Best Friend's Second Chance (Wilder Brothers Book 2)

by Lisa Levine

  She flushed, and I realized that I blurted that out a little too insensitively.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to assume anything; I just saw the dedication pages, and I thought—”

  “Yes,” she said timidly. “They’re all dedicated to you.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked her as I set down the book and pulled her closer into my lap. “Why didn’t you ever let me know how you felt about me?”

  “Because I thought it might ruin everything.”

  29

  Chapter Nineteen (Ivy)

  When I woke up in Easton’s arms the next morning, the bed seemed exceptionally soft, and our bodies entwined around each other seemed incredibly comfortable. I just wanted to lay here forever. I looked over to see his face, and when I saw him staring back at me, I instantly felt a surge of excitement come over me. Every time I looked at him, I felt as if I were falling in love with him all over again. Easton looked exceptionally energized and wide awake this morning.

  “Have you been up for long already?” I asked as I tried to get my eyes to adjust to the morning light.

  “Yep,” he said as he stared at me with a smile that I could see was just dying to burst out from behind his lips.

  “Is there something going on today that I don’t know about?” I asked. Whatever it was that he was so excited about, I wanted to know about it, too.

  “I want you to move in with me,” he said unexpectedly.

  “Wait. What?” I asked in surprise.

  “I want you to move in here and stay with me and never leave. Well, I didn’t mean it to sound creepy like that; you can leave when you want to; I just want you to come back every day.” He laughed. “You know what I mean. I want us to be together.”

  I sat up in bed and leaned against the headboard. Easton moved into position beside me and reached his hand over to my lap as he watched me and waited for my reaction.

  “Moving in together is kind of a big deal,” I said. “I mean, even aside from all of the logistics of it, that’s a big thing to do together so soon. Don’t you think?”

  “No,” he said. “Ivy, we’ve been the closest of friends for years. Now we’re more than that. I don’t want to spend any more time waiting to be with you after all the years that we’ve been apart together.”

  I giggled at his phrasing, but it was true. We had been “apart together.” We had seen each other or at least talked to each other every single day since middle school. We told each other all of our secrets, knew more about each other than even our parents did, and we were always there for each other when we needed someone to laugh with, or cry with, or talk us down off a ledge. It was like we had always been together without actually being together—until now.

  “I don’t want to spend another single night without being able to kiss you before I close my eyes or another single morning without waking up next to you. It’s not too fast at all; in fact, I think it’s long-awaited. Unless you don’t want to?”

  “Oh, God, no, I want to. I really want to,” I said quickly as a feeling of immense excitement grew in my gut. “But what about all the logistics? I still have to pay rent to Bridget. I can’t leave her high and dry.”

  “I’ll pay the remainder of your rent off.”

  “You can’t,” I said. “You gave all of your money to Layla,” I reminded him.

  “True,” he grinned. “But I didn’t give her all of yours.”

  “Huh?” I was completely confused at this point.

  “I had my attorneys leave a clause open on the documents that I was hoping Layla and her brother wouldn’t notice, and they didn’t.”

  “What did the clause say?”

  “It said that in addition to my company being protected, so were my investments. It just so happens that I invested in someone the very same day that they signed, an author who goes by the pen name Isadora Graves. Wasn’t that the name you said you would use in college? I had wracked my brain trying to remember what you had told me years ago, and it’s going to suck if I got it wrong.” Easton grinned at me with the excitement of a mischievous little boy who had just pulled of a fantastic prank.

  I had no idea how he had remembered that since he had only half-listened when I talked about my writing in school. “Wait so—”

  “Yeah, you’re pretty much a billionaire now,” he smiled. “Hope you’ll share some with me.”

  Oh my God.

  My head was completely spinning, and my thoughts swung out of control. Easton not only just asked me to move in with him, but he also just told me that instead of losing all of his fortune, he had transferred a large chunk of it to me.

  “What happens when Layla and Roger find out about this?” I asked.

  “They won’t. They still got paid a handsome sum of money. They’re fine. They just didn’t need to have all of it. Besides, it’s all written up in legally binding contracts, so even if they did catch wind that I had shafted them out of some of it, it wouldn’t matter. There’s nothing they can do.”

  I felt like I was on a merry-go-round that wouldn’t stop.

  “Are you okay?” Easton asked me. “Are you upset with me that I did that?”

  “Are you kidding?” I said with a huge smile. “I am so relieved that you didn’t give away all of your wealth. It’s not about the money, just the principle of it. And I am ecstatic about moving in with you. I’m just overwhelmed. It’s like all of a sudden, the thing that I have been fantasizing about is suddenly coming true. I’ve wanted to be with you for so long, and I just need a minute to believe that this is truly all happening.”

  Easton came to crawl over my lap and straddle me with one leg pressed against the outside of each of my thighs. He put both of his hands on my face and leaned forward to kiss me. “It’s happening,” he smiled. “So what do you say? Will you move in with me?”

  “Yes,” I said. My heart was racing and filled with happiness. “When?”

  “Today,” he said. “Let’s do it today! I don’t want to go another day without you.”

  I squealed with joy, and we both jumped out of bed. I called Bridget and Ben and asked them if they wanted to come to help me move. I explained to Bridget that we would be bringing her a check for more than enough to cover the remainder of both portions of our rent to thank her for everything that she had done for me and the both of us. They were both so happy for us that Ben called in people to cover their shifts, and they both took the day off to help us move.

  Bridget helped me pack up all of my things into boxes, and the guys loaded everything into our cars.

  “I have to say that I am going to miss having you here,” Bridget said as we were folding clothes into boxes in my room.

  “I know,” I said as I set down the shirts and reached over to give her a big hug. “I’m going to miss you, too. But I’ll still see you at work almost every day, and we’ll still hang out outside of work.”

  “Are you still going to work at the bookstore now that you’re super-rich and all?”

  “Of course, I am, and I’m not super-rich. That money belongs to Easton, not me.”

  “I don’t think so,” Bridget said. “He invested it in your writing and your books, fair and square. I say it belongs to you. I definitely still want you to work at the bookstore with us, but maybe you should take some of the time outside your shifts to get back to writing. It seems like you have a private investor now who really wants to see you succeed.”

  She glanced over to Easton as he was lifting a box and laughing with Ben in the living room.

  “He really is a good guy,” she said with a smile. “I gave him a bit of hell because he needed a wake-up call. But he turned out to be pretty okay.”

  I smiled at her.

  “I’m glad you think so,” I said. “Because I am so very much in love with him.”

  “Oh, I know that, honey,” she laughed. “You’ve been in love with that guy since the very first moment that I met you. I’m glad that you get to hav
e your happily ever after now. Who knew that the bad-boy billionaire could turn out to be such a prince?”

  We both laughed and then carried our boxes out to where the guys were waiting.

  Easton grabbed me in his arms and kissed me with a French kiss that would make a weaker-hearted person blush. Fortunately, Bridget and Ben were used to us by now.

  “So since Ivy isn’t going to be here anymore and I do have this whole extra bedroom,” Bridget said as she shifted on her feet and looked at Ben. “I could use a bit of extra help around the place and—”

  “I accept,” Ben said before she had a chance to finish. He had probably saved her from more awkward foot shifting. “What I meant to say was, if you’re offering me a chance to move in with you, then I would love to. I can help you pay some of the other bills and fix things up and—”

  This time it was Bridget who didn’t let him finish his sentence because she leaned forward and grabbed him by the shirt to pull him toward her as she planted a kiss onto his mouth. Ben wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back. Everything was working out so perfectly.

  “Hey, how about we have a moving day party at our apartment?” Easton said to everyone. “Just the four of us, some pizza, a couple of bottles of wine?”

  “Sounds good to me!” Ben replied.

  After we got everything brought over to our apartment, I ordered pizzas, and Easton uncorked the wine as we all sat around on giant floor cushions in the living groom.

  “This is nice,” I said as I leaned up against Easton’s chest, and the four of us all looked out the window at downtown Chicago beneath a thin blanket of snow. “I hope that we can do this a lot.”

  “We can do it whenever you want,” Easton said. Then he looked over at Bridget and Ben. “You guys are welcome here anytime.”

  “Thanks,” Bridget replied. “So what are you guys going to do now that you’re actually, officially together? Are you going to get engaged, married, have babies?”

  “Wow,” Ben said. “That is all a very lot to ask a couple who has just moved in together.”

  “Don’t worry,” she laughed. “I’m not projecting onto you. I have no desire to have babies yet.”

  Everyone laughed as Ben immediately looked relieved.

  “I was just wondering if there were any other surprises to come or if we were all just going to go about our normal lives for a while,” she said.

  “I, for one, would love to have some time of calm and peacefulness where we could just enjoy each other and not have any more drama for a while,” I said.

  “Agreed,” Easton said as he held up his wine glass. “Toast to some drama-free days ahead.”

  “Cheers to that!” Bridget echoed as all of our glasses clinked together.

  After the last of the pizza was eaten, the wine emptied, and the conversation was starting to get laced with drowsiness, Bridget and Ben headed home.

  “That was fun,” I said as I wrapped my arm around Easton’s waist and we walked to the bedroom together.

  “It was,” he said. “For a while there, I thought Bridget would never come around to liking me. I’m glad she finally did.”

  Easton went into the bathroom, and I got undressed and slid one of Easton’s comfy T-shirts on before crawling into bed. I loved sleeping in his shirts because they were so soft and smelled like him. When he came out of the bathroom wearing nothing but boxers, I already felt myself starting to squirm beneath the blanket with anticipation. He climbed in beside me and pulled me over onto his shoulder, which was my favorite place to rest my head. Our bodies fit together like a puzzle, and the nook against his shoulder was the perfect place for me to fall asleep.

  “What was your favorite part of it all?” he asked me as I listened to the steady beating of his heart against my ear.

  “From today, you mean?” I asked.

  “No, from everything. Out of everything that you and I have ever done together, what was your favorite part of all?”

  I thought carefully for a minute while I lay against him. I thought back to our earliest memories together all the way up to this very moment tonight. There were so many parts that I absolutely loved and held close to my heart, and then there were also a few that caused me so much pain that I didn’t want to think about them. But there was one thing that stood out above all the others because it was the memory that made me feel closer to Easton than I ever thought that I could.

  “My favorite part of it all is making love to you,” I said.

  Easton’s mouth curved into a smile, and his eyes lit up. “Then that is exactly what we are going to do,” he said as he rolled above me and traced his tongue against my lips until I touched it with mine and bade him slide it into my mouth.

  As he lifted the shirt from my arms, I pulled the boxers from his hips. Then in the dim light of the moon that spilled through the window, he made love to me again and again and again until we both were too exhausted to stay awake. It was exactly the way that I wanted to end my first night of our living together. It was a complete connection that continued to bring us closer than I would have thought was possible. As we curled up together and I started to hear his breathing get heavier and indicative of sleep, I whispered to him, thinking that he wouldn’t hear me, but it didn’t matter. I would say it to the moon if she were the only one listening.

  “I love you,” I whispered against his chest.

  To my surprise, his breathing paused for a quick moment. “I love you, too, Ivy,” he said. “And I always will.”

  I closed my eyes as we held each other and drifted off into a richly contented sleep.

  30

  Chapter Twenty (Easton)

  This was it. This was the day that I had been waiting for. It took a bit of doing, but I had managed to arrange everything exactly as I had wanted it to be planned. Fortunately, since I still had access to my money, I was still able to move mountains when I needed to. And this time, I really needed to. I could hardly contain my excitement and nerves.

  Since we had both just gotten home from work, Ivy was changing into comfier clothes. I couldn’t change; I was too nervous to do anything yet. She walked out of the bedroom in her cozy joggers and one of my T-shirts again.

  “What do you look so excited about?” she asked me as she smiled and pulled her hair up into a high ponytail on the back of her head.

  “You’re going to need a jacket,” I said. “And shoes.”

  “Are we going somewhere?” she asked. “I should change into actual street clothes if we’re going out someplace.”

  “No, you look perfect,” I said.

  She wrinkled her nose up at me.

  “Seriously, what you’re wearing is great. Trust me.”

  She laughed and grabbed her converse. “Well, at least I know we aren’t going anyplace fancy then.”

  I grabbed my black leather jacket from off the back of a chair and reached into the closet to pull out hers.

  “Do you want a jacket or this big gray sweater?” I asked.

  “Oh, I love that sweater so much,” she grinned.

  Sweater, it is.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as we got into the car.

  “It’s a surprise,” I said.

  “Is it a good surprise or a bad one? Because you look kind of nervous.”

  “It’s a good surprise.”

  “Then why do you look so nervous?” Ivy asked.

  I reached for her hand to pull it into my lap as I drove. I couldn’t tell her why I looked nervous, not yet. She didn’t seem to have any idea where we were going until we got almost right up to it.

  “Is that our old high school?” she asked as I turned onto the street that led into the large parking lot. “Is this where we’re going?”

  “Yeah,” I smiled. “It’s part of the surprise.”

  It was dusk, so there was still enough light to see all around the campus. We walked around the outside of the buildings and peeked in the windows of old classrooms. We went and sat down on
the bleachers at the sports field and huddled together in the cold.

  “It’s amazing how much of this I had forgotten,” she said, “until we came back here tonight, and now it’s like all the memories have come flooding back. Do you remember that time when I lost my library book, and I was so worried that I was going to get in trouble with my parents that you literally scoured the entire campus to help me find it? I can’t believe you ended up finding it out here beneath the bleachers.”

  I laughed and pulled her close to me. “Yeah, I remember that. But I never actually found your lost book.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I took it in to return to the library so that they didn’t put a fine on my school record and call my parents.”

  “That wasn’t your lost book,” I said as I remembered that day fondly. “You were so upset, and I wanted to fix it for you so that you weren’t scared about getting into trouble. I spent all damn day searching this campus from top to bottom; I even skipped a few of my classes to keep looking. But that book was nowhere to be found. So I hopped into my car and ran over to the bookstore and bought you another copy. I roughed it up a bit to make it look like the library copy and told you that the library barcode must have fallen off outside somehow.”

  Ivy looked up at me in astonishment. “You did all that just so that I wouldn’t get in trouble with my parents?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I loved you—I mean, I love you. And back then, I cared a lot about you and didn’t want to see you upset.” I nearly blew everything by stumbling over my words. I couldn’t ruin this moment tonight; I had held onto it for way too long to ruin it now by doing something stupid.

  “Thank you,” she said as she leaned up and kissed me on the side of my cold cheek. Her lips were warm, but the tip of her nose felt icy as it touched against my skin. “I never knew.”

  “I know you didn’t,” I said. “There were a few things that you didn’t know.”