Sugarlips (Beefcakes Book 2)

by Katana Collins

  Her eyes drifted back and forth between us, shrewdly assessing before she lifted the cup to her lips and asked, “Why the ocean?” A wicked gleam shone in her bright green eyes—the similarity to her son was striking and impossible to ignore.

  He gazed at me a long moment. Time suspended between us within that silence. All the reasons that I’d been telling my heart to remain closed from Liam faded, melting like a scoop of ice cream in the heat of summer. Seriously, why was I keeping him at arm’s length? Elaina had been the main reason, but even she had told me to go for it. What the hell was I waiting for?

  Finally, the corners of his mouth turned up into a semblance of a smile that was so Liam, it defined him, and he said, “Like the ocean, you’re beautiful, deep, and unpredictable.” His voice vibrated through me, like a lingering caress. “You can be safe and calm… or dangerous and wild. And people are inexplicably drawn to you.”

  Maybe he kept talking. Maybe he didn’t. I couldn’t hear anything over the roaring rush of blood and the pounding drumbeat of my pulse that sounded like a rock concert in my ears.

  The fact that he saw me so clearly was both comforting… and terrifying.

  Emotion clawed its way up my throat and I quickly excused myself from the room, leaving behind a confused looking Liam.

  I barely registered the sound of him calling after me as I rushed down the hall. Running. I was freaking running from Liam like he was a bully on a playground… my friend. My best friend.

  I winced at the word as I slipped into the ladies’ room and quickly shut the door behind me, pressing my back against it like I was some sort of effective barricade.

  He’s my best friend. It had started playfully enough when I told Liam we were going to be best friends. But I had no idea just how deeply my heart would become invested in him. I had no idea how true and real and sweet and bitter all at once being his best friend could be.

  Because he’s not just a friend, a little voice that sounded annoyingly a lot like Elaina whispered in the back of my mind. You love him.

  My throat went dry. My face, hot. My hands, clammy and wet.

  I loved Liam Evans.

  I loved him in a way that I had never loved anyone else in my life. Because I’d never been friends with someone for this long without dating them first.

  And it was because I loved Liam so much that I couldn’t drag him down into my chaos.

  I couldn’t let him get caught in my riptide.

  25

  Liam

  I carried a tray of lasagna into Neil’s going away party in the hospital lounge. Mom had insisted we do something in honor of Neil leaving for Budapest. And what Mom says goes. Especially after a double mastectomy.

  According to doctor’s orders, it could only last thirty minutes before Mom needed to be back in her bed resting. And while the rest of us feasted on lasagna and cake, Mom was still on her liquid diet of chicken broth.

  Quite. A. Party.

  I entered the lounge and saw Chloe standing just inside the door, peering toward the center of the room. A small, plastic cup with punch was delicately pinched between her fingers.

  I hadn’t been alone with her since she ran off from my mom’s room and locked herself in the bathroom. She claimed she wasn’t feeling well, but I knew better. I may only have one sister, but I knew when a girl was hiding from a guy.

  I’d just never been “that guy.”

  “Hey,” I said quietly, carefully drawing closer to her.

  “Hi,” she said, not turning to look at me. Her eyes were still fastened to the center to the room and it wasn’t until that moment that I glanced toward whatever she’d been staring at.

  I nearly dropped the tin tray of lasagna onto the floor when I saw Neil in the dead center of the room… kissing Elaina.

  “What the hell did I miss?” I whispered.

  “Finally, right?” Chloe’s touch brushed against my lower back and I quickly set the lasagna down to avoid a massive messy disaster.

  “How did this… when did they…” I shook the fog from my brain. “I mean, did you do this?”

  Chloe chuckled and shook her head. “I wish I could take credit. But they each did the sweetest, most self-less thing for each other.”

  “They did?” Why was I only hearing about this now?

  “Neil secured the old mill for Elaina’s healthcare clinic.” She paused, glancing around and lowered her voice to a whisper. “And Elaina paid for your mom’s surgery.”

  I blinked, staring at them stunned. “Wow. You leave for ten minutes to heat up a lasagna and look what happens?”

  I smiled, looking at my brother, so damn happy as he cupped Elaina’s jaw, smiling in a way I’d literally only ever seen in Elaina’s presence. They belonged together.

  Across the room, my mom sat in her wheelchair, her hand resting gently on the IV fluid stand as she watched on, smiling as Neil scooped Elaina into his arms.

  “Well, it was about damn time, wouldn’t you say?” I said. My heart pounded and an elated thrill spiked adrenaline through my body as I grinned. This means we can be together. If Chloe was holding back because of Elaina, then that was no longer a factor.

  With another sidelong glance at Chloe, my grin faltered. She wasn’t smiling. If anything, she looked sad. I shifted as the uncomfortable silence hung in the air between us. It was foreign. Silence had never been weird with Chloe… not until now.

  “Are you oka—”

  “What you said—”

  She swiveled to face me as we both spoke at the same time and then immediately smiled, both going quiet once again together.

  “You go first,” I said.

  She paused, thoughtfully. “I am the ocean,” she said, blinking the longest, darkest lashes known to humankind as she looked up at me.

  I knew it. I knew it had something to do with that poetic bullshit I let slip earlier. I scared her. “Chloe—”

  But she cut me off with a lift of her hand in the air, not letting me apologize or try to walk the statement back.

  “I am. Everything you said was true. Oceans are perilous… risky. What we have is too special to risk. I just needed you to know that my stance on us hasn’t changed.”

  “But Elaina and Neil are—”

  “We both have a lot on our plates. Your mother’s cancer. Neil and Elaina leaving the country. I have two new businesses with the food truck and my marketing firm. And… it’s only been a couple of months since my fiancé cheated on me.”

  I jerked back as though she’d physically struck me. She’d never used Dan as an excuse before. Her sister, yes. Her job, yes. But that lying, cheating bastard? Never.

  She was lying. The Chloe I had met with a couple of months ago at her house after the breakup hadn’t denied her feelings for me—if anything she embraced them. She called me sexy and kissed me the very next morning. We accepted the feelings were there while acknowledging that they couldn’t come to fruition because of the tenuous situation with Neil and Elaina.

  But now Elaina and Neil were together… and Chloe had me more at arm’s length than ever. This version of Chloe now standing before me was a whisper of the woman I’d grown to know over the past two months. The question was: What the hell had changed? Because despite her claims that nothing had, I could see the change; feel it. She looked more like the Chloe that had been on Dan’s arm for years; a caged free spirit trying desperately to fit into his world.

  The old Liam—the Liam from last year or, hell, even last month—would have gone along with what she’d said, even if I didn’t mean it. I would have agreed to avoid conflict. But Chloe’s claim that nothing had changed was wrong. Because I had changed. Something in me had shifted. And I was pretty sure I owed that to her… to my best friend.

  Perhaps I was just tired of being locked in the friend zone, but I felt braver than I ever had in my life. “Or maybe,” I said, take a step closer. “What we have is too special not to risk it.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not
—”

  “What? Not true? If you’re only ever opening your heart to people you don’t fear losing … you’re never going to know real love. Love, Chloe, is risky.”

  Although no tears fell down her cheeks, a gasping sob choked from her throat and she shook her head. “Dan wasn’t a risk. And yet, he ripped my heart out. If it hurts that much with someone I had lukewarm feelings for, I don’t want to know what it would feel like with—” The words choked from her mouth, mid-thought, and her mouth pressed into a firm, white line. “I—I have to go.”

  “You have to go? Now? Your sister and Neil are about to leave for Budapest!”

  She briskly walked toward the door as I followed her. “If anyone will understand, it’s Elaina.” She yanked the door open, pausing to glance at them, still in the center of the room. Her eyes shifted back to mine, glittering a dark shade of blue like a pebble beneath the water’s surface. “Tell them… tell them I love them.” She whispered the word on a breathy sigh before running out the door and down the hall.

  Running away from me for the second time today.

  26

  Chloe

  “So?” My sister prodded, her twisted expression freezing on my screen for a moment during the video chat. “Anything new with Liam?”

  I sighed and straightened the air freshener hanging from my rearview mirror.

  “Not since yesterday,” I whispered.

  He’d been giving me my space… thank God. But for us, space wasn’t exactly abounding. We were either crammed in the bakery, prepping and cooking for the day, or we were stuffed into the food truck together.

  Even with the emotional space he was giving me, I could feel his desire. I could feel how much he wanted me, and I hated how badly I wanted him, too.

  “Why are you resisting this?” Elaina asked, shaking her head. “I thought you liked him?”

  ‘Like’ didn’t even begin to cover my feelings for Liam. “I was engaged a couple of months ago, Elaina. I’ve never been alone for more than a few weeks at any given time after a breakup.” I glanced behind me to see if he was anywhere nearby. Even though I was tucked safely inside my car, I was parked in his driveway. I only had a few minutes before I needed to run inside and help him change for our taping of Coffee Talk with Jill and Bruce, but I didn’t want to miss my video chat with Elaina. Funny enough, she and I were talking more now that she was in Hungary. “Just because we like each other doesn’t mean we’re right for each other.”

  Elaina pushed her lips into a firm line, thoughtfully. “Tell me something good about him. Something that makes you swoon?”

  How long does she have? That list could fill a notebook. I smiled and stated one of the smaller moments that made me feel so deeply for him. “He’s a cuddler,” I said. It was so simple, but it meant everything to me that night. Dan hated cuddling. He would be too hot or too sweaty or just want to go to sleep after sex. But not Liam—at least, not in my limited experience.

  My sister groaned. “How can you make that sound so dirty?” she laughed.

  My eyes went wide. “It’s not dirty! He just likes to cuddle!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sure he does… with his penis.”

  She made it sound so naughty, but it was adorably innocent. Even though we’d had a million things to do the morning after we’d had sex, he had pulled me into him and held me—his leg slung over my body, his arm tucking me into his side, his nose buried in my neck, his pelvis pushed against my…

  Okay, maybe she had a point.

  I scrunched my nose. “Don’t talk about Liam’s penis, please.”

  Her brows disappeared beneath her side swept blond bangs. “I won’t if you won’t.”

  I laughed at that, missing my sister, even though she’d only been gone a few days. Two weeks was going to be excruciating.

  Elaina grinned at me from her part of the world—even though it was only 3:00 p.m. here in New Hampshire with sunlight filtering in through my car’s open window, it was nighttime where she was. In the last few days, Liam and I had formed a perfectly lovely pattern. Wake up before the sun. Bake until our fingers are numb. Then, I opened Beefcakes with Finn while Liam trained Jeremy, the new guy. By mid-afternoon, we each dragged ourselves home (or to the cot in his office) and collapsed for a nap before we opened the food truck in the evenings.

  But today was different. Today, we had our big segment with Bruce and Jill and though I couldn’t speak for Liam, I was nervous as hell. Even though it was a morning show, we were pre-taping part of our segment this afternoon and getting shots of us working the truck tonight.

  Elaina sat cross-legged on her bed in a silky tank top, grinning at me like a maniac. “You look happy,” I said, noting her beaming smile and the golden tan that kissed her skin, even in the low light of the evening. “You’re grinning so much, it looks like you’ve got a watermelon slice wedged between your lips.”

  Elaina laughed and dropped her face into her hands. “I know. I know. It’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s not,” I said quietly. “It’s beautiful. You deserve it.” My sister had been through hell and back, and apparently so had Neil. Despite all odds, they were making it work. It gave the rest of us hope.

  “You deserve it, too, you know,” she said, suddenly very serious. “Liam’s a good guy. He’d be good for you.”

  My smile faded. He’d be good for me. I heard that a lot. Like he could somehow tame the wild beast that was Chloe Dyker.

  “What?” Elaina said, picking up on my shift in mood almost immediately. “What did I say?” That was the beauty of Elaina. She didn’t assume something was wrong with you. She always wondered where she went wrong first.

  “He is good for me,” I said. “But I’m not good for him, Elaina.”

  “That’s not true,” Elaina answered with quiet resolve. “You are good for him. Don’t let the voices from your past convince you otherwise.”

  I forced a smile. Elaina was a good sister. The best. She loved me so much that she couldn’t see the situation all that clearly.

  Elaina and I hung up so that she could go to bed… although I doubted there would be much sleep happening there. She and Neil were clearly in that phase where they couldn’t get enough of each other. I got out of the car and texted Liam to let him know I was here.

  Come in, he texted back. Just getting out of the shower.

  I let myself in and wandered down the hallway, pausing to look at the family photos he had framed on the wall. Pictures of him and his brothers rough housing and Addy in the background wearing some sort of red feather boa.

  I chuckled. There couldn’t be a more accurate depiction of all four of them. The pictures morphed as they got older, but their personalities shined through no less. Addy always seemed to have a flair for dramatics and moodiness; Neil was front and center with a devilishly brooding grin; Finn always seemed to be doing something goofy and endearing… and almost always had a football or basketball in his hands. But Liam, on the other hand, faded into the background more and more with each passing year as they aged in the photos. Almost like the more outgoing his siblings became, the more he retreated into himself.

  It made sense to me; if you were surrounded by siblings who demanded the spotlight, eventually, it just got easier to stop fighting for your turn. Instead, you shifted backstage and took on other tasks that didn’t demand attention. I’d watched my sister do the exact same thing. She could have run for city council herself, but instead, she chose to work as the town manager, a thankless position that didn’t put her in the direct crossfire. And she could hide behind our father, the mayor.

  I didn’t hear Liam approach me from behind, but he curved his arm around me and there in his hand was a steaming hot mug of coffee. “A fresh cup,” he whispered. Even though he hadn’t touched me, goosebumps rose on my body, racing down to the tips of my fingers.

  I turned to find him standing close to me… shirtless. His hair was still wet with beads of moisture clinging to the dark ends and
dripping down onto his bare, muscled shoulders. My mouth went completely dry as my eyes skimmed the sinewy range of peaks and valleys that dipped over his torso.

  Pinched in the fingers of his other hand, he held up two hangers draped with a blue shirt and gray one. Without a word, I tapped my index finger to the blue shirt. That’s how close we had become; we could communicate without even talking.

  His lips tipped into a knowing smirk—I’d been caught staring at his body. But my desire for him wasn’t a secret. And it didn’t change a thing.

  I pulled the mug closer to my mouth, staring at him from over the lip as he tossed the gray shirt aside and tugged the blue one on.

  “So,” he said. “For this television spot today, are we still pretending to be a couple?”

  I sputtered, thankful I hadn’t yet taken a sip of the coffee. “What?”

  “Well, the last few interviews we’ve done, we’ve perpetuated those rumors because it was good for business.”

  “Right. Right.” Shit. I hadn’t thought about that.

  “It might look weird if we suddenly stopped pretending to be together, you know?”

  Dammit. He was right. Part of the appeal of our food truck was the “love story” about the owners. It felt a bit more like a punch in the gut now, though. Frankly, most of our close friends in Maple Grove knew the truth. But if we didn’t pretend to be a couple, the story would become about our breakup. Not about the truck or Liam’s awesome food.

  With a slow inhale, I nodded, trying to seem as unaffected and casual about this as he was. “Yeah, you’re right. We need to continue on as a couple.” His smile twitched higher. “Pretending to be a couple,” I quickly clarified, inwardly giving my forehead a smack.

  “Good. Then… we’re on the same page.”

  Based on his cocky smirk, I highly doubted that.