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“Who says I have a girlfriend?” Sam kept his voice easy.
“It’s written all over your whipped face.”
Sam relaxed slightly. It had just been a lucky guess. “You’re delusional.”
“Am I?” Liam asked, going to the shelf that doubled as a liquor cabinet and rummaging around until he found a bottle to his liking. “For starters, you’ve smiled about eight times more than usual. Next up, we have the puppy, which, like I’ve said, doesn’t surprise me, but the breed of dog does. It’s one of those fancy ones, not a mutt from the pound …”
Sam remained stubbornly silent as he refilled his own drink.
“And then there’s the more tangible proof …,” Liam continued.
“I can’t wait to hear. Are my eyes more sparkly? Have I been doing something different with my hair?”
“Nope.”
Sam had known Liam long enough to recognize that silent laugh. He turned to see what hilarity he was missing.
His heart jumped into his throat.
Oh shit!
He’d done a quick scan of his bed when he and Liam had entered and deemed it free of any obvious female presence.
There was just one tiny detail he hadn’t considered.
Skippy.
The very cute, very proud puppy had swapped his squeaky toy for one very frilly, probably very expensive red bra, and was attempting to maneuver it across the floor before proudly depositing it at Sam’s feet.
Sam exhaled through his nose. If the bra didn’t belong to the sister of the man currently cracking up, he might have been able to see the humor in the situation.
As it was, the red bra might as well have been a red flag.
Danger. Danger.
Leaning down, Sam scooped up the light bit of fabric and glared down at the puppy, who was doing that frantic tail wag that caused his entire body to reverberate.
“No treat,” he said, jabbing a finger down at the dog.
“But looks like Daddy got a treat,” Liam said, his expression all gleeful innocence.
“So I had some female company,” Sam grumbled, marching to his dresser and stuffing the bra inside with his undershirts. “You going to tell me that every pair of panties in your bed equates to a girlfriend?”
“Nah,” Liam said, reaching down to scoop up Skippy and letting the dog lick his face. “But I don’t think I’ve ever experienced what you’re experiencing.”
“And what’s that?” Sam asked warily.
His friend’s eyes met his over the puppy’s head, and they were both sympathetic and curious. “Happiness.”
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Sam’s chest tightened. His best friend was right, and the realization filled him with terror.
For the first time since he and Riley had slept together, Sam let himself face the inevitable: The deeper he and Riley got, the more it was going to hurt when it ended.
And if there was one thing Sam was sure of, it was that all good things definitely ended.
Chapter Twenty
