Love Like a Curse

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  The breath froze in her lungs. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Test me.”

  Her fists tightened in the fabric of his jacket as her mind latched on to one thought: in the history of truly horrible bridesmaid gifts, Jase Foster was hands- down the worst.

  Because, yeah, that’s how Lena had sold him at her New Year’s Eve engagement party eight months before. She’d been going on about how he was one of Dean’s best friends and how much she loved him and how great he and Emily would be together. And since Emily’s last interlude had been a while ago, the idea of a little masculine attention held a certain appeal. For about fifteen seconds, she’d entertained the idea of maybe. Maybe just for a few dates.

  But then Lena had said it. “Dean was agonizing over who to pick as best man— you know how close he is to all the guys— but then I thought about the pictures, and this guy is tall, Emily. Like, way taller than you, even.” And right there, her Spidey senses started to tingle. Because coming in at five foot eleven and a half, she knew the list of guys who were tall enough to earn a “way” qualifier was quite short. Sadly, Jase was among them.

  Sure enough, when Lena had grabbed her arm and pointed to the six- foot- five stretch of broad- shouldered, lean, all taper- cut and tuxedo- fine male striding through a sea of formal wear… Ugh. Of course, it was him.

  “His name’s Jase Foster. And seriously, all tuxed up tonight”— Lena’s voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper— “tell me he doesn’t look gift wrapped!” He might have, except that the bow tie dangling open at his neck, coupled with the roughed- up mess of dark- brown hair topping his ruggedly handsome face, suggested that at some point during the elegant engagement party the man had already been unwrapped and played with…extensively.

  Typical.

  “Any chance he comes with a gift receipt?” Emily had asked, keeping her voice light and teasing for her friend’s sake. And that’s when he’d spotted her. She could tell by the way his steady progress through the crowd came to an abrupt halt and his mouth formed a four- letter word familiar enough to her own tongue that she recognized it on sight.

  Real classy, Jase.

  What a dickhead.

  But then Jase had rubbed a hand over his mouth and jaw, wiping it clean of the flash of hostility he’d let slip. They were at an engagement party for friends close enough to slot them as the honor attendants in their wedding— and there was no place for a decade- old grudge in this celebration. Besides, she could rest assured that the depth of her loathing for Jase Foster was as clear to him as his was to her. And if not, she had the next eight months to reinforce it.

  Now, staring up into the hard lines of Jase’s face as

  he held her suspended precariously over certain humiliation, she couldn’t believe she’d once thought this man could be her whole world. She’d thought he was her friend. She’d thought…

  Well, lesson learned. Through bitter experience, she’d come to realize that Jase could only be counted on to let her down at the moment she needed him most.

  Which meant she really needed to apologize— and fast.

  * * * * *

  “Sorry.”

  One word. Grudgingly issued. But still, Jase was taking it for the victory it was. Not that he’d have actually followed through on his threat. Not a chance. And that she believed he would… Well, he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that.

  “Very big of you, Em,” he offered, prepared to pull her back up when her soft eyes narrowed on him.

  “And typically small of you.” He sighed, looking down at the woman still caught in his arms, wondering when he’d finally be able to put her behind him.

  Those damn legs of hers were the problem. Miles long and distracting as hell, they’d been strutting through Jase’s life since he was sixteen, walking over whatever bit of peace he’d found and then strutting right back out, leaving nothing but a path of destruction in their wake.

  Still, he was the lucky one. Thirty seconds had decided it. Thirty seconds, and maybe he’d be the one whose life never recovered.

  His molars ground down, because that wasn’t something he ought to be thinking about at Dean’s wedding, but every time he saw Emily working that honey- and- sunshine routine of hers, he wanted to puke. Why did she even bother? It had to be exhausting to pretend you were someone you weren’t 24- 7. But maybe she liked the collection of friends that hiding the truth had garnered her.

  Or maybe she actually believed her own bullshit, which was even worse, because how the hell was the population at large supposed to defend itself against that?

  Jase pulled Emily up to standing, restoring the distance between them that he never should have breached.

  “Thank you,” she said, and then winced as if annoyed to have given him even that much.

  “You bet,” he answered, keeping the civil smile. The song was almost over, and this dance was the last of the forced interaction with her— at least, until the next time their circles of friends happened to overlap in holy matrimony, and genetics once again threw them together as the tallest pairing in the wedding party. Maybe they’d luck out and it wouldn’t happen for another year or so… or ever again.

  The song ended, and sure enough, Emily wasn’t about to linger. No niceties being offered tonight. Without even looking back at him, she turned out of his hold. Fine by him.

  Or it would have been, except that in her typical obliviousness to anyone beyond herself, Emily seemed unaware of how her body was lining up with his. Before he could pull out of the way, the bare skin of her arm met the back of his hand in a mesh of contact that could only be classified as a caress. Emily’s sharp intake of breath had Jase’s attention snapping to the widening of her eyes, then back to where his knuckles skated down the remaining length of her arm.

  A second passed, and neither of them moved, both seemingly caught in the aftermath of a train wreck that never should have happened, in that jolt of electricity at first contact and the lingering low charge that seemed to sizzle through the duration.

  Jesus, some things never changed.

  MAY THE BEST MAN WIN is available now. MAY THE BEST MAN WIN

  Excerpt from TRUTH OR DARE

  © Mira Lyn Kelly

  Chapter One

  June

  In Maggie Lawson’s defense, the apartment door had been open. Wide open. And she’d tried to warn him. But with the hard rock sound of Queens of the Stone Age pounding out of the speakers within, her new upstairs neighbor hadn’t heard. So he didn’t know she was standing there when he walked by . . . rucking his T-shirt overhead as he stopped at a stack of cardboard packing boxes marked “Office.”

  She should have said something. She started to, but whatever apology or alert she’d been poised to deliver died on her tongue as she stood transfixed by the hypnotic shift and flex of this man’s half-clad physique.

  Because, wow. Just, wow. Talk about some ripped jeans, skin showing.

  Okay, it wasn’t like she’d never seen a shirtless guy before. They were everywhere, littering magazines, billboards, and TV. Chicago wasn’t suffering any shortage when it came to quality hotties. But up this close, and him not just one of the guys, it caught her by surprise. Enough to stall out her brain function before she’d determined whether she should bring her plate of “welcome to the building” cookies back later or try again to announce her presence behind him.

  And now, all she could see was skin.

  An abundance of it.

  Dark and flushed from hours of exertion. Glistening with a sheen of sweat that beaded up even as she watched, until one fat drop slid over a hard-cut terrain of taut flesh and banded muscle before soaking into the low-slung denim at his hips.

  Trim hips. On a body that was tall and broad and distracting her in a way she wasn’t accustomed to being distracted.

  She should probably take off.

  But then he was dragging the rag he’d made of his shirt across his face, gritting out a curse that had her mouth sn
apping closed and her chin pulling back. Not because of what he’d said—please, she heard worse on an almost hourly basis—but because of the way he’d said it. There was something altogether too revealing in that one word. Something broken and tired and raw, and yeah, she should definitely go. She’d keep the cookies.

  His head swung around, and his eyes, a flinty gray, hard and accusing, locked on hers. “What the—?”

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped on a nervous laugh, trying to pull it together in front of this guy who’d just busted her fresh off the ogle and was going to be living above her for some unspecified duration. “I—I came up and then—there you were—and I wasn’t expecting—”

  This was totally something they could laugh about, if he got with the program and gave it a shot.

  Only apparently not. Shoving his arms back into his shirt, he stalked to the door, making his big body as imposing a “do not enter” sign as she’d ever encountered. “What do you want?”

  Well, she had cookies. Still warm from the oven. And a pint of milk.

  He’d spent hours moving into the apartment directly above hers. He was her new neighbor.

  What did he think she wanted?

  It didn’t matter. An instant on the receiving end of this guy’s humorless glower was enough to know he wasn’t going to be another swell addition to her group of friends.

  Not a problem. But for the sake of civility and because she was actually standing there, baked bounty in hand, she pushed into place an imitation of the smile that had been genuine when she’d started and tried again.

  “Sorry to interrupt. I stopped up to say, ‘Hey, neighbor,’” she offered, adding one of those cheesy half-circle waves that smacked of a classic Karate Kid wax-on. “Tyler, right? Yeah, okay. So. I’m friends with Ford . . . our landlord . . . and he asked me to swing by. I live down in Apartment Two.”

  “The girl next door,” he bit out, eyes pinching closed in what looked suspiciously like a plea for patience.

  Though it couldn’t have been even a full minute since she’d first darkened his doorstep, so, seriously, what was with the attitude? Sure, she’d been looking. But the door was open. And he’d been the one stripping in front of it.

  “Mmm-hmm . . . okay, or . . . umm . . . girl downstairs, technically. But either way—”

  His jaw twitched. “Christ, I don’t need this.”

  Maggie’s wide-eyed stare shifted from the six-foot-plus stretch of hard-cut, stubble-rough, and overtly hostile male braced against the door frame, down to the seemingly benign plate of cookies and back.

  Was she missing something?

  Only then the guy raked a hand through the damp mess of his hair and blew out a strained breath. “Look, Apartment Two. Whatever you’re offering, I’m not interested.”

  No. Way.

  “Whatever I’m offering?”

  The hard slant of his mouth and pointed jut of his chin were as much as he had to say on the subject. More than enough to make his meaning clear.

  Her mouth gaped as disbelief and outrage kicked off a turf war deep within her chest.

  Did this knuckle dragger actually think he—?

  And worse, was he suggesting she—?

  Not in this lifetime, bub.

  Fine, the guy wasn’t an eyesore. He had a built-tough body going on, with all the hard-packed high definition to boot. But so very special? So irresistible Maggie figured her best bet for getting a jump on the competition was to make her move . . . with cookies at nine on a Sunday morning?

  Uh-uh.

  And to think, she’d felt bad for him lugging all his crap up the three flights on his own. But yeah, didn’t that make perfect sense now.

  What a dick.

  “So we’re clear, the only thing on offer here, Apartment Three . . .” Maggie tucked the milk into the crook of her elbow and folded the plastic wrap back from the plate, infusing the air around them with the pure essence of melted chocolate, toasted oats, and the rich, buttery goodness of a family recipe so sacred, only three people in the world knew it.

  Helpless under the aromatic assault, his eyes went briefly unfocused before dropping to the cookies.

  Selecting the biggest one, Maggie lifted it to her mouth and bit, chewing with deliberate relish before cracking the lid on the milk and taking a long, slow swallow.

  Satisfied when the muscles of the guy’s throat worked up and down, she re-covered the plate. “. . . is my suggestion you look over your rental agreement regarding noise pollution and turn your music down. Or at least close your—”

  The door swung shut in her face.

  Unbelievable. But at least she didn’t need to waste another breath on the jerk.

  * * * * *

  “He actually called you ‘Apartment Two’?” Ava Meyers, Maggie’s best friend and fellow abstainer in all things “relationship,” shook her head, her mahogany shag catching in the light breeze and blowing around her face. They were settled in on their favorite bench with the usual Sunday assortment of accumulated mail, magazines, electronic devices, and what remained of the cookies. “Like you didn’t merit an identity beyond the female occupying space beneath him.”

  Maggie scrolled through the headlines, too deep into her snit to commit to any one bit of news. “Ford says he’s in marketing. Freelance. And he’s from New York I think, renting month to month, so maybe we’ll luck out and he’ll be gone by September.”

  “Month to month? Weird. Why?”

  “Your brother. You ask.”

  Ava let out an indelicate snort. Ford was . . . distracted. That they’d even gotten this much information was a minor miracle.

  Picking through the cookies, she added, “I love it that he thought you were putting a move on him, though.”

  “I know. Because that’s so me,” Maggie snickered. “Scoping out the meat market twenty-four–seven.”

  Talk about a headache she didn’t need. Not when at twenty-seven, her life was pretty well perfect just the way it was. Stable. Secure. On track. Built on a rock-solid foundation of priorities any guidance counselor would swoon over. Maggie had completed her education, had savings and a financial plan, a solid job managing The Shrone Gallery, and her boss’s cosmic blessing to buy into the business as a partner, hopefully within the next year, and eventually buy her out. Add to that, the friendships that “completed” her in ways no romance could . . . and she was good.

  Better than.

  The whole ever-after business? She didn’t have time for it.

  Correction. She had plenty of time. It was the inclination that was lacking.

  Maggie tipped her face to the sky, basking in the warmth of June’s sunshine and her contentment with the lot that life had given her. Sure, there’d been dues to pay. There always were. But it was because of those rough patches that she was able to fully appreciate this tranquil little corner of Platonia she’d carved out for herself. Where her circle of friends reigned supreme and the forecast always called for good times. Constancy, support, and reliability.

  Chance of romantic strife or bitter betrayal raining on their parade? Zero.

  Yeah, Maggie was satisfied with her life exactly the way it was. Period.

  “So, hey,” Ava drawled from beside her. “Obviously, Apartment Three was a total weenis, and I’m not talking about him. But do you ever look around and . . . you know . . . wonder?”

  “Hmm . . . About what?” How to reduce her carbon footprint? Whether the new Italian place was as good as everyone was saying? If her buyer for the Stovitz oil was serious about a second piece? If she’d be able to get Hedda to sit still—and not in a meditative state—long enough to discuss a timetable for their plans? If her parents would finally relax and believe she was capable of taking care of herself?

  Ava squinted, her mouth turning down in distaste. “That.”

  Maggie followed her friend’s gaze to the red-checked cliché-in-action nestled into a shady corner of Wicker Park. And blinked. Twice.

  “The cou
ple?” she wheezed. “You aren’t serious?”

  Then after a thought, let out a laugh, because, no way.

  Ava didn’t date any more than Maggie did—which meant only under the most dire of circumstances. And unless Maggie had missed significantly more than she’d realized this morning, these were not them.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I am. I think maybe it’s time I stopped shutting down every guy who asks me out and start, I don’t know, opening myself up to the possibilities.”

  Eyes cranking around a beat before her head, Maggie gasped. “Wha—?”

  This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. Except that sour look of disgusted resignation on Ava’s face as she frowned across at the picnic set for two told Maggie . . . it was happening.

  “What’s going on? I mean, where’s this coming from?”

  Picking at the crumbs on a half-eaten cookie, Ava slumped deeper into the park bench, looking in that moment more like a sullen teen than the coolly confident, ball-busting lawyer she played in real life. She shook her head. “Everything’s so perfect now, you know?”

  Yeah, Maggie did know. Hence the confusion.

  “But what’s it going to be like in ten or fifteen years?” She let out another heavy sigh. “The guys, Sam and Ford—they’re idiots.”

  “Of course.” The best kind. Ford was Ava’s older brother, their landlord and the odd nut behind the number-one phone and tablet app on the market, Hibachi Catapult. And Sam Farrow, general man-whore and walking resource for all things fix-it, was their oldest friend. Maggie loved them like family. Together Sam, Ford, and Ava were her core group of go-to friends. All romantically impaired with their own individual brands of relationship dysfunction.

  And it worked. Only apparently, Ava didn’t think so.

  “Some morning in the not-too-distant future, one of them is going to notice a few hairs on his pillow and an extra quarter-inch of forehead where it hadn’t been before—and he’ll decide it’s time to stop sleeping his way through Chicagoland and set up house with some nice girl. And because neither of them are trolls and both have next-to-zero standards, whichever one it is will be married in less than a year. Six months max before the other goes lemming and follows suit. They’ll have kids and dogs and hockey practice at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings and clay models of the solar system due for the science fair to finish on Tuesday nights. And,” Ava swallowed and took a breath, shaking her head, “they’ll take their wives to weddings instead of us.”