“If by water, you mean tequila, yes.”
I made a face at her. “I think maybe you’ve had enough tequila for one night.”
“How about a donut instead?”
I nodded, and after a few minutes, I returned with a frosted donut resting on a small plate and two glasses of water, as well as a couple of ibuprofen. “Think you can keep these down?” I asked, placing the two gel caps into her outstretched palm.
She shrugged and popped them into her mouth with no objection, washing them down with water. Then, she dove for the donut, dipping her finger into the frosting and licking it off her finger.
“Hey,” I laughed, moving her hand away. “We’re sharing that. It’s the last one.”
She gave me an exaggerated pout as I dropped an empty waste can beside her on the floor… just in case. “I’ve just been dumped… you’re not going to let me have the last donut?”
I crawled back into bed beside her and pinched off a piece of the donut. “Best friends share…”
Her grin widened. “So, you admit we’re going to be best friends?”
“I don’t know. You going to share that last donut?”
Biting the corner of her bottom lip, she slid the plate toward me on the comforter and I took another piece. “How come you don’t sell donuts at the bakery?”
I shrugged. “They don’t really fit the branding. Donuts are sort of a specialty thing and people don’t think to come to us for it.”
She quirked a brow in my direction. “Doesn’t mean you can’t shift your branding to include it. Because these might be the best donuts I’ve ever had. And that’s saying something.”
I tried to include donuts at the bakery a couple times, but they didn’t take off. People come in for cupcakes, croissants, and cakes. Not for a dozen donuts to feed their houseguests in the morning. “Well, maybe the next business we open will be donuts.” I smiled and brushed my thumb across her lips where some of the glaze was clinging. “Sugarlips Donuts.”
Chloe’s eyes went wide. “Sugarlips Donuts,” she whispered. “I love it. It could be what you sell on your food truck,” she added, studying my face like I was her notes for a final exam. “You wouldn’t even have to bake out of the food truck. You could bake at Beefcakes and then just sell them remotely out of the truck.”
The statement struck a chord in my gut making me sit taller in the bed. But as much as the idea initially excited me, the seed of an idea was still far from germination. “Even drunk, you can’t turn off your marketing brain, huh?”
She smiled, but it was fleeting, dropping quickly like a butterfly’s wings. “Thank you,” she said. And for the first time all night, she refused to look me in the eye. “For staying tonight.”
I nodded but didn’t quite know what to say. I don’t think this night shaped up how either of us expected it to… but I couldn’t say I was unhappy with the strange turn of events. “How about Pillow Talk next?” I asked, flipping through the streaming site.
“What’s that?”
I dropped my jaw, indignant. “Rock Hudson… Doris Day… a party phone line. Are you kidding? It’s classic.”
Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized me. “How do you know so much about romantic comedies?”
“You really think only women can enjoy them?”
“They’re called chick flicks for a reason.” I strained to glance at her without moving my head. This was more like it. From the sympathetic crying to enjoying Reese Witherspoon movies, this was the reaction I was used to getting from women—emasculation. But I’d thought Chloe might be different.
I sighed. “When I was a kid… like, really little. Kindergarten age, I was sick a lot. Addy was the twin born first, and it’s like she got all the good genes and I got the shitty immune system. So when I was home from school, my mom and I used to watch movies together. And I’ve never felt the macho need to pretend I’m too good to enjoy a well-written scene at the top of the empire state building.”
I felt her finger dip into my chin dimple again. “You’re mad.” It was a statement, not a question. And a true one, at that.
“Mad might be too strong of a word.”
“Annoyed?”
I nodded, but then clarified. “Frustrated.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered and turned my face to look at her. “I’ve never had a guy friend who likes rom-coms as much as I do.”
I smiled. “Well, almost. When Harry Met Sally is still a terrible movie. Even though it proves a good point that men and women can’t really be friends.”
She smiled back, then tucked her head into the nook of my arm and chest. “We’ll prove they can,” she said.
For the smallest moment, I found myself wishing she was wrong.
1:47 a.m.
A small sniffle came from beside me and my spine went stiff. No. She couldn’t be crying now, could she? We’d almost made it the whole night without any tears.
I risked a small glance down at her face, and sure enough, a single tear streaked down her cheek.
“Hey,” I said quietly, giving her arm a squeeze. “Everything okay down there?”
Another sniffle. “Westley loved Buttercup!” she cried out.
I tugged her into my arms for a proper hug, resting my hand on her hair. We’d decided on The Princess Bride when we couldn’t find Pillow Talk on any streaming sites. “Yeah,” I said. “He did. It was ‘Wuv. Twue wuv.’”
She snorted a laugh that quickly morphed into more sobs against my chest. Her hands clutched the cotton of my t-shirt and I held her tighter as she cried. The kind of hard, limb-shaking tears that rock through your whole body.
Oh, God… no. Shit. It was coming. The threat of my own tears. My chest ached. My throat was tight. My
