Page 24 of Love Everlasting

Not that he was ever going to taste them again. His mouth quirked as he snatched his cell off the table and slipped it into the pocket of his creased Brooks Brothers shorts. Because Shannon couldn’t abide him as a man, which made her the perfect choice as a female friend. As much as Shannon’s sweet and pure appearance inspired nibbling, he’d discovered since that night in his kitchen that he liked having a woman as a good friend, so he wasn’t about to botch it up again. This friendship was too important.

Because Jazz is too important.

“Hey, you didn’t have to bother dressing up on my account,” he teased as he rose, her bare-bones getup only reinforcing her wholesome appearance. His grin ramped up to double dimples when those porcelain cheeks ripened with a blush, wondering why on earth he got a kick out of tweaking such a sweet and shy kid. Maybe because that sweet mouth pinched in restraint and those searing blue eyes challenged him to trip that glorious temper no one else ever saw, unleashing words no one else ever had the guts to say.

The truth.

“So … what’s your pleasure, Angel Eyes?” he said, pushing in his chair.

The edge of her mouth ticked up. “A tall, frosty glass of peach iced tea.” She batted his hand away from the small of her back when he tried to usher her inside. “At home.”

“Your wish is my command,” he said, looping her waist to whirl her back toward the parking lot. “Just lead the way, kiddo.”

“Not a chance, Doc.” Slapping his arm away, she ricocheted back to the entrance like a paddleball on a string, ducking inside before he could even open the door. “Jack would blow a gasket if he saw me out with you, which come to think of it, might be a good thing.” She lobbed a one-sided smile over her shoulder. “Way cheaper than a restraining order.”

She marched right up to the counter and ordered a peach iced tea, then tussled with him about paying for her own, losing the battle when the young woman deferred to him with a dazzling smile.

“You know, it’s downright criminal how you get your way with women.” Shaking her head, Shannon made a beeline for the outside patio.

“Not all of them,” Sam said with a wry smile, racing to open the door for her, “which is why you’re here, remember?”

“Really?” Shannon seated herself at the table, offering a flutter of lashes that tickled him because it seemed so out of character. “I thought it was because of extortion.”

He grinned and slid in his chair, questioning his sanity in purchasing a fifth cappuccino. “Come on, Shannon, ‘extortion’ sounds so crass. Let’s just think of it as two friends helping each other out.”

Cracking a skewed smile, she perched on the edge of her chair with hands neatly folded on the table. “Like I said—extortion. But since we’re both here and I’m not wearing heels, why don’t we get down to business?”

“See? That’s what I like about you,” he said with a chuckle, “you don’t mince words; you get right to the point.” He took a healthy swig of his coffee, eyeing her over the rim with a teasing look. “With or without stilettos.” Setting his cup down, he sucked in a deep breath and propped his arms on the table, all of his good humor bleeding out along with a long, bumpy sigh.

“She’s going to the Bahamas with him,” he said quietly, just saying the words out loud a reality crash that sent his stomach into a free fall. Head bowed, he gouged his eye socket with the pad of his thumb. The happy-go-lucky persona he worked so hard to maintain with an upbeat manner and maniacal regimen suddenly stripped away to reveal the wounded man inside. For some reason he couldn’t ascertain, Shannon’s presence allowed him the luxury of brutal honesty, exposing deeply buried feelings no one ever saw—sometimes not even him.

“Oh, Sam …” Shannon’s whisper carried all the tender compassion he’d known it would, the barest touch of her fingers to his a balm he’d seldom experienced before. Certainly not from a mother who’d deserted him at the age of five nor from a long line of foster parents more interested in the subsidy than in him. And one sure didn’t unload true feelings and failures with other guys, not even good friends like Jack, and never ever with women. Especially a woman like Jazz. No, he’d learned long ago that image was all he really had to ward off the pain, all he could really count on to keep him afloat when others deserted him. And they always did.

Eventually.

His dad. His mom. His foster parents. His fiancée in college.

Even Jazz.

Shannon gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“Yeah, me too,” he muttered, voice barely audible as his gaze lagged into a vacant stare, memories of past relationships tainting his mind. Far as Sam could tell, love was little more than a commodity, as fleeting as the people who stole in and out of his life, a revolving door of rejection that always hit him hard. Which is why image was everything. A message to the world that he had it all, no matter how many people screwed around with his heart.

Unfortunately, Jazz was not only an important part of that image, she was the one woman who’d managed to make him care despite his “player” charade—that careful façade that had both bolstered his confidence and kept rejection at bay.

Until Jazz.

The one challenge he had yet to conquer.

His mouth tamped in a tight line. And he’d never walked away from a challenge yet. Without thinking, he downed his cappuccino in a series of scalding glugs, as if it were the whiskey with which he’d numbed the pain at the Memorial fundraiser. Slamming the cup on the table, he shoved it away, his voice taking on an edge. “But, it is what it is,” he said, huffing out a noisy sigh. He peered up. “Now I just need to figure out how to get it back to what it ‘was.’”

Serious blues eyes stared back, soft and serene, reminding him just why he’d nicknamed her Angel Eyes. “How about … to what it could be instead?” she said quietly, and his pulse hitched hard for several precarious seconds, the impact of her words as loud as if she’d blasted them through a megaphone.

He sat straight up, adrenaline pumping through his veins along with the caffeine. “Yeah … yeah, that’s exactly what I want.” Shaking his head over the brilliance of her statement, he fanned fingers through his hair with an open-mouthed smile, wondering how on earth he’d managed without a female friend like Shannon all of this time. “I mean, that wasn’t what I was after in the beginning, I’ll admit. I just wanted what we had before—a nice, cozy relationship with lots of fun. But since I’ve lost her twice now, it’s been like a kick in the head, you know? Making me realize just how much I care about her and want her in my life.”

He grinned outright, the revelation escalating his mood as much as the cappuccino. “I never even thought about it being any better.” Tunneling his hand through the curls at the back of his head, it latched there as he stared at her in awe. “I swear, Shannon, you’re amazing. One sentence. One mind-blowing sentence, and you change everything for me, parsing it down to something so startlingly simple.”

Those blue eyes softened with sympathy. “Not so simple, Sam, because it means you have to change in order for the relationship to change.”