I sighed and leaned my head on Liam’s shoulder as we walked out to the parking lot. “Yes, please.”
And for just a moment, as we walked with our arms around each other, I allowed myself to feel what it would be like to be Liam Evans’s girlfriend.
16 Liam
This is a bad idea, I thought as Chloe hoisted herself to sit on my kitchen counter. What was I thinking inviting Chloe Dyker to come hang out here for a while? I was thinking with the wrong damn head, that’s what. Even though she told me in no uncertain terms that we couldn’t be together, I wanted her.
But somewhere along the way in these last few weeks, Chloe had predicted correctly—she was becoming my best friend. Which was why I needed to tell my crazy teenage-level hormones to calm the fuck down. There was no way we could remain friends and still sleep together. And Chloe was too special to lose.
“Okay,” I said, rifling around my cabinets. “I’ve got whiskey…” I glanced over at her and laughed as her nose scrunched.
“Ew,” she said.
“Very well.” I dug deeper into the cabinet. “If you don’t like whiskey, I’m going to guess you’re not a rye drinker, either.”
“Liam, your liquor cabinet needs some work. Don’t you have vodka? A nice tequila? Anything that isn’t brown!” She hopped off the counter and pushed me out of the way, looking through the cabinet herself. “This is ridiculous! You have six different types of whiskey, but only an airplane bottle of blueberry vodka!”
She took it, cracked it open, and dumped it into the diet coke I had already gotten for her.
“Technically, these aren’t all whiskey. This one’s scotch, this is a rye—”
“Liam!” She whined. “Maybe we should have created an alcohol delivery truck instead of a food truck.”
I laughed. “Like a catering service, but with booze.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes! When you run out of alcohol, they would come over, deliver you booze, maybe make you a few cocktails, then be on their way.”
“We could call it Cartini!”
She laughed, then sighed wistfully, falling back on the counter. “We’re really good at coming up with ideas. Just not so good at implementing them.”
“Hey,” I said quietly, nudging her with my elbow. “Go easy on The Dump Truck. We’re not even a week in. You can’t expect it to be an incredible success immediately. Look at my mom’s bakery. We struggled to keep that afloat for years until it became Beefcakes.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me that’s what we have to look forward to! You just got out of debt. The last thing you need is for our new business to land you right back where you left off.”
“I’m just saying relax. There’s time to turn this around.”
At the back of my cabinet I saw a bottle of Campari peeking back at me and reached for it. “Ever had Campari?” I asked her.
“Isn’t it bitter?”
I held up a finger and rushed to the fridge to grab a bottle of orange juice. “Normally, yes. But not when you combine it with this.” I poured her a glass and slid it over. With one sip, her eyes lit up.
“It’s delicious!”
“See? My liquor isn’t all bad.”
She held the glass in both hands, looking down into the liquid like a crystal ball. “Hey,” she said quietly, “Thanks for what you did back there. With Dan. You didn’t need to pretend for my sake—”
“It wasn’t a big deal, Chloe.”
She blinked, moisture brimming in those bright blue eyes of hers. “It was to me. It’s so stupid, but when he saw us together and he seemed to get… I don’t know…”
“Jealous?” I offered.
Her eyes went wide. “Yes! I wasn’t imagining that, right?”
I shrugged, ignoring the pang in my heart at how happy Dan’s jealousy seemed to make her. It was yet another reminder how off-limits she was. It had barely been a few weeks since her world turned upside down—since her wedding was called off. “I don’t think you were imagining it,” I admitted. “Besides, any man with a pulse would be crazy not to be jealous of seeing you with someone else.”
Her lips thinned, pressing together as she took another sip of the Campari. “Regardless, thank you for going along with that. He’ll find out the truth soon enough anyway, I guess—”
“Why?”
She looked taken aback for a moment. “Why what?”
“Why would he need to find out the truth? I don’t see any need to correct it. We really only need to sort this out with our families—especially with Elaina—but other than that, if the rest of the town thinks we’re together… so what?”
Chloe swallowed so hard that I watched the svelte line of her throat contract with the movement. “Then what about moving on…dating? How will either of us meet anyone if the whole town thinks we’re together?”
It was my turn to gulp down my own drink. “Are you ready to date?”
Her mouth twitched, not quite into a smile… but even the smallest curve of those pouty lips was breathtaking.
Her eyes searched my face before she answered, “For the right person, I am.”
My breath hitched and I could feel my pulse slamming at the base of my jaw. Of all the friend zones I’d been slipped into through the years, this one was the worst. And also the best. Respecting her boundaries wasn’t easy. Not when I wanted her so damn badly, I could feel it in the steel rod pushing against my zipper. But she was right. What we had was too good. Too valuable to lose. Unlike the other women from college who’d categorize me as a “friend,” but then wouldn’t make any effort to be a friend unless they needed something from me. Chloe was different. Chloe was passionate and funny and smart
