I agonized for hours over whether or not I should show up at 4:00 a.m. to Beefcakes to help Liam bake. It was technically my morning off, but it wasn’t like I was able to sleep anyway. I’d basically sat in bed, staring at my ceiling, wondering what the hell do I do now?
I made it to 7:45 before I was standing out in front of Beefcakes, my feet frozen solid to the ground. There was no line outside, thank God.
It took another five minutes of standing there until I finally launched myself through the door.
Only, it wasn’t Liam behind the counter—it was Finn. Even though Finn wasn’t supposed to be working today. It was Liam’s day to bake and open all by himself.
“Is Liam okay?” I blurted the question without thinking. My cheeks heated and I took a quick glance around the café. Only one customer stood in the corner and Finn quickly handed her a white paper bag and a coffee cup.
“There you go,” he said with a smile. “Have a beefy day!”
I scrunched my nose. God, I hoped that didn’t stick. But I had a lot more to worry about than terrible catchphrases. Once she was gone, I tried again. “Is he—”
“He’s fine,” Finn interrupted.
Relief softened my shoulders, but was quickly replaced by more questions, more concerns.
“Well, in a manner of speaking, he’s fine,” Finn clarified.
“Is he at home?” I needed to find him. I needed to see his face, talk to him, and know that he was okay. Because I sure as hell wasn’t.
Finn shrugged. “Not sure. He called me last night asking if I could fill in today.”
I gulped. “Is that all he said?”
“More or less. My brother’s not really a ‘pass the sharing stick’ kind of guy.”
“The Liam I know is. He tells me almost everything.”
Finn’s brow arched. “Does he?”
I love you. If this ends, I’ll be broken-hearted and I’ll miss you. But I don’t need you, Chloe.
His words resonated in my mind and I squeezed my eyes shut against the echo of his voice. “Yes.”
“Well… by that logic, if he tells you everything and he wanted you to know where he was this morning, then you would know already.”
Finn’s words sliced into my core. He was right. Liam didn’t want me to find him. He didn’t want to see me.
No, that wasn’t exactly true either. He wanted me… he just didn’t need me.
Was it so bad to need another person? Every love story harps on that—you need their love to survive. Without it, you feel broken. It was the kind of classic Romeo and Juliet bullshit that great literature harped on.
“I guess so,” I whispered.
Liam was apparently fine staying away from me. But I was a disaster. A total mess without him. And like a crazy person, I was ready to tear the town apart in order to find him.
The TV in the corner of the room blasted the theme song to Bruce and Jill in the Morning. I glanced up just in time to catch their intro… and a picture of Liam and me onscreen. “What the…? Finn, turn the volume up.”
With the remote in hand, he increased the volume. “Bruce, did you see what’s happening with our good friends up in Maple Grove?”
Bruce chuckled as he brought his coffee mug to his lips. “Sure did. The ‘couple,’ ” he threw air quotes around the word, “apparently had been faking their relationship all along for the publicity!”
“Oh my God,” I whispered as raw cell phone footage of us in the food truck began playing. It was shaky and looked like one of the customers in line had turned on their phone’s video and was holding it up over the window of the truck to peek inside. It was clearly Liam and me, though, even though it was fuzzy and we kept going in and out of frame.
“And I’m fucking sick of pretending with you. I’m sick of pretending to be your boyfriend when cameras are on or people are watching, only to pretend I’m not madly in love with you behind the scenes when it’s just the two of us.”
They bleeped out the bad words and Jill gave a low whistle. “Apparently someone posted this last night to social media. She might be faking it with him, but it’s obvious that Liam Evans isn’t faking anything with her! He’s got it bad for Chloe.”
Bruce sighed and shook his head. “Poor guy. I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who are ready and willing to soothe that Beefcake’s broken heart—”
“Turn it off,” I said, tearing my eyes from the screen.
Finn muted the TV, but didn’t turn it off. “Chloe—”
I shook my head, tears burning the backs of my eyes. “Don’t. Please don’t. I need…”
What? What did I need?
Because the one person I desperately ached for, I wasn’t allowed to see.
“I need to be alone,” I said.
And for the first time… maybe in my entire life… I meant that.
37
Liam
“I take it you heard all that?” Finn hitched his thumb over his shoulder as I came out of the kitchen after Chloe left.
“Some.” Yeah, right. Like I hadn’t had my ear pressed against the door the entire time.
“What are you going to do?”
About which part? About Chloe and me? About our business we own together? Or about the fact that apparently some stupid video taken by a nosy customer had gone viral?
Viral was certainly the right word for it. Contagious. Sickening. Fast-acting… and sometimes deadly.
“I guess I’ll just… keep on,” I answered, ambiguously.
Finn snorted and shook his head. “What does that even mean?”
Hell if I knew. “It means I don’t have a lot of options. I’m not going to leave her hanging on The Dump Truck. I have an obligation to it. So does she. I’m hoping that after we take some time apart, hopefully we can coexist as business partners.”
“Really? That’s what you’re hoping this time apart will accomplish?”
No. I wanted her to see how she’d been using me all this time, even if it was unintentional. I wanted her to realize she was madly in love with me. I wanted her to learn she was strong enough on her own, but that loving me in return could enhance her already wonderful life. But that all felt so hopeless. So, instead, I swallowed down those thoughts and simply gave Finn a nod. “At a bare minimum… yes.”
With a roll of his eyes, Finn leveled me with a look that made it seem like he was the big brother; the older and wiser of the two of us. “But if you two are working together on the food truck, then that’s not exactly taking time apart, is it?”
I sighed as my attention pulled to the TV in the corner of the café. Our picture—a portrait the show had taken of us while they were here in town—was plastered on the screen. Why the hell did people care so much about two random people from a small town? My family had now been at the center of two viral stories—and I still just didn’t get it.
“You’re going to be next,” I said, angling my chin toward the TV. “Just wait. You’re going to say or do something and someone’s going to record you… and bam. The next viral Evans family member: Finnegan Samuel.”
He groaned, his lip curling in distaste. “I hate when you use my full name. Besides, I think we both know if there’s an Evans sibling who’s going to be recorded saying something dumb, it’s probably Addy.”
I laughed at that. “I would’ve thought so, too… But here I am.”
Finn shook his head, the humor in his face sliding away. “You told her you loved her… that’s not dumb. That’s brave.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it can ever work between us.”
Finn reached into the glass case and filled the donut tray that had emptied with the first busy wave of customers this morning. “Then you didn’t see what I saw today. She’s so fucking in love with you. She’s coming out of her skin, not knowing what to do without you.”
“Yeah,” my voice was raspy. I knew his words were meant to soothe my broken heart, but if anything, they just mad
e it worse. “That’s sort of the problem. I think I became her life preserver. I was a flotation device tossed to her in the middle of a riptide when she was drowning and now? She’s still clinging to me. Not because she loves me, but because she’s afraid if she lets go, she’ll drown.”
We worked silently for a minute before Finn said, “You know… it’s okay to need someone."
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not love. That’s co-dependency.”
“Sure. If it’s all the time. But occasionally leaning on someone you love isn’t a bad thing.”
“I know. But this is different. Chloe won’t let herself be in love with me—be in a relationship with me—because she’s so scared of losing what we have. Because she needs me.” I spat the word like it was snake venom.
“Aren’t you scared of losing what you have?”
“Of course I am. But the reward is greater than the risk, in my opinion.”
Finn’s face jerked, shifting in thought—as though he had a lot to add—but he didn’t speak. He simply organized the donuts with that expression in silence.
“Come on,” I grunted. “Out with it.”
“Nah. You’re my big brother. I’m on your side.”
“You’re on my side… but you disagree with me?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter if I agree with you or not?”
Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it did. Suddenly, I burned with the need to know what he was thinking. “Come on,” I prodded. “Tell me.”
Finn sighed heavily. “I just think that, yes—maybe you’re right, and Chloe has something to learn about being less co-dependent. There’s also the possibility that you have something to learn about allowing yourself to need others. She’s been good for you. She doesn’t wait for you to ask for help, because I think she knows you never will. She just jumps in. Like coming to the hospital for Mom.”
“And leaving me there when things got too emotional.”
He threw his hands up in surrender. “I’m not saying she’s flawless. I agree she has things to work on. But maybe you do, too. If you’d stop being so self-righteous long enough to see that her way isn’t all bad… then maybe you can meet in the middle.” He became really quiet, straightening the same damn donut in the case for the millionth time. “It’s rare you meet someone like Chloe. Someone who wears their raw emotions on their sleeve; someone who isn’t afraid to lean on the people they love.”
Yeah, she wore all her emotions on her sleeve… except for love. She wouldn’t let herself love me.
Finn clicked the TV off as a customer came in—a younger woman with an older woman. A bride and her mother, if I had to guess.
He leaned into me, making sure they couldn’t hear him before he whispered, “And for God’s sake, it’s okay to ask for help sometimes.”
That evening, I arrived at Beefcakes after my nap. The food truck was parked in its usual spot, out front.
I was a bundle of nerves. Would Chloe show up tonight? She hadn’t texted me all day since leaving Beefcakes, and I was feeling withdrawal symptoms. I found myself staring at her pictures on Instagram, wishing I could call her, hear her voice… and hold her.
I pulled my car into a parking spot beside the food truck just as Addy, Finn, and Mom were walking out of the bakery. In their arms, they cradled boxes of our baked goods, transporting them from the kitchen to the truck. They smiled when they saw me getting out of my car and shutting the door.
“There he is,” Mom said, pausing to kiss me on the cheek.
“What—what are you all doing here?” I followed them inside the truck and watched as they put away the food I had baked this morning.
Addy rolled her eyes. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like you’re doing my job.”
“Ding, ding, ding!” Addy sang, and tossed her hands into the air. “Tell him what he’s won, Finn!”
Finn held a cruller in his hand and held it up to his mouth like a microphone, speaking in a terrible radio DJ voice. “Well, Addy, our dearest brother has won an all-expenses paid vacation to his own living room! The trip will include mindless television, flannel pajama pants, and a much needed eight hours of sleep. All he has to do…”
Addy beat her hands against the counter in a mock drumroll.
“… is ask for help!”
Together, they clapped and held their jazz hands out in a final pose.
I scrunched my nose and pointed to the cruller in Finn’s hand. “You know I can’t sell that one now. You breathed all over it.”
Addy rolled her eyes toward Finn and Mom. “Told you that wouldn’t work.”
Mom crossed over to me and smoothed my mussed hair. “We’re all worried about you. Finn and Addy will be here to run the truck. And you can take an extra night off.”
Except I didn’t want a night off. I wanted the distraction. I wanted to pretend everything was normal and fine. “I don’t need a night off. It’s fine. I’m fine. Chloe and I aren’t meant to be. We’re just… business partners from now on.”
I ignored the pitying look my mom was giving me from across the food truck. With four people in there, it was becoming wildly apparent this small truck wasn’t made to hold this many of us.
“I thought you and I could switch jobs for a little while,” Finn said. “I’ll handle The Dump Truck for you—the baking and the night shift selling. That way, you don’t have to see Chloe until you’re ready.”
I glanced at Addy. “And you’re here because…”
“I figured I’d help Finn out tonight.”
“That’s ridiculous. You have your own bar, your own job—”
“There are other bartenders who work there,” she waved off my concerns.
“None as good as you.”
“Well, duh,” she laughed. “But right now, I’m needed here more. When I checked in on Chloe today, she wasn’t up for working tonight—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I massaged my temples. “You checked in on Chloe? When? Why?”
“Because she’s my friend and our brother’s girlfriend’s sister. She’s practically family—”
“She’s not family,” I snapped. “Elaina and Neil aren’t even engaged—”
“Oh, they will be,” Mom said. “And you know it. Regardless of whether or not you two work out your differences, Chloe’s going to be in our lives.”
“Fine.” I tossed my hands into the air. The thought that Chloe was someone I couldn’t walk away from was maddening.
It meant she was right—that it was too damn messy for us to get involved. Her reservations about us dating were completely valid.
Shit. Why did this have to get so damn complicated? “It’s going to be fine,” I whispered. “Chloe and I will be better off if we learn how to stand on our own two feet.”
“Allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough to need someone can take a lot of courage,” Mom said. She stepped closer to me and even though her voice was soft, there was fire in her bright green eyes. “Standing alone and being alone are two different things. If you don’t realize that, then maybe you don’t deserve her.”
38
Chloe
Tanja never called this morning like she said she would.
She did text after lunch, though. Four whole words:
Hey girl what’s up?
That was it. I didn’t even get the courtesy of a comma.
I stared at that text for an hour.
Tanja and I had been friends for years. Yes, I was pissed at her. But I wasn’t ready to give up on our friendship yet, either. Especially not now with Elaina in another country and Liam…
I gulped and squeezed my eyes shut against the onslaught of burning tears.
Tanja didn’t know I loved Liam. She thought we were friends. Could I really blame her for coming onto him?
Yes, a little voice whispered. I shoved it aside. It was wrong. That voice was just wrong. And it wasn’t like I was swimming with friends these days. Most of my friends ditched me when Dan l
eft.
But Tanja didn’t. She was busy and flighty and sometimes a little self-absorbed, but she was also fun and she loved me.
I glanced at the clock. Six-thirty. With Addy filling in for me at The Dump Truck tonight, I had the whole evening to myself. Alone.
I could do this. An evening by myself. With no one to distract or temper my thoughts.
I popped my earbuds in—if I couldn’t distract myself with friends and conversation, then maybe I could with music.
Two and a half hours later, I had cooked and eaten a bland veggie stir-fry. I’d done the dishes. Caught up on laundry. And vacuumed, mopped, and dusted my entire house.
And I was coming out of my skin. Maybe I should go to sleep? Sure, it was only nine o’clock, but I probably needed to catch up on rest.
I slumped onto my couch and reached for my phone.
There was a missed call and a voicemail … from Tanja. Two hours ago.
As I pressed play, her voice filled my ears.
“Chloe,” she said in a tone that was quieter than I’d ever heard her in my life. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you and Liam were… I mean… I thought you were just friends. Can I see you tonight? Or tomorrow? Please. Call me.”
She sounded… different. Really, really different. The only other time I’d heard her sound this contrite was back in our freshman year of college when she got caught sneaking into the theater building to “borrow” a dress she’d seen in the costume department for a date she had. When the guard caught her and asked her name, she’d panicked and gave the guard my name, not her own. It was a huge mess that ended up with me being called into a disciplinary meeting. It eventually blew up in her face, but she’d dragged me into a situation that I wasn’t even a part of in the first place.
It almost ruined our friendship back then, and my parents have distrusted her ever since. But she’s spent eight years making up for that and proving that she was a good friend despite that hiccup.
And what was so wrong about leaning on your friends, anyway? I was angry, and sad, and humiliated on a national level with that stupid viral video… and alone.
Sugarlips (Beefcakes Book 2) Page 26
