Epilogue
Alex
I had to enlist Minnie’s help…yet again. It didn’t cost me a thing other than hearing Minnie squeal into the phone when I called her last week to discuss my plan. It was her job to make sure that Sutton’s schedule stayed clear for lunch today.
This plan has been two weeks in the making and it’s getting ready to go down in just a little bit. Sutton will have no clue what hit her and I can’t wait to see her face. As I open the door to the crisis center, Minnie pins me with a glorious smile and a wink.
“All set?” I ask her.
“Absolutely,” she says conspiratorially. “Ready for me to buzz her?”
“Let’s get this show on the road,” I tell her with a grin.
Minnie picks up her phone and buzzes Sutton’s office. “Hey, doll…you have a gorgeous hockey player up here to see you.”
Minnie listens to Sutton for a second, and gives me a short nod as she smiles and hangs up. “She’s on her way.”
How is it that I’ve been with Sutton for almost eight months now and yet I still get filled with nervous excitement every time I get ready to see her? Why does she never get old to me, and how can someone own me so completely?
I really don’t want to know the answers to those questions, because in the grand scheme of things, who really gives a f*ck? What matters is that Sutton is mine and I’m getting ready to makes sure that’s a permanent deal.
The door to the back office area opens with a squeak and a groan, and then Sutton steps through. She’s wearing a lightweight blue linen dress that is sleeveless and silver sandals. Her hair is up in a ponytail and she is absolutely stunning. I mean, I saw her in this when she left for work today, but seeing her again…wow! Just wow!
“What are you doing here?” she asks with a welcoming smile. She steps up to me, tilting her face up for the kiss that she knows is coming. I grasp the back of her head lightly and touch my lips to her forehead. No tongue in front of Miss Minnie.
“It’s such a beautiful day outside…thought we’d grab some lunch. Interested?”
“Absolutely,” she says, grinning brilliantly, and we are out the door.
I take her hand in mine and we stroll down South Saunders Street along with all the other downtown workers out to grab something to eat. My nerves are starting to fire up and I hope my hand isn’t sweating.
When we reach Café Lina, the hostess is expecting me, but as planned, she shows not a hint of recognition. Sutton is happily chirping away about talking to Cosmo this morning, and while I’m definitely interested in how he’s doing, my mind is a bit more occupied in making sure everything goes off without a hitch.
We’re shown a table on the outside sidewalk and I make it past the first hurdle, terrified that Sutton will insist on sitting inside. If she had done that…ultimately not a big deal, but it would have made this not as perfect as it could be. I hold out the chair that will have Sutton’s back to the street and, once she’s settled, I take the other chair.
Lunch goes smoothly. I’m able to relax a tiny bit and get my head back in the game where Cosmo is concerned. He’s doing well following this latest stint in rehab and he and Sutton talk frequently. He’s even come over to our house for dinner a few times.
Note how I said “our house.” That’s because I dumped my crappy apartment and moved in with Sutton, at her invitation, about three months ago, just as the hockey season was winding down. We made it through the first round of the playoffs, but when our star goalie, Max Fournier, went out with a groin injury, we just couldn’t hang in the second round and got soundly defeated in just five games.
I was bummed about it for quite a while, but moving in with Sutton made it better. I’ve been busy this off-season bumping up my training. Garrett and I work out together every morning, and on a few sunny Carolina afternoons you’ll find us at one of the local golf courses hacking up the grass. We both suck but are convinced that we’ll get better the more we play.
My nights, though, are the best of all. Sutton comes home from work and I’ll often have dinner ready—yes, I’ve been learning to cook…well, grill, mostly. We’ll eat on her back deck and she’ll tell me about her day at work. I’ll regale her with the dirty jokes that Garrett told me, which usually has her nose wrinkled in distaste. Sometimes we’ll just sit outside and talk for hours. Sometimes we’ll play a game or even watch TV. Nine and a half times out of ten, though, we’ll end the evening with me pounding away inside of her beautiful body and then falling asleep in each other’s arms.
F*ck, but I love this girl so much.
“Was your dad able to call you today?” Sutton asks and brings my head back into focus and away from the sex-filled images that were just clustered in my brain.
“Yeah,” I say as I motion for our waitress to come over to the table. “But let’s get some dessert first, then I’ll tell you all about it.”
“No, thanks,” she says just before wiping her mouth and then putting her napkin on her plate.
“No, thanks?” I say with an eyebrow cocked at her. “This is Café Lina. They make your favorite dessert—chocolate ten-layer cake.”
“I know but you’re always plying me with chocolate. I’m going to look like a hippo if you don’t stop.”
An image comes to my mind of Sutton pregnant, her tummy round and her walk bordering on a waddle. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and I hope she wants more than one kid. But no time to think of that now. I have to get Sutton back on track with my plans today.
“Baby,” I say as I lean in close to her ear, my voice dropping low so the waitress can’t hear me. “One slice of your favorite dessert in the world isn’t going to kill you. Besides, I’ll help you work it off tonight. You can be on top.”
Sutton’s eyes go wide, her nostrils flare a little and her mouth opens on a soft gasp. I don’t give her control often so this is indeed a special day.
“Okay,” she says with rough desire, and f*ck, I want to haul her out of here right now and take her home.
Turning to the waitress, I hold up two fingers. “Two slices of your chocolate cake.”
The cake is brought out quickly and the waitress shoots me a sly wink as she sets Sutton’s down in front of her. Then I tell her all about my conversation with my dad this morning. He’s back in rehab, but this is a good thing. He’s entering his third month and he’s committed to completing the program. He understands that by leaving early the last time, he left a lot of helpful coping skills and tactics behind that he had not had a chance to learn. Sutton and I are planning to fly up in a couple of weeks to see him.
I notice Sutton has only a few more bites left of her cake, and she’s so engrossed in what I’m saying, she’s not really paying attention.
“So we’re still a go for visiting him week after next, right?” she asks and then takes the last bite of her cake, barely glancing at it as she scoops it with her eyes pinned on me.
I nod assent to her question but then shoot a pointed look at her plate. “You scarfed that down.”
She grins at me guiltily and then looks down at her empty plate. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, and Sutton’s eyes fill with tears as she stares at the crumbs she left behind. Because the plate has a message for her. It’s a very simple question, really.
It says, Will You Marry Me?, and I can’t help but hold my breath until I get the answer.
Her eyes lift to mine and a single tear escapes. I smile at her softly and wipe it away.
“Yes,” she says as she nods. She stands up quietly from her chair and my heart is beating so hard, I’m sure everyone walking by on the street can hear it. Walking up to me, Sutton turns her body and sits down on my lap. My arms go around her waist as her face tucks into the crook of my neck.
“I love you,” she says with so much happiness in her voice, I almost start crying. “Being your wife would make all my dreams come true.”
I hold her for a few seconds and try to get my raging emotions under control. I listen to her breathing and smell her sweet shampoo. We share a quiet moment together…just me and her.
Finally, I give her a little push to sit up on my lap so she looks at me. “We need to go ring shopping. I want you to pick out what you want.”
Grinning at me in excitement, she says, “This weekend?”
“Nope. Now,” I tell her and turn her around in my lap so she looks across the street.
Finneman’s Jewelers is directly across from where we sit, and Sutton’s jaw drops open when she sees the huge banner that is displayed. It wasn’t there as we walked up to the restaurant earlier, but it was surreptitiously hung while she was eating her cake by the wonderful owner, Mr. Solomon Finneman.
The banner says, Closed to Public—Private Ring Viewing
Sutton turns her head slowly to me, her mouth still hanging open. I push my finger under her chin to close it. “Careful…a bee might fly in there.”
“We’re going ring shopping now?”
“Yup. You can pick out any ring in the store that you want, although I’ve had Mr. Finneman pull several that I like. But completely your choice.”
“Right now?” she says, still in bewilderment.
“I did just ask you to marry me and you said yes, right?”
“Right,” she affirms.
“Then let’s go,” I tell her as I stand up, gently setting her feet to the ground. I don’t need to pay as I had arranged all of that ahead of time with the restaurant. Instead, I step up to the iron rail that separates the outdoor seating from the rest of the sidewalk and step over it. No problem for my tall frame. I lean over and pick up Sutton, careful so her dress doesn’t ride up and lift her over to the other side.
I grab her hand and we wait for a break in traffic, completely jaywalking our way over to Finneman’s. She still has one more surprise and this is going to be my favorite by far.
As we step inside, Mr. Finneman is waiting for us. He’s impeccably dressed in a charcoal gray suit with a bow tie. He’s a third-generation jeweler, or so he told me when I came in to see him yesterday to make sure everything was set and to pick out some of my favorites so he could display them together.
“Miss Price…Mr. Crossman…welcome,” he says and motions us up to one of the glass cases. “I understand you’re going to be picking an engagement ring today?”
Sutton nods with a dopey smile on her face, and if I had to guess, I think she might be a little addled in the brain over all of this. She steps up to the case, where Mr. Finneman pulls out several velvet displays with rows upon rows of diamond rings.
“No,” Sutton says as she holds up a hand. “I only want to see the ones that Alex liked.”
Putting my hands on her shoulder and my lips near her temple, I tell her, “Sutton, you can have any ring in this store. You may not like what I picked out.”
“Yes, I will,” she says firmly. Then raising her eyes to Mr. Finneman, she reiterates. “Just the ones Alex likes.”
Mr. Finneman gives her a gracious smile and his eyes are sparkling. He pulls out the velvet display that has the rings I chose. There are seven in all and none of them has a price tag under five figures. Oh, well! I haven’t spent a damn bit of my money on anything nice in six years, so it’s about time to splurge a little.
“Oh, Alex,” Sutton says in wonder as she looks at the rings. “These are all so beautiful. They’re too much.”
“There’s no such thing as too much, where you’re concerned,” I tell her and kiss her on the head. “Now try each one on.”
She picks up the very first one and slips it on her left ring finger. It looks stunning there—three-carat oval in an antique setting with diamonds surrounding the center stone. It’s set in platinum, but then again, all of them are. Sutton’s not big on gold jewelry, so I figured she wouldn’t want a gold ring.
Holding her hand out, she admires it. Then she turns to look at me and says, “I don’t know how I’m ever going to choose. These are all just spectacular, and a little overwhelming.”
Smiling at her big, I say, “Well, then, I guess you could use some help.”
On cue, the door behind the glass case opens, which I know is the door to Mr. Finneman’s office, and out walk Penny, Jim, and Glenn. Sutton’s mouth opens again, but this time she closes it quickly, only to open it again and say, “Oh, my God. What are y’all doing here?”
Her family comes out from behind the case and then it’s all hugs and kisses and tears. Her mom starts crying pretty hard and Jim is patting her shoulder. He turns to me, sticking out a hand for me to shake. Glenn just leans against the glass case, checking out the rings.
Sutton turns to me and throws her arms around my neck. “You are too much.”
“I’m not done yet,” I tell her and then turn our bodies around toward the door that her family just came out of. It opens again and her best friend, Shelley, walks out.
I’m rewarded with a piercing shriek from Sutton as she tears out of my arms and practically vaults the case to reach her. I know they haven’t seen each other in over a year and a half, and I know Shelley will undoubtedly be her matron of honor, so I knew that she should be here for this occasion. I had her flown in last night and she’s going to stay with us for a few days.
Sutton and Shelley hug, and cry, and laugh. Sutton turns to me with tear-stained cheeks and mouths, I love you. I just smile back at her, because this was nothing.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do for this woman. There is nothing I wouldn’t give up, nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice for her. She is the most important person in my life and always will be, because she showed me that life is about overcoming struggles and opening yourself up to possibility. She brought color into my otherwise gray existence, and for that I owe her everything.
She’ll always be first.
Above all else.
Forever.
To my daughter, Parker.
All I do, I do for you.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to give my dad, Jerry, a big old high five for introducing me to the sport of hockey many years ago. He took me to Pittsburgh to watch his beloved Penguins play the Islanders. I remember one of the players took a puck to the face, right in front of one of the goals. He bled all over. The refs just kicked and scraped at the frozen spot of blood until they made a big pile of blood slush, and then kicked it out of the way into the back of the goal. I turned to my dad and said, “This is a cool sport!” I’ve been a fan ever since.
I have found this business to be a lot about chance.
I want to make sure to give my heartfelt thanks to my editor, Sue Grimshaw. Thank you for reading my work and for taking that chance on me. I’m a big believer in partnership and I think we make a hell of a team!
The other person who took a chance on me is my agent, Pamela Harty. She was the first one in this business to believe in me, and as she pushed me forward, she made me believe she wouldn’t be the last.
To the man who took the biggest chance when he married my crazy ass, my husband, Shawn. He supported me when I decided to stop being a lawyer so I could become a romance author, and he’s been my biggest cheerleader ever since. If you want to know where my source of romantic inspiration comes from, well…you can guess.
Finally, thank you, thank you, thank you to my readers. You are the reason I do what I do. Without you, I am nothing.
BY SAWYER BENNETT
CAROLINA COLD FURY HOCKEY SERIES
Alex
Garrett (early 2015)
THE OFF SERIES
Off Sides
Off Limits
Off the Record
Off Course
Off Chance
THE LAST CALL SERIES
On the Rocks
Make It a Double
Sugar on the Edge
Shaken Not Stirred (coming soon)
With a Twist (coming soon)
THE LEGAL AFFAIRS SERIES
Objection
Stipulation
Violation
Mitigation
Reparation
Affirmation
Confessions of a Litigation God
THE FOREVER LAND CHRONICLES
Forever Young
Forever Lost (coming soon)
BOOKS OF THE STONE VEIL
The Darkest of Blood Magicks
To Catch a Dark Thief
If I Return
Uncivilized (fall 2014)
PHOTO: MARIE KILLEN
USA Today bestselling author SAWYER BENNETT is a snarky Southern woman and reformed trial lawyer who decided to finally start putting on paper all of the stories that were floating in her head. Her husband works for a Fortune 100 company that lets him fly all over the world while she stays at home with their daughter, Parker, and three big, furry dogs who hog the bed. Sawyer would like to report that she doesn’t have many weaknesses but can be bribed with a nominal amount of milk chocolate.
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The Editor’s Corner
Halloween is my favorite holiday, and every year I decorate my house to the nines with ghosts and goblins, jack-o-lanterns, and spider webs. There’s nothing like good old scary fun to get your heart racing…well, almost nothing. Romance novels may not be frightening, but they do make your heart beat faster…just in a different way. Our new Loveswept releases will give you heart-pounding entertainment, I promise.
Our first release in October is Cecy Robson’s raw and steamy series debut, Once Perfect, which is perfect for fans of Monica Murphy and J. Lynn. Then comes USA Today bestselling author Sawyer Bennett’s Alex, the first novel in a new hockey series that’s hot enough to melt the ice. Then we end the month with a bang with Sidney Halston’s Full Contact, the sexy second book in her fun Worth the Fight MMA series. And to kick off the holiday season, we’re also re-releasing three tantalizing holiday novellas from amazing authors: Play with Me, a warm and enticing Thanksgiving romance from Lisa Renee Jones; Snowfall, a moving Christmas tale from Mary Ann Rivers; and After Midnight, an explosive New Year’s story from Serena Bell.
In Flirt news, Lori Adams reaches new heights in Unforgiven, the final installment in The Soulkeepers series, where questions are answered, secrets are revealed, and immortal love is tested. And we also have an exciting debut from Renita Pizzitola, Just a Little Crush, an emotional novel of heartache and seduction, where a college freshman’s little crush could prove to be a huge mistake or the first step to forever.
~Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for an excerpt from
Truth or Dare
A Dare to Love Novel
by Mira Lyn Kelly
Available from Loveswept
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 male 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 not just one of the guys, it caught her by surprise. Enough to stall out her brain function mid-ponder on 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.
Dragging the rag he’d made of his shirt across his face, her neighbor gritted out a curse that had her mouth snapping 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.
Except, then his head swung around. “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 just—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, the flinty gray eyes that locked with hers were totally devoid of humor. 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 had 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 glower was enough to tell her 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 just stopped up to say, ‘Hey, neighbor,’ ” she offered, adding one of those cheesy half-circle waves that smacked of a 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 honestly, 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, really. But either way—”
His jaw ticced twice. “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.”
Maggie’s chin snapped back.
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.
Sure, the guy wasn’t an eyesore. He had a built-tough body going on with all the hard-packed and 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 that only three people in the world knew it.
Helpless under the aromatic assault, the jerk-off’s 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 headlines, her snit too distracting 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.
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 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 weenie 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 her buying in? 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 couple?” she gasped. Then checking herself, she 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.
“I…yeah, I’m pretty sure…I’m serious. 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. Her friend was serious.
“What’s going on? I mean, where’s this coming from?”
Picking at the crumbs from 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 go-to guy 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 brand 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.”
Maggie coughed, choking on the thought of the last wedding she hit without Ford. The stilted small talk and smarmy expectation gleaming in her date’s eyes. God help her, she never wanted to go there again.
But seriously…“Ava, the guys are not getting married.”
“Not today, but you know the girl Sam’s been seeing—Bethanne? She told me she thought they were getting serious.”
Not likely. “Bethanne’s delusional.”
“Yeah, I agree. But one of these days…one of these girls…”
A beat passed before she went on.
“Look, Maggie, I’m not talking about anything drastic. Just taking a chance once in a while. Giving someone else a chance for a change. Who knows, maybe finding out what it feels like to have a guy look at me the way those two look at each other. I mean, they seem happy,” Ava offered, sounding less enthused than resigned. “In love.”
“Blindly so,” Maggie agreed. And that was the crux of it. Maggie already knew what it was to have a guy look at her like he’d do anything to stay with her forever. And no doubt, it was a heady thing. But there were risks inherent to that kind of ardor. Once a person experienced it, there wasn’t a lot they wouldn’t do to protect it. Like lie. To their partner. To themselves.
Arms crossed at her chest, Maggie gave the picnic guy a thorough once-over.
Sure, he seemed sort of harmless, with the whole goofy smile and I’m-so-putting-myself-out-there eyes. But he could be anyone. He could be an embezzler or top chef at the Meth Emporium. Oh yeah, he probably planned to reform. Turn over a new leaf. Be the man his girl deserved. But would he ever tell her what he was into? Not if it meant there was a chance he’d lose—
Stop.
Ugh. She didn’t want to be that person. The glass-half-empty girl who wouldn’t let anyone else believe it was half-full.
She wouldn’t be that person.
Angling closer on the bench, she leaned in shoulder-to-shoulder with Ava. “I think it’s great you’re opening yourself up to the possibilities. and I’ll support you one hundred percent. But I’m just wondering—and I don’t want this to sound like I think it’s going to be a problem or anything, but—you don’t actually like anyone. Ever. At least not in a more-than-friends way.”
“Right.”
“So, umm, how are you planning to get around that?”
Ava outlined the rough plan she’d come up with: A single, mandatory date each month, where she gave the guys who met her criteria a chance—regardless of whether they floated her boat or not. And if she missed a month, she suffered a consequence. Some penalty stiff enough to ensure she didn’t just blow it off.
“Nice. You’ve got to make it something that’ll really hurt, though, so you can’t slack. And tie up all the little loopholes you’ll be trying to wiggle through too.” Hey, this was kind of fun. “Make rules about what constitutes a legitimate date and going out with the same guy over and over when you know it isn’t going anywhere. Tough love and all,” Maggie snickered, maybe enjoying the idea of Ava not making her monthly quota a little too much.
Ava finished her cookie and then wiped her hands together, brushing off the crumbs. “Agreed. So you think this is a solid plan?”
Blehh, but whatever. If Ava wanted to get her date on, who was Maggie to stop her? And it would be a riot to watch. So working up some captain-of-the-Cheer-Squad enthusiasm, she beamed. “Totally. It’s a fantastic idea!”
Honestly, there was no excuse for not seeing what was coming next. But reading the writing on the wall had never been Maggie’s strong suit. Especially when it came to the people closest to her.
“I’m glad you think so.” Ava grinned back at her, the glint of steel in her eyes unmistakable. “Because we’re making a pact, and you’re doing this with me.”
Hell.
Love stories you’ll never forget
By authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
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