How to Steal Your Best Friend's Fiancé (How to Rom Com Series Book 2)

by London Casey

  Emily brought me a bucket and I let the water drip into it.

  I tightened the piece back up and slowly moved my hand away.

  There wasn’t any more water dripping.

  “Nice,” Emily said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Good as new.” I stood up and reached for the cold water faucet. “See, sometimes you just need to-”

  I turned on the faucet and heard a pop! sound.

  The connector piece exploded into two pieces and water shot out from under the sink right at me.

  My stomach and dick area were soaked in a second.

  I jumped out of the way and the water sprayed right at Emily.

  Her apron and shirt were wet and clung to her body.

  She let out a playful scream and I dropped to one knee and reached for the water as it continued to blast out of the pipe.

  Water hit my face and my hair.

  I clenched my jaw and covered the pipe with my hand, but all that did was not send water shooting right at Emily.

  I looked back at her and her jaw was dropped.

  Her shirt was tight against her body.

  I blinked a few times and smiled.

  “I think we need to turn the water off to the sink,” I said.

  “You think?” she yelled at me.

  “What are you two… oh, shit,” Lucy said as she poked her head into the bathroom.

  “Lucy, go call Henry right now,” Emily said.

  I reached with my left hand and found the shutoff valve.

  Of course the thing looked to be four hundred years old and didn’t want to budge.

  I growled and twisted as hard as I could.

  I wasn’t sure if that was the right way to handle the situation, but the valve began to close. After a few seconds, the water stopped coming from the pipe.

  I took a deep breath and stood up. “There. You just don’t have a bathroom right now.”

  When I turned and faced Emily, she pointed at me and started to laugh.

  “You’re one to talk,” I said. “You look like you just entered and won a wet t-shirt contest.”

  Which she did. Good fucking hell was that shirt pulling tight against her chest…

  I looked down at myself. “I guess I need to shoot back home and get changed.”

  “Just tell everyone you saved someone from drowning.”

  I laughed. “And here I was worried for a second it was going to look like I pissed myself.”

  “At least your coffee didn’t get ruined,” Emily said.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw my coffee was balanced on the sink, untouched.

  I looked at her again and started to laugh.

  What a way to kick off spending time together.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emily

  Be there in thirty

  I took a deep breath and my teeth suddenly began to chatter like I was in the center of a field in the middle of winter.

  My eyes looked around the kitchen, then the apartment.

  I cringed.

  I didn’t exactly live in a fancy place.

  My apartment wasn’t like Liam’s.

  Er, Miranda and Liam’s.

  Not that it should have mattered one bit at all, but I found myself looking at every mark on the floor and searching for every possible crack in a wall. Or standing at the window, knowing my view was crap.

  I smelled the air, wondering if I was just used to the apartment.

  My neighbor - Mr. Anderlees - cooked nothing but soup. And that wasn’t an exaggeration. This guy literally made soup every single day. And sometimes that soup had a salty and oily smell to it.

  Me being the hardcore romantic I was, I had zero candles or air fresheners in the apartment.

  I soon convinced myself my apartment smelled bad.

  My nose tingled, telling my brain there was a nice layer of cat pee mixed with a touch of mold and a dash of rotting onion.

  Of course none of that was true.

  But for me… as I searched under the bathroom sink for something with a hint of cinnamon or lavender, I stopped myself.

  My left hand grabbed my right hand as though I had two brains.

  Stop, Emily. It’s Liam. It’s freaking Liam coming over. There is no chance he would ever judge you. And on top of that, he’s coming over to talk about planning his wedding. And he’s not marrying you, remember? That ship was never even built, let alone having a chance to sail.

  So the reality of my life washed away all those fake smells but replaced it with a real sense of depression.

  I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror.

  I looked a mess.

  I reached back and let my hair down.

  There was a bump right at the back of my hair.

  After a minute of fighting with it, I just let it go.

  I turned my head left to right, checking my reflection.

  “The hair’s gotta go back up,” I whispered.

  I put my hair right back up, just in a cleaner version of the classic messy bun.

  I was sure for Liam - or any other guy - it was as simple as putting on a fresh t-shirt.

  For women, we had to make messy look not too messy but clean. If you really were messy then that’s not a good look. But clean and messy together did work…

  I left the bathroom and slammed the door.

  I half considered pouring cinnamon on the floor and then sweeping it up so the place would smell like-

  Buzzzzz!

  My eyes went right to the door.

  Liam was here.

  It had been years since I’d seen Liam in jeans and a t-shirt.

  I stepped back and held in my gasp at the sight of him.

  He stuck his right hand out, offering me a bottle of wine.

  “Not sure if I’m supposed to bring something over or not,” he said. “But what the hell, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “You look… never mind.”

  I started to turn and he jumped into the apartment and touched my arm. “What?”

  “Liam in jeans,” I said. “It’s like stepping back in time.”

  He shut the apartment door and laughed. “Thanks. I’m not always into the whole suit and tie thing, Em. It’s just my job requires it. And from there…”

  “Liam,” I said. “I was just teasing you for a second.”

  “Right,” he said. “Sorry. I’m just used to defending myself in a court of law.”

  He winked.

  I knew what that comment meant.

  Liam’s court of law did not involve a judge and jury.

  It involved one person.

  Your friend. Your best friend. Remember?

  I swallowed hard and walked to the kitchen.

  I put the bottle of wine on the counter.

  I started to study the label when Liam laughed again.

  “Yeah, sorry about that too,” he said. “I think it’s written in French.”

  “Oh, so you just grabbed a bottle of wine from home?” I asked. “You couldn’t even stop and get a bottle for me?”

  “Don’t start again, Em,” he said. “I’m not in the mood for this abuse.”

  “Yes you are,” I said. “You don’t even know what kind of wine this is. You just shuffled off some shitty Christmas gift wine for me to deal with now.”

  Liam leaned against the counter. “You done yet?”

  “No. What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Give it away to someone,” he said. “As a shitty Christmas gift. Nobody will snub their nose at something written in French.”

  I pushed the bottle away. “How’s the hangover?”

  “Gone.”

  “I see you’re all dried off and changed.”

  Liam touched his shirt. “Yeah. About that…”

  “No, it’s fine,” I said. “I just had to work all day in wet clothes. And you know what happens when wet clothes dry? Against your skin? It kind of… chaffs. In certain areas…”

  I waved my
right hand around the front of my body.

  Liam looked away. “I was just trying to help.”

  “Trying to impress,” I said.

  “Did you get it fixed at least?”

  “Of course I did. Henry showed up.”

  “That’s the maintenance guy?” Liam asked.

  “Henry?” I let out a breath. “Six-foot-six. Arms the size of a tree. Tan like a surfer. Brightest blue eyes ever. I’m talking… he puts the H in hunk. And he could put his D in-”

  “Really?” Liam snapped. He pushed from the counter. “What, you have some bodybuilder as a maintenance guy there?”

  I laughed. “Whoa. Feeling a little inadequate there, Liam?”

  “What?” he asked, curling his eyebrows down.

  “I’m kidding,” I said. “Henry is a sweet, old man. He’s a handyman. He probably gets paid next to nothing because…”

  I stopped.

  … because your fiancée is cheap and will do whatever she can to pay people as little as possible…

  “The sink is fixed,” I said. “It needed a part. There was nothing you could’ve done to fix it, Liam. Don’t worry, you still have your man card.”

  Liam shook his head. “Sorry about that, Em. It’s just…” Liam lifted his nose. “Do you smell…”

  Before he could finish his question, the smoke alarm started to go off.

  I let out a yell and ran to the oven.

  When I opened the door, a puff of smoke was thrown at me.

  That only made the smoke alarm angrier.

  I shut the oven door and turned the oven off.

  “What is that?” Liam called out.

  “Go open a window!” I yelled to him.

  He went to the window and I ran to the fridge to get the stepladder.

  It was sad how much I needed the stepladder.

  Hence why it was always within reach.

  With a dish towel in my hand, I climbed up the stepladder and started waving the towel like I was at a football game, cheering on some guy to run for a touchdown.

  The burnt smell of what should have been sweet and savory chocolate chip cookies made my eyes and nose tingle.

  I had been so fucking worried about the smell in the apartment…

  I moved up to my toes and started to smack the smoke alarm with the towel.

  “Shut up, you bastard,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Em, be careful,” Liam said. “Why don’t you let me-”

  I screamed as the stepladder moved probably a centimeter on the floor.

  To me, it was as though someone kicked it out from under me and I was going to plummet four hundred feet into a pit of alligators.

  My arms did the whole windmill motion and I threw myself back.

  All I pictured was me slamming off the kitchen floor, hitting my ass, my back, and my head.

  All of which happened right in front Liam.

  I screamed again, then felt Liam’s arms around me.

  I turned my head and he was cradling me in his arms.

  My heart leapt out of my chest and right back in.

  The smoke alarm finally stopping screeching.

  “Hey,” Liam said.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  “What were you baking?”

  “Cookies.”

  “You made cookies for me?” Liam asked with a grin.

  My mind slapped my heart and my heart slapped my mind.

  Liam’s left hand touched my back… but his right hand was a few inches away from having more than a handful of my ass…

  I wiggled and he put me on my feet.

  I walked to the oven and gently opened the door.

  A little bit more smoke climbed out.

  I was careful this time not to set off the smoke alarm.

  I slid an oven mitt on my hand and took the tray from the oven.

  The cookies were done for.

  Charred.

  “Em?” Liam asked.

  “They were for Miss Crabapple,” I said. “She lives on a different floor. She has terminal cancer. I was making her cookies. I completely forgot about them. I blame you for this.”

  “Me?” Liam asked. “What did I do?”

  Liam approached me.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’m kidding.”

  Only I wasn’t kidding.

  Liam had my head scrambling.

  He reached for one of the cookies.

  To my shock, he took a bite.

  “This tastes like shit,” he said with burnt crumbs falling from his mouth.

  “How do you know what shit tastes like?” I asked.

  He laughed.

  He dropped the cookie to the tray and it sounded like someone dropped a brick from the roof of the building.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “We’re going to buy your neighbor some cookies,” he said. “Right now.”

  “Liam…”

  He took my hand. “Let’s go, Em. Let’s have a little fun tonight.”

  “To get cookies? That’s your version of fun?”

  Liam winked at me.

  My heart did that whole leaping thing again.

  But that was only because I was still jumpy from the fact I almost burned down the apartment building.

  Right?

  “You really do that for your neighbor?” Liam asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s special.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah,” Liam said. “You don’t think so?”

  “I think it’s just… I don’t know. Being human.”

  “I don’t know, Em. A lot of humans don’t give a shit about anything but themselves.”

  “Call me a freak then,” I said. “I’m different.”

  “You’re not a freak,” he said. He looked at me and smiled. “Not even close. That woman is all alone and you go out of your way to help her. You know you can’t cure her cancer. You know she’s going to die. Yet you show up and make the best of it.”

  “Okay, enough of that talk,” I said. “I’m still emotional over the cookie incident.”

  “Aw, Em,” Liam said. He put his arm around me. “You know… there’s no need to cry over burned cookies.”

  “I thought it was spilled milk?”

  “Well, you didn’t spill any milk.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re sometimes a big dork, you know that?”

  “There’s nothing dorky about me,” Liam said.

  “Sure. You just deal with paperwork all day. Dork.”

  Liam’s lip curled a little.

  As we turned the next corner, three kids with skateboards were on the sidewalk.

  Liam stopped me.

  One of the kids did some kind of jump move and flipped the skateboard in the air and landed right back down on it.

  “I can do that,” Liam said.

  “No, you can’t,” I said.

  “You’ve seen me do that before.”

  “A long time ago, Liam.”

  He broke away from me and whistled at the kids.

  “Hey, my man,” he called out. “Can I borrow that for a second?”

  “Liam!” I yelled.

  He waved back at me.

  Next thing I knew Liam was talking to the three kids.

  And by kids… they were probably nineteen or twenty.

  Liam then held a skateboard in his hands.

  “Ready for this, Em?” he asked me.

  He walked out into the street.

  I followed.

  He put the skateboard on the ground and began to ride it.

  I held my breath for a few seconds.

  But off he went.

  Down the street.

  Turning.

  Coming back.

  He looked at me and pointed.

  I gently clapped my hands together.

  “Now, watch this move,” he said.

  He kicked his left foot to the ground and picked up speed.

  Whe
n he tried to mimic the move the kid had done, the skateboard flipped into the air… and so did Liam.

  I gasped and started to run toward him.

  He hit the ground with a hard thud and grabbed for his left wrist.

  He looked at me and mouthed the word fuck.

  Jokingly, I called out, “Hospital time?”

  I didn’t expect Liam to nod back…

  Chapter Seventeen

  Liam

  I sat on the edge of the hospital bed in the triage room and stared down at the bright floor. I cradled my left arm, afraid to move any part of it as I waited for the doctor to come see me.

  You got on a skateboard for the first time in how long? What the hell were you thinking?

  “Hello there,” a cheery voice said.

  I looked up and saw one of the nurses standing there.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Sore,” I said with a grin.

  “We’re going to get something for that very soon, okay? I promise.” She pointed to the empty chair next to the bed. “Is your wife okay?”

  I looked at the empty chair.

  I smiled.

  Wife…

  “Oh, Emily? She’s…” I looked at the nurse. I nodded. “She’s fine. She just stepped out for a second.”

  “Doctor should be in shortly,” the nurse said.

  The nurse left and I settled back into listening to the business of the hospital.

  Emily and I should have been doing something much better than this. We could have been having a drink. Some coffee. We could have found some little hole in the wall place to look around at antiques or something to kill time. Or we could have gone into that club… the one with the music I saw when I was-

  I heard a snorting sound and watched as Emily came back into the triage room.

  Shaking her head.

  Fighting back the urge to laugh.

  At me.

  “You know, I’m in pain here,” I said.

  “And that’s my fault?”

  “Actually, it is,” I said.

  “How?” she asked as she sat down in the chair next to the bed.

  “You… being near you…” I cleared my throat.

  “I thought you were good with words, Liam,” she said.

  I laughed. “You’re just going to keep kicking me while I’m down, aren’t you?”

  “For a little while,” she said. “Until the doctor shows up and says what’s going on. What if it’s fractured? What if you need surgery? What if you need emergency surgery? They might just throw you back on the bed and wheel you right out of here.”