AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mack…” Her hand came up to my chest, her palm pressing over my heart, the warmth of it seeped through my shirt, past my skin, all the way through me.
“You have to know that.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“We could make this work.” I knew it, I knew it in my fucking bones.
“And if it didn’t work? How do we go back? Because I’m not going to lose you,” she said, tone fierce.
I covered her hand with mine, willing her to understand that, if she gave me a chance, I’d be all in. “You won’t lose me, not ever.”
“Your friendship, our business, they are more important to me than I can even put into words.” Her voice cracked, eyes going glassy with tears. “I don’t want that to change. I just—I can’t risk it. Please can we—”
“Act like it didn’t happen,” I finished for her, even as it cracked a hole in my chest.
She nodded, her lip trapped between her teeth. If she cried I was done for. And I’d known her long enough to know when an argument was lost.
“Okay.”
“Really?”
“If it’s that important to you—”
“Youare that important to me.”
I nodded. “Then yes, really, it never happened.”
3
CHASE
The wind cutan icy path down Kingsland as I turned the corner. Weighed down as I was with my groceries, I couldn’t do much about the fact that my coat was blowing around like a cape and doing little to insulate me from the buffeting northerly.
Winter was teasing us and it was still almost two weeks out from Thanksgiving. I was already thinking about my domination of Mack’s sweet potato pie. Nash may have been the chef of our trio, but Mack was surprisingly proficient in the kitchen—particularly with baked goods. Having said that, I wouldn’t be surprised if my all-time favorite pie was made with store bought pastry and canned filling. I didn’t care. Not. One. Bit. He’d never shared the secret with me, had been downright cagey about it in fact, so the chances there was more than one shortcut involved were high.
But so long as he kept providing it, I wasn’t going to argue.
I stumbled a step—would he still make my pie? Even after everything? Yes, I had to believe he would, because we were acting like the world’s greatest kiss never happened. Far easier said than done, granted, but worth the effort if I wanted to hold onto my best friend and business partner.
He really was one of the most important people in my life. The thought of losing him made my stomach twist with something I wasn’t even sure I could name. It was more than anxiety, more than dread, more than anything I had words for. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t, not even for the world’s greatest kiss that would logically lead to the world’s greatest other things too. I definitely wasn’t letting myself think about that.
My mind was still circling around the Mack situation as I let myself inside my apartment and dropped the bags on the floor with a thud. I didn’t care how many times I had to mentally slap myself when I started thinking about the kiss. I would do it as many times as I needed to because a kiss was one thing, it could be ignored, swept under the proverbial rug. More than a kiss, though, when hands and bodies and skin were involved, so much more could and would change. I wasn’t going to deal with that much change. It didn't matter that my body still remembered the feel of his hands, even through layers of clothing.
Relationships didn’t work. Not in my experience anyway. My dad had bailed before I’d even been born and every man since had left. Except Mack (and Nash but I hadn’t gone and kissed him). He was still here and I was not going to risk changing that.
The shrill wail of my mother’s ringtone pulled me out of my head. I briefly debated screening the call and then answered because she’d only call again, and again, until I picked up.
“Hey M—”
“Chase darling!” she sang down the line. “What are you doing?”
“I’m at home, just catching up on some work,” I lied. It wasn’t that Mom and I didn’t get along, she was just a bitmuchsome of the time. She was the blue skies to my generally gray clouds—which I loved about her—but, with my mind far too preoccupied with my best friend's mouth, I wasn’t really in the mood for it. And there was also the issue of me wanting to tell someone to get it out of my head. But telling someone went directly against theact like it didn’t happenstrategy.
“You work too much, baby girl. And, as your mother, I’m saying you need a break.”
“Is that right?”
“It is. Now open up, your buzzer is busted again.”
