Friends To Lovers (Aisle Bound Book 3)

by Christi Barth

  Gib got the impression that Sam’s anger at him for hurting Daphne was about a millimeter away from breaking through. Still, he’d keep grasping at straws until they helped him. “America’s the land of second chances. Of fresh starts.”

  “You’re really going to play the immigrant card?” Ben laughed. And finally put his back into moving some snow. “Didn’t Daphne talk you out of taking our citizenship test not too long ago?”

  That memory stung. He’d stayed up way too late cramming. All about the Constitution, representatives, cabinet positions and an entirely different version of the American War of Independence (which he had to now remind himself to call the Revolutionary War) than he’d learned as a child. Then he wasted four hours waiting in line. When only two people were up before him, Daphne burst into the room. Wild-eyed and talking a mile a minute.

  “Yes. She droned on forever about my responsibility to Queen and country. And something about the hotness of Prince William. I agreed not to become an American mostly to make her stop.”

  “An interesting basis for making your personal geo-political decisions,” smirked Milo.

  “I fucked up.” Gib tossed his shovel aside. Spread his arms wide in a mea culpa pose. “I know it, Daphne knows it and you all know it. I want a chance to clear the air.”

  Sam nodded slowly. “He’s got a point. I scorched some chocolate yesterday. Stunk up the bakery. Melted down a fresh batch, and it covered up the stench.”

  “Hang on,” said Milo. “Aren’t you going to the Fancy Food Show this month? To hawk your amazing truffles to anyone who’ll pay an arm and a leg for them?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  He stabbed with his shovel in Sam’s direction. “Then shouldn’t your days of burning chocolate be waaay behind you? Sounds like amateur hour to me.”

  “Tempering chocolate is an alchemical reaction. It can hinge on the slightest variable.” Sam paused, pressing his fists into his lower back as he stretched. “Plus, Mira distracted me. There’s nothing in the recipe books about taking a five-minute break to watch your fiancée show off her new bra.”

  “Niiiice,” Ben drawled. “What flavor truffles did you end up making that day? And when can I try them?”

  “White-chocolate passion fruit papaya with a lime glaze.” Sam winked. “To match her new orange lace bra.”

  “Even nicer. Are you nervous about the show? Like a JV football team before their first big game? Or ready and steady—like LeBron at the free throw line?”

  “I’ve got a plan. I’ve got an entire walk-in full of chocolate samples. Extra help lined up for that week. Mira helped me with some fancy cards. All I have to do is show up and wait for the seventeen thousand buyers to walk by.” Sam tossed some snow from hand to hand, forming a perfect ball. “I’m more worried for Daphne. Her big competition is the weekend before. At least I know what I’m walking into—she’s going into that blind.”

  Finally. A way to steer the conversation back to his problem. Getting back into Daphne’s good graces had to happen immediately. Before her anger cured, like wet cement. Sam’s show wasn’t for a few weeks. Gib cleared his throat. “Or she’ll walk in on the arm of a supportive boyfriend. If you help me.”

  A triangulation of looks passed between his friends. Raised eyebrows. Waggled eyebrows. Shrugs. Sam stepped forward. “You gotta be sure. One hundred percent in it to win it. No more half-assing it.”

  “Right. Totally committed.” In theory, at any rate. No guarantee he wouldn’t muck it up. This being his first real go at it.

  “You could be romancing three other woman with no more than a smile.” Milo wagged a finger. “Daphne’s going to take effort. Are you sure you want to work that hard?”

  “Is there any chance you’ll break her heart?” Ben asked.

  “There’s a much stronger chance she’ll break mine.” Gib figured his metaphorical cock and balls were already on display in the snow. Why not throw his raw, bleeding heart out there for them to stare at, too? “I didn’t like watching Daphne walk out on me last night. The last time I felt that poleaxed was when I took a full-on kick to the solar plexus in soccer. Sidelined me for the rest of the game. Without Daphne, I’ll be sidelined a lot longer. She’s the first—and only—woman I’ve ever wanted to have stick. What if she’s my only shot at true happiness?”

  They were perfect together. All the time they’d spent as best friends proved it. Toss in their red-hot attraction for each other, and it was the perfect match. Well, as long as you disregarded the epic shit storm he’d created last night through his laziness. Stupidity. Blundering.

  Ben gaped at him. “Did Ivy write you that speech? ’Cause I swear, pink cotton candy coated each word. Polka-dotted birds flew out your ass.”

  Milo squinched his face into the same death mask of pain he wore with a hangover. “Another sentence and you would’ve started growing breasts.”

  “Now I know why you Brits always bury your feelings. It’s damn embarrassing when you air them out.”

  Gib could take the insults. Didn’t disagree with any of them. “But will you help?”

  “Of course. Or we wouldn’t bother putting you through the wringer.” Ben broke the twig arm off of Gib’s snowman and started writing in the snow. “Here’s where you start. Tell her something about yourself. Something scary real. Something deep. Something you’d never share with that endless string of perfect boobs and surgically perfect faces that parade through your bedroom.”

  This was going to be as bad as the Grail quest. Impossible from the first step. “Daphne’s my best friend. She already knows everything about me.”

  “Does she?”

  “I’m glad you came tonight.” Mira reached to give Daphne a hug across a desk so clean it could be classified as surgically sterile.

  Shelves filled with possible merchandise for A Fine Romance lined each brick wall in multiple rows. They made the closet-size space feel claustrophobic. Daphne wanted out. More specifically, she wanted to get upstairs and get her hands on a glass of wine. “Are you kidding? This is your first official Match-n-Mingle. I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “I thought you might be too sad to do—you know—the whole thing.”

  “What? Shower and dress like a grown-up?” Daphne looked down at her outfit. Skinny jeans, knee-high black boots and a sweater she swore made her feel like Marilyn Monroe. Casual sexy. Exactly the right look for her cannonball into the dating pool.

  “Well, yeah. Didn’t you say you cried so much your eyelashes froze together on your walk yesterday?”

  The problem with texting? Waaay too easy to overshare. Besides, the crying had stopped right about the time the snow tapered off. A little heavy breathing with her hands cupped over her face fixed the eyelash problem. The date was a blip. The worst error in judgment she’d ever made, but in the grand scheme of life, a mere blip. Time to shut the door on her foolish crush and move on.

  “We had a blizzard yesterday. Conditions—all conditions—were extreme. Blizzard’s over, and its back to business. I already spent an hour practicing for Flower Power. Now I’m ready to go out there and snag a man.”

  “Whoa.” Mira stood, smoothing a dress the same deep red as her store’s logo. “Men can smell desperation. Let’s scale back that attitude a bit.” She circled the desk, tablet in hand. “What if you go out there and just find someone to talk with? And remember the house rule.”

  “No sex in the bathroom?” Daphne knew Mira had already broken that one. Claimed it to be her right as store manager. Something about testing the soundproofing of the walls.

  Sure enough, Mira’s cheeks pinked up. Hmm. Maybe she and Sam had broken that rule again…and recently. “When you finish your drink, you have to move on to somebody else. Otherwise it strays away from a Match-n-Mingle and becomes a Match-n-Clump.”

  “I’m here as a favor, remember? To support you, and to make sure, as an objective observer, that the evening flows. If I want to clump on someone, you can’t stop me.” />
  “As long as you clump with Adam Miller, I can deal.”

  Daphne hoped it wasn’t a friend of a friend of a friend. Or worse, Sam’s second cousin twice removed. Or any sort of ostensibly related-to-their-group man who’d be impossible to shake. Probably with a receding hairline. Back hair. Unusually small…feet. “I’ll bite. Who’s Adam Miller?”

  “Think about it. You know the name. I’ve heard you screech it at the television on Sundays more than once.”

  It couldn’t be. Fate wasn’t usually so evenhanded. “Adam Miller, the offensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears? The man with the tragic, career-ending crushed kneecap in his very first Super Bowl?”

  “The man you drool over whenever the TV cameras pan to the sidelines?” Mira teased.

  “Come on, Mira, be totally objective for a minute. Forget you’re living with your own personal sex god who rewards you by painting himself with chocolate in unmentionable places.”

  “Hard to forget, even for a second.” A dreamy smile widened her red lips. “Sam’s a talented man, in and out of the bedroom. I mean, in and out of the kitchen.”

  While she adored Sam, and admitted he was easy on the eyes, Daphne didn’t like thinking about anything he and Mira did behind closed doors. It might affect her pure and unadulterated love for his pastries. Worse yet, make her wonder if he’d worn clothes while baking them. “Adam looks like all those brawny men in electric razor and shaving cream ads.”

  “Mmm. When you put it that way, now I wish I could see him shirtless and dripping.”

  Daphne did, too. But she was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. “You’re telling me that karma ripped Gib away from me, yet has kindly replaced him in less than forty-eight hours? With a man whose biceps are bigger than my thigh?”

  “Don’t thank karma.” Mira tapped the screen of her iPad. “All the credit goes to my new matchmaker, Tabitha Bell.”

  And there was the other shoe. “No way. I just lasted a whopping twenty-seven minutes on a first date—and that was with the man of my dreams. The last thing I need is a setup.”

  “It is exactly what you need. You’re not mourning a lengthy relationship. Your big date fizzled in less time than it takes to get a manicure. Get right back on the horse. Ride ’em, cowgirl.”

  “I’m not against dating. I’m against being set up. It never works. So I’d be stuck on another date that wouldn’t last any longer than your average salon service. I’m all in favor of a good date. What I can’t handle is another debacle.”

  “Which is why I asked Tabitha to look through all the surveys of tonight’s guests and choose the one man most suited for you. As a confidence booster.” She turned the iPad to show Daphne a head shot of Adam in the corner of a spreadsheet. White teeth gleamed in a tan face. Strong cheekbones bracketed warm brown eyes. Not…blue. Not the color of a mountain lake, enticing you to slip into their depths and never come up for air. Not Gib.

  But that had to be a good thing. Adam was the anti-Gib. As American as, well, football and apple pie. Big as a grizzly with the wide shoulders and thick muscles from his football days in contrast to Gib’s lean, toned body, sleekly muscled like a jaguar. The body with such strength she’d yearned to have him unleash upon her. The body she’d surreptitiously drooled over when he’d come in from a run with Mira and Ben. The way he’d strip off his sopping-wet shirt and display a set of abs hard enough to polish diamonds.

  With another glance at Adam’s picture, Daphne said, “A purely selfless gesture, is it? This putting me on display for a total stranger?”

  Mira looked down at her boots. “All right, it’s a test. It’s a test of how the event works, and a test of Tabitha’s abilities as a matchmaker. I can’t get this kind of information from a customer. You have to help me. Just like the aphrodisiac dinner.”

  Look how that turned out. “Tabitha’s never met me.”

  “I might have filled out a survey in your name.” Mira shut the cover quickly, and rushed ahead. “But it worked. You love sports, you’re a lifelong Bears fan and you’ve crushed on this guy forever.”

  “I’m not good enough to be Adam Miller’s date. He’s gorgeous and works with people whose starting salaries are higher than the profit on all our businesses combined. What would we talk about?”

  “Um, that you love sports, and you’re a lifelong Bears fan?” Mira pushed her out the office door and up the stairs. “Oh, and Tabitha can’t be here tonight. So I’ll be nearby, watching and taking notes on her behalf.”

  Daphne halted in the doorway to the big, open room. Exposed brick gave it a casual vibe, along with the café tables and chairs in deep red. It was full of people already mingling and laughing. Probably because they were at least a drink ahead of her. “You’re just going to stare at me all night? Like I’m a zoo animal?”

  “More or less.” Mira gave a not-so-subtle shove on her ass. Daphne stumbled across the threshold. A large, warm hand caught her elbow and steadied her.

  “Daphne, right? I’ve been waiting for you.” A blond giant of a man smiled down at her. The same smile she’d watched crease his face when the Bears won in overtime a few months ago.

  She swallowed. Hard. Felt an idiotically big grin stretch across her face. “Hi.”

  “I’ve got a beer started at that table.” He pointed with his chin. “Would you like one, or do you want some wine?”

  “Beer’s great.”

  Adam managed to snag another beer from a passing waiter while keeping hold of her arm to lead her to the table. Once she sat on the high stool, he slid his hand down to lightly rest on top of her wrist.

  “I don’t know if Tabitha sent you my info in time. I’m sort of a last-minute addition to the party tonight. My sister talked me into coming. Well, bribed me into coming. She promised to make me pot roast next weekend. Bread pudding for dessert.”

  “Just for going on a date? Your sister pimped you out?” Crap. First she couldn’t string more than two words together. Then to rebound by insulting his sister? What was going on? Aside from the Gibson Moore disaster, Daphne was adept enough at dating. Flirty, fun, casual, not afraid to eat in front of a guy. No way would she let Gib undermine her mojo. Luckily, Adam laughed.

  “I moped around for a while after we didn’t make the playoffs. Jenny got ticked off. Claimed I ruined her New Year’s Eve party with my pouting.”

  Daphne had sulked a bit herself after the debacle of his last game. “You deserve to be pissed off. The Bears were robbed. That final turnover against the Packers could’ve clinched you a spot in the playoffs. I think the ref was off his meds that day or something.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You watched the game?”

  “I watch every game. Go Bears.” They clinked bottles. Daphne relaxed a bit. Adam was easy to talk to, and talking football made it even easier.

  “That’s a relief. A lot of pretty girls like you don’t like it when I talk football. I mean, we don’t have to just talk about football. But it’s my job, you know? Other guys talk spreadsheets and sales calls over a steak dinner. I talk about passing drives and wind sprints and spotting.”

  “Trust me, I get it. A lot of guys aren’t wild about me complaining about the price of Dutch tulips going up, or that a shipment of hydrangeas is blue instead of pink.”

  His eyes crinkled adorably as he frowned. “Aw, you weren’t supposed to tell me about flowers. I wanted to surprise you. I memorized your bio. All the fun facts about Daphne. That you’re a florist, and that your favorite color is blue and you like horror movies.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m impressed.” Just like that, he’d pitched her back into the land of two-word responses. The handsome football hero called her pretty and memorized her stats. Kind of took her breath away.

  “Good. ’Cause as soon as I saw your picture, I knew I wanted to meet you.” His hand closed around hers in a firm squeeze. And God help her, a dimple appeared in his cheek. “You’re even prettier in person.”

  “Thanks.” I
diot. Say something else. Anything. Well, anything except that her favorite color actually used to be yellow. Until the day she met Gibson Moore, and saw the perfect, paint-palate cerulean-blue of his eyes. “I’m a big fan of yours. I’ve followed you since your last season with Notre Dame. Never thought I’d get a chance to meet you.”

  “Heck, I’m nothing special. The guys out on the field, they’re the ones who put their heart and soul on the line every week. I just do what I can to help them.”

  Handsome. Sweet. Modest. Close to his sister. Daphne’s eyes slid down to the way his biceps strained against the cotton button-down shirt. Not just handsome. Drool-worthy handsome. Unless this guy secretly snacked on puppies, he was darn near perfect. Definitely the perfect rebound guy. The perfect hold me and lick me and make me come so many times I’ll forget all about Gib guy. If there was such a thing.

  “That’s how I feel about my brides. My job’s to support her. I don’t need a whole room of bridesmaids to ooh and aah over their bouquets. I want to know that I helped the bride feel her most beautiful when she walks down that aisle. That I helped her have the perfect day she’s always dreamed of.”

  He sipped his beer, nodded. “But it’s fun, right? I mean, I’m guessing you must like flowers. And your job is to play with them all day, so you have a good time? I love football. I get to think about it all day. So when I’m on a date, I can’t help going on about it.”

  “Sounds good to me.” She leaned across the table to whisper. And to brush her cheek against his, just to feel the scratch of five o’clock shadow rasp against her skin. “I have four brothers. I might even know more about football than you.”

  Adam let loose a big, booming laugh. He squeezed her hand again. “I can’t wait to try you out. Damn it, I know that stupid bell’s about to ring and make us switch people.”

  “Sorry. If I’d known you were waiting for me, I would’ve gotten here sooner.” There. Flirting mojo absolutely reestablished.

  “Good to know. So here goes. Let me take you to dinner. I promise to show you a good time. Smith & Wollensky? On the river? I’ll even tell you my one and only flower story. It’s about prom and a goat and a corsage emergency.”