“So… truce?” Liam asked, and held out a hand for me to take.
“Truce.” I nodded and took his hand. But not before grabbing another handful of icing and smacking it into his palm.
His eyes widened as our palms connected with a smack of buttercream spraying between us. “You fight dirty, Dyker.”
“Get used to it, Evans.”
His grin widened. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
5 Chloe
Elaina’s eyes went wide and she collapsed onto my couch, staring at the donut in her hands. Unlike me, she took the time to put hers on a small plate, while I wrapped a paper towel in one hand and held the donut in the other.
Her eyes flicked to the destroyed chair—Dan’s chair that I had taken a knife to last night. “Do I even want to ask?”
I shrugged as though stabbing a leather La-Z-Boy was a completely normal thing to do. “It was Dan’s chair.”
“Ah,” she said and thankfully let the subject drop.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?”
“Not really,” she said.
“Do you…do we… hate Neil? Am I supposed to hate him, too, now?”
She shook her head, sadly and slowly sawed into her donut with her knife and fork. “No,” she whispered. “We don’t hate Neil.”
I nodded but didn’t push when she didn’t offer any more information. Even though she didn’t have to work today and had spent the day traveling, she still wore black dress pants and a crisp button-down shirt. While I, on the other hand, donned yoga pants and a tank top that said: My ideal weight is Jason Momoa on top of me. Elaina and I were as different as sisters could be, and yet, somehow, we were friends despite them. Like the ABC special I saw where the mountain lion befriended the goat. Elaina and I shouldn’t work… we shouldn’t be friends. Lots of sisters weren’t. But for some reason, our differences drew us closer.
She kicked off her ballet flats and tucked her feet under her as she took her first bite of donut. “Oh my God, these are good.”
“Yeah?”
She was in the same spot Liam had been sitting when we watched movies last night.
“I made them,” I said proudly.
Immediately, Elaina’s face crumpled as she looked from me to the donut, then back to me again. “You made these?”
“Okay, fine,” I sneered as I plopped down in a chair opposite of her. “I had some help.”
“Ah, there it is. I didn’t know you had any girlfriends who could walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone bake.”
“Easy there,” I snapped. “I know you’re in a bad mood, but don’t come down on my girlfriends.” I swallowed a bite of donut before I added, “Besides, it wasn’t a girlfriend who helped me bake these.”
“I thought you said—”
“I said I had help.”
Her brows creased, deep in thought as she stared at the donut on her plate. “Then who did you bake them with?”
I pressed my lips together for a fraction of a second, wondering how to say this. “Last night when you sent Liam here—”
Elaina’s face drained of color. “Oh, God. No. Tell me you didn’t sleep with him.”
I chewed my cheek for a second. “Define ‘sleep with’…”
“Chloe! He is my ex-boyfriend’s brother!”
“Okay, but I didn’t know that last night!”
“You knew he was my boyfriend’s brother last night, though, and you thought that’d be okay?” She launched to her feet, tossing the donut aside. Huh. I saw this going differently in my head. “And weren’t you broken-hearted?” She started pacing my living room.
“Elaina, calm down—”
“I mean, you sounded broken-hearted on the phone last night. Oh, my God. Did Liam take advantage of you? I’ll kill him—”
“No! No.” I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Okay, let me start over. Liam came over last night to bring me cupcakes after you texted him. I was really drunk when he got here, so he stayed to make sure I was okay. We watched movies, then I puked, and he held my hair back. He slept upstairs with me, but we did not have sex. He’s just… he’s a good guy. I think we’re sort of friends now.”
Elaina’s mouth twisted, but she thankfully lowered back down to a seat. “Okay. That’s… well, better. I guess.”
I inhaled slow and deep. “He was amazing last night. And I felt so much better after you sent him over here, I wanted to do something nice for you in return. So… he helped me bake these donuts for you.”
Elaina nodded and took another tentative bite, as though she didn’t quite trust the donuts yet. Or maybe it was me she didn’t quite trust yet. “Okay,” she said.
“I think Liam and I are becoming really good friends.”
“From one night?”
I shrugged. Last night felt different and special. I was more myself and relaxed with Liam than I was with any of my girlfriends… and that included Tanja. Which was strange and liberating.
Elaina licked frosting off the fork. “Well, as long as you two don’t date. You cannot date my ex-boyfriend’s brother.”
I ignored the pang of guilt in my gut from the kiss we shared. “But… what if we’re soul mates?” I asked quietly, half-teasing.
“Oh my freaking God, Chloe… I swear, if you date him, I’ll never speak to you again!”
Her voice became so shrill, I had to cover my ear with the paper-towel-clad hand. “Jesus. Okay, okay. We won’t date.”
Elaina stood, storming across the room until she was standing in front of me with her pinky outstretched. “Promise me.”
“Oh, come on—”
“Chloe. I know you. Promise me.”
I linked my pinky with hers. “Fine. I promise.” We shook on it like we used to when we were eight years old. “Liam and I will just be friends. But I’m going to warn you, we’ll probably be best friends.”
“If you say so. As long as you’re not best friends who fuck.” Elaina rolled her eyes at me before spinning on her toes like a prima
