was really good.”
“Worth a raise good?” he asked.
Callie laughed. “No. You get her to close her Tumblr and Instagram, then we’ll talk.”
“She’s pretty crafty,” he said. “She’d probably just reopen them under a different name. Oh, and there was a little toaster ordeal.”
She glanced over at him again. “A toaster ordeal?”
“She put four pieces of bread down even though she said her toaster could only do two at a time without catching fire.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” Troy said. “And then the fire alarm went off, but don’t freak. There weren’t any flames, just smoke. I unplugged it right away, but the firefighters and sheriff still came. She insisted.”
“Not the pretend fire thing again,” Callie muttered.
“Uh-huh. And a firefighter named Jack told your grandma that the next time she pulled another stunt like that, they might arrest her. And she said she hoped it was Sheriff Sawyer Thompson who arrested her because she had a thing for a man with handcuffs.”
Callie groaned and decided she needed a doughnut. Maybe two. “And then what happened?”
“The sheriff came. He said that he was going to call you to tell you that you needed to get her hormone levels checked or he was going to be sorely tempted to arrest her.”
“Did she behave after that?”
“Well, you’d have to define behave,” Troy said. “But she did promise to try to be good. No one looked all that convinced though.”
Tanner’s day had been a shit pile. Troy had gotten in trouble for hacking into his teacher’s computer to change a grade. The thing was, he hadn’t been changing his own grade but someone else’s. The principal wouldn’t say whose, but she did admit that the teacher had entered the grade incorrectly in the first place.
Troy refused to discuss it. Shock.
Then Sam had made an offer on a second boat for Lucky Harbor Charters, a boat they’d been eyeing for a long time and wanted badly, but they’d been a day late and a dollar short—the boat had sold yesterday.
And then as a topper, Tanner had been halfway through a swim to clear his mind when a vicious leg cramp had nearly done him in.
When he’d limped out of the water and collapsed on the rocky beach, gritting his teeth in pain, he discovered he had a witness.
Troy.
Most of the time Tanner didn’t give a shit about his leg and the fact that it was only at about 50 percent. He only thought about it when it sent a stab of nerve pain through him. Or when Callie had noticed his scar. But rolling on the shore in the grip of that vicious cramp with Troy hovering over him asking “What can I do?” over and over again had been humiliating as hell.
Now Troy was with Elisa for the night. Her parents were in town and the kid was to help her make a good show. So Tanner, Cole, and Sam had walked to the Love Shack for a pitcher of beer.
“To Gil,” they toasted at their first drink, as they always did, and though Tanner felt the usual familiar pang of grief, it wasn’t accompanied by the also all-too-familiar pang of guilt.
For surviving when Gil hadn’t.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
Was he? “I still expect to see him sitting here with us, every time.”
Neither Sam nor Cole had to ask who. Sam blew out a breath. “He is here; he’s always here.”
Cole lifted his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
They all drank to that, and turned to a game of darts.
“What are we betting?” Cole asked before starting the game.
“Ten bucks,” Sam said.
Cole and Tanner both laughed.
“What?” Sam demanded.
“You’re so tight you squeak when you walk,” Cole said. “Does Becca know this? Does she realize she’s marrying a tightwad?”
“What’s wrong with ten bucks?” Sam asked with a scowl.
To be fair, the guy couldn’t help himself. He’d come from nothing, less than nothing. Tanner too, but at least he’d had his mom to share the reality of their rather grim situation.
Sam had patched things up with his dad now, but there’d been many, many years where his only home had been the one that Cole’s mom had made for him in a spare room of her house.
But Sam had been money smart. He’d turned a dime into a dollar and then a dollar into many, many more. He’d been in charge of their rig earnings, and he’d done incredibly well for them all. They’d gotten off the rigs and were able to buy their boat and start Lucky Harbor Charters, all thanks to Sam pinching every penny.
“Fifty bucks,” Cole said. “And the loser has to tell us why he hasn’t told us he’s seeing Callie.” Sam and Cole stared at Tanner.
Tanner felt himself scowl. “Why do you assume I’m going to lose?”
“’Cause you always do,” Sam said. “You suck at darts.”
“Notice he didn’t deny the Callie thing,” Cole said, eyes still on Tanner.
“I’m not seeing Callie,” Tanner said. Because you’re an idiot.
“Then what was the other morning?” Cole asked. “Coming out of her place?”
“None of your business.”
“Or…” Sam asked, brow arched.
And for some reason, Tanner felt himself lose his temper. Maybe it was knowing that tentative and rather precious beginning to whatever he and Callie had been doing was all past tense thanks to him fucking it up. “It was nothing,” he said. Snapped. “She’s a coffee companion. Just that, nothing more.”