by Karla Doyle
Test.
He snorted while taking her bags to the den. Who was he kidding? The fact he wanted to kiss Addie proved as much as the kiss itself would. He was physically attracted to his best friend. But that only answered his half of the test. The other question was on Addie’s page.
Her reaction to their accidental contact in the front hall could’ve simply been embarrassment. Or, it could’ve been something more.
He hadn’t cared much about test results while they were in school. Tonight, he had his sights set on getting an A.
Chapter 3
December 14
ADELINE
“Can I interest you in dessert tonight?” the waitress asked while clearing their main-course dishes.
As always, Kelly pointed at Addie, rather than answering. He hadn’t made the first decision about dessert for years, since she’d announced her intention to eat healthier. From that day forward, he’d followed suit. He’d embraced her lifestyle changes, celebrated her milestones and supported her through the backslides, all without judging. He’d always been the absolute best person in her corner. Tonight was no different—except that it was.
Kelly hadn’t just been his warm, friendly self. He’d been attentive. Instead of unlocking his truck with the remote, he’d walked her to the passenger door and opened it for her, then waited for her to be tucked inside before closing it. When she’d shivered between their parking spot and the restaurant’s door, he’d put his arm around her shoulders. Walking through the restaurant, to their table, his hand had rested on the small of her back. His phone hadn’t made an appearance once since they left the house, even though it had chirped relentlessly inside his pocket. And his eyes… God, they might’ve been the best part, because he hadn’t taken them off her.
She didn’t want the evening to end. For that reason alone, she’d stray from her nutritional goals. “Feel like sharing something?”
“Absolutely.” The depth and richness of his voice sent a tingle of awareness from her nips to her hips. “Whatever you want tonight, Addie, I’m in.”
Based on the waitress’s expression, Addie wasn’t the only one interpreting Kelly’s words and gestures as more than a standard, easygoing answer. He was being…flirty. With her.
But why? He hadn’t been drinking, not that that’d make a difference. They’d gotten drunk together plenty of times over the years and never crossed the platonic line. Not by as much as a hair. They’d been constant companions since nearly forever. They lived together, ate together, hung out together. Yet, Kelly had never, ever, showed interest in her beyond friendship.
She’d been a cherub child whose extra body mass hadn’t “evened out” as her mother claimed it would. From age thirteen to nineteen, she’d been the chubby girl with nice hair and a pretty face. Back then, she’d assumed it was her squishiness that’d prevented Kelly from seeing her as a dating prospect.
In her twenties, she’d gotten her nutritional habits in order. As curv-a-licious Addie, she had squishiness in all the right places.
Kelly had been there every step of the way with endless cheering, congratulations and sincere compliments. But nothing more. No matter what she wore—or didn’t wear—around him, his focus never strayed from her face and his intentions remained G-rated.
Her body shape hadn’t been what’d kept Kelly on neutral ground. He simply hadn’t been into her in a sexual or romantic way.
Until…tonight?
“Do you need a few more minutes to figure it out?” the waitress asked, drawing Addie’s attention.
She’d need a lot more minutes to figure out what was going on with Kelly. But that wasn’t the question to be answered. “A slice of cheesecake would be great, please.”
“I’ll be right back with it.”
“Thanks.” A minute ago, Addie had been willing to absorb several hundred garbage calories to gain more time with Kelly. Now she wasn’t so sure she’d made the right choice—and not because of the extra carbs.
She’d always been at ease around him. More than anybody else. In this moment, she felt as if she were sitting on a chair full of ants.
He tipped his head, his green eyes twinkling, even in the restaurant’s muted light. “You okay? Because you look ready to bolt.” Of course, he’d noticed her squirming. Hard for him not to, since she’d been in his spotlight since they sat across from each other at the two-person table.
“Sorry.” Not just an empty word, she was sorry. Getting away from him was the last thing she wanted. Ever. And therein lay the problem. But for now, a lie would do the trick. “You’re going to laugh, but it’s my jeans. They’re new, and I think I should’ve washed them before wearing. All I can think about is taking them off as soon as we get home.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said, giving her an oh-yeah, now-we’re-talking smile.
Which she would’ve taken as a caught-you-saying-something-that-sounds-dirty smile, had he laughed along with it. But he didn’t. Instead, he…smoldered. At her. Her.
What in Christmas bells was happening here?
“Here you go.” The waitress slid a single plate bearing one wedge of cheesecake onto the table, along with two pieces of cutlery. “Enjoy.”
“Awesome, thanks,” Kelly said, picking up one of the forks.
Dessert with a friend. That’s what was happening here. She’d read too much into his smile. Into everything else, too. Probably because of Caroline’s comments at the store earlier. The tiny seed of hope she had never been able to entirely kill had soaked up Kelly’s attention tonight and sprouted.
Stupid little sprout. Hopefully she wouldn’t water it with the drool pooling in her mouth. But, God help her, his lips closing around a forkful of cheesecake put all kinds of merry thoughts in her head.
This is why she knew Kelly’s kitchen had sixty-seven boards in the wainscoting on the west wall. Or that her oversized, breakfast coffee mug was decorated with thirty-six tiny roses. She’d learned to focus on things other than Kelly’s mouth. She’d eaten a lot of meals across from Kelly in her lifetime, especially in the years since his parents moved out. Like the rest of him, his mouth was killer sexy. Watching him eat made her hungry for things other than food.
He smiled while loading another chunk of cheesecake onto his fork. “Sharing takes two. Don’t leave me hanging here, I need your help.”
Shaking her head, she returned the smile. “I’m sure you could manage the whole piece of cheesecake without me. I should probably sit here and let you do that. Every bite I have is going to cost me an extra ten minutes on that evil air-bike of yours.”
“The air-bike is awesome, not evil, and I think you secretly love it.”
She laughed while picking up the second fork. “I not-so-secretly hate it. But I’m going to continue hate-using it as long as I’m still living at your place.”
His hand froze halfway to his mouth. “What do you mean by, ‘as long as you’re still living at my place?’”
“I can’t live in your house forever. One or both of us is going to meet somebody and want to move on to the next stage of adulting. Probably sooner than later, since we’re in our thirties now.”
“Have you met somebody you want to do that with?”
There was no way to answer this directly without lying or confessing. “You’re assuming it’ll be me, but maybe it’ll be you.” The pattern on the fork’s handle was probably imprinted on her palm from squeezing it so hard. “I’ve seen Melanie Easton’s car in the driveway several times over the past month, and nobody else’s.” She shrugged, hoping it appeared a lot more indifferent than it felt. “Maybe she’s the one for you.”
“She’s not the one.”
“Well, then maybe the next woman to come.” Her cheeks warmed the instant the words left her mouth, the heat notching higher as he grinned at her unintentionally dirty comment.
“Maybe.” He winked while treating the forkful of dessert to a taste of his mouth.
She averted her gaze out of ne
cessity. The seam of her body-hugging jeans provided a bit of much-needed pressure, but watching the flex of his ruggedly perfect jaw and the slide of his Adam’s apple was going to be her undoing. She needed to get home, lock her bedroom door, and ride her vibrator until it sputtered to a stop, in need of a merciful recharging.
For now, she’d focus on successfully avoiding the topic of moving out. And on dessert, which always made things better, if only temporarily.
She raised her fork to stab at the cheesecake, pulling back when she spotted a chunk of somebody else’s dinner caked between the tines. “Ick. Can you flag our waitress if you spot her? I need another fork.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Why?” Setting the dirty utensil aside, she dared to look at his handsome face again. “Are you going to save me from a late-night date with the air-bike by eating the rest of the cheesecake before I get a clean fork?”
“No, and the bike will have to wait for another day. You’re my date tonight.”
“Do you think you can compete with the bike? It always makes me hot and breathless.” She waggled her eyebrows at him exaggeratedly, expecting a laugh in return.
He served up a lethally sexy smile instead. “That sounded like an invitation.”
“You wish,” she said, snorting. Because they were joking around. As they did.
“Here.” He scooped a bite of dessert onto his fork without deserting their eye contact. “We can both use mine.”
“Okay,” she said, reaching for the handle.
Rather than hand the fork over, he pulled it back and shook his head. “I’ll feed it to you. Open up and let me slide it in.”
“If this is your usual method of seduction, I’m surprised there’s so much traffic to your bedroom door.” Another joke, this one on her part.
The snappy comeback or shit-eating grin she’d expected didn’t materialize. Actually, the opposite. His brows pulled together as his smile thinned to a straight line. “I’m not that bad.”
“I never said you were bad. I’m sure you’re upfront and honest with all the women you date, and I know you’re being safe, I’ve seen the empty boxes in the recycling bin.” Lots of them. To go along with the noises that permeated their adjoining wall. “It was a joke. I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
“I know.” He sat back in his chair, the fork still in hand. “You wouldn’t do that, you’re too good.”
She bristled at the words, despite their complimentary intention. “I’m not always the goody-goody you seem to think I am. I have a naughty side too, you know.”
“Yeah,” he said, some of the lightness returning to his features. “I saw that when I opened your delivery yesterday.”
She sucked in a loud breath as the heat of a red-hot, yuletide log rushed to her cheeks. “I wasn’t referring to that.” She reached across the table and stole the fork from his hand, popping the sweet stuff into her mouth before he could react. “That’s what I meant,” she mumbled around a mouthful of creamy goodness.
His grin returned to its full force as she helped herself to a second bite. He shook his head when she offered up the empty fork. “Nah, I’m good. You have the rest.”
Sensibility kicked in, as it always did. The fork clinked on the china as she set it down. She picked up her napkin and wiped her mouth. “I’m done too. With all the butter on the celery bread, plus the two glasses of wine, I think I’ll call it quits before there’s no coming back from my calorie overload.”
“Your dedication is awesome, but you shouldn’t worry about some extra calories.” He leaned forward, reaching across the table to corral her hand, where she was fidgeting with the curly edge of the table napkin. “You’re gorgeous and sexy, Ads. If any guy ever makes you feel less than that, he’s not worth your time.”
Ads. Her heart did a little flip. Addie was his usual. Adeline popped out sometimes, too, when they were being serious. But Ads was rare. She remembered the specifics of each time he’d used it. Hard to forget, since there’d only been two.
The first instance was at the end of a school day, when they were thirteen. Dennis MacMillan had heckled her for wearing a bra, saying she had fat rolls, not breasts. Kelly had glared at everyone standing nearby until they stopped laughing. Then he’d wrestled Dennis to the ground and twisted his arm so far behind his back, Dennis had cried, right there in the hallway, in front of everyone. Kelly had then held her hand and walked her out of the school, not letting go for a single second, even as they passed other kids from their class.
He’d held her hand for the rest of the walk home, too. At her doorstep, Kelly had looked her in the eyes and said, “I’ll make sure nobody ever talks about you like that again, Ads. Promise.”
And nobody ever had.
They’d been seventeen the second time he’d used the special nickname. She’d lived in the house next door back then, and had shown up on his doorstep in tears. He hadn’t waited for an explanation, he’d pulled her into one of the world’s best hugs immediately. Once she’d calmed down, she’d relayed the news that her dad had taken a job at a Toronto firm. Her house was already sold, her family would be moving before the holidays, halfway through their senior year of high school.
Kelly had cupped her face in his hands and said, “You’re not leaving me, Ads. We’re graduating together. I’ll talk to my parents, but no matter what I have to do to convince them, you’re moving in here.”
And she had. That’d been her first Christmas decorating a tree with Kelly. Fourteen years later, she still lived in his house, in the same room, even though his parents had moved away years ago.
She didn’t know what had prompted tonight’s usage of the special nickname, but she loved hearing him say it.
“Can I get either of you another drink, or anything else?” The waitress’s presence at the table broke their silent connection.
Their physical connection, too, since Kelly sat back in his chair, robbing Addie of his strong-yet-gentle touch. “We’re good, thanks. Just the bill would be great.”
“No problem. Want a to-go container for rest of the cheesecake? A little something sweet for later on, at home?”
Kelly shook his head. “No thanks, don’t need it. I’ve already got a little something sweet to take home.”
The waitress’s eyebrows rose as she smiled. “In that case, I’ll hurry up and get your bill.”
“Thanks.” Across the table, Kelly looked as calm as Lake Erie on a windless, summer day.
Addie’s thoughts and emotions, on the other hand, were as wild as waves whipped up by a waterspout. “Why did you say that to her?”
“Because I’ve got good manners?”
She reached across the table to swat at him, which he avoided with ease. “Not the ‘thanks.’ The part about already having a little something sweet to take home.”
“Because it’s true. You’re little and sweet, and I’m taking you home.”
“I know you meant short and less experienced than most women my age, and that you’re taking me home because I pay rent at your house. But that waitress might not know we’re just friends who live together. I guarantee she knows who you are, though, because everybody knows who owns The Horne Dog booth. And gossip gets around town quickly, even in the off-season. People might start to think we’re together, together.”
“Wouldn’t bother me.”
“It’ll bother Melanie Easton. She’ll be madder than a seagull without a French fry.” A fitting description, since the woman was known for her loud squawking—in and out of Kelly’s bedroom.
He chuckled. “That won’t bother me either.”
“Wow.”
“Wow, what?”
“I guess it’s a guy thing, having sex with someone who’s not important to you.” She sounded like an uptight prude. Which she wasn’t. Better that, than sounding jealous. Which she was.
“Pretty sure it’s not exclusively a guy thing. Sometimes sex is just sex.” He leaned in when she failed to respond, tilting h
is head to catch her gaze. “Are you telling me you’ve never had sex without a serious relationship attached?”
“Actually, I wasn’t telling you anything about my sex life.” The need to squirm in her seat returned as he grinned. “But, since I’m not ashamed to answer, the answer is no, I’ve never had sex without being in a relationship. Not intentionally, anyway.”
Kelly’s smile thinned and his brows dropped. “Kyle Anderson’s an idiot.”
“How’d you know I was talking about him?”
“Just because I give you space doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention.”
For the umpteenth time tonight, his words set off a flurry of activity inside her. Heat to her cheeks at the thought of Kelly hearing her bedroom activities through the thin wall. Warmth in her chest because he cared about her. Tingling between her legs because of the way his gaze dropped to the low V-neck of her sweater. Apparently, he wasn’t afraid to pay attention to her cleavage, either.
A holy-shit squeak escaped before she could clamp her shocked mouth closed.
His focus returned to her face. He didn’t apologize for ogling her chest, nor did he look embarrassed, or say something to joke off his wandering gaze. He just smiled. At her. After unabashedly checking out her boobs.
The waitress’s arrival with the check saved Addie from having to speak. Good thing, because she was fairly certain her voice was still offline.
“Put it away.” He waved her off as she reached for her purse. “I’ve got this one.”
“Thanks.” The single word sounded calm and normal, despite the frenzy happening in her head. She needed to stop analyzing and get ahold of herself.
He’d checked out her boobs. So what? He was a heterosexual man and she had a pretty great rack, which she’d made no attempt to hide when she’d selected her outfit. The opposite, truth be told. She’d chosen tonight’s sweater and jeans because they looked damn good on her. She just hadn’t expected anything to come of the wardrobe decision.