by Emma Hart
She nodded. “It’s hard enough, isn’t it? It’s not like we can just throw our friendship away. I’m worried that’s what will happen if we dive headfirst into this.”
“I’m worried we’ll lose it if we don’t.”
“Really?” She grabbed the edge of the pier, her knuckles going white.
“Yeah.” I turned sideways and rested my elbow on the cold surface. “Shelbs, I don’t care what they think. You’re my best friend. I think we can make a relationship work because of that.”
She met my eyes. “Doesn’t it make you feel weird that everyone has been betting for us?”
“A little, and I’m going to tell them exactly what I think of that.” I half-smiled. “But they can bet all they like. It doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is you. You’ve always been the person who matters the most. The way I feel about you now compared to two years ago is just semantics.”
“So you’re saying this is just an evolution of our feelings; an amplification of what was already there?”
“No. Two years I didn’t want to grab your face and kiss you every time I saw you. That’s a new development.” My half-smile became a whole one. “Maybe there was an underlying feeling for both of us. I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist. But I do know something.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s nobody I’d rather fuck up with than you.”
She laughed, dropping her head. Waves crashed against the pier, but when she didn’t move, I joined her, making it so she had to loop her arm through mine.
“You make me all kinds of happy, Shelbs. We don’t need to define what we are to each other right now.”
She took my hand, brushing her thumb over the back of my hand. “I’m thinking too much again, aren’t I? I know in my mind that this can work. It sounds so crazy when a week ago, telling you how I felt was the stupidest thing I could do. I’m starting to think that your mom getting me drunk had a purpose.”
“In her defense, it worked.”
“It really did.” She leaned into me, laughing. “I’m scared, Jay. I’m scared that the things you laugh at me about now will be annoying in a year. I’m afraid to lose your friendship, because that’s the most important thing ever. I wasn’t lying when I said I trust you—I do. I really do, more than anyone, and that goes for anything.”
“You won’t ever lose me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I straightened, pulling her up with me.
She met my eyes. Bright lights from the rides and lights on the pier danced across her face, and I cupped her jaw with my hands. My thumbs brushed her cheeks as the lights did, illuminating everything from her downturned lips to her high cheekbones to the rich brown of her beautiful eyes.
“Listen to me.” I closed even more distance between us. “No matter how badly I tease you or we fight, you will never lose me. Your friendship is everything to me, no matter how I feel about you. I’ll take a broken heart over losing you. Just know this; no matter how we feel, no matter what happens, what we have is too strong to break. I’ll hound your ass until I die and then some.”
She turned her cheek into my hand, laughing softly. “I have fun with you, you know that? I never thought it would happen, but dating you has been so fun.”
“Brie and Sean left already. You wanna ride the teacups and get some cotton candy?”
She immediately brightened. “Are you kidding? Brie hates the teacups. They’re my jam.”
“Brie hates them because they move at the speed of her brain.” I linked my fingers through Shelby’s, pulling her after me. “And before you say it, cotton candy is the only thing I will accept that’s pure sugar.”
“Bitch, please.” Shelby snorted. “You put pure sugar in your coffee every morning!”
“Did you just call me a bitch?”
“In the nicest way possible.”
“There is no such thing.”
“Welcome to dating me. I use all my brain power when I write. Anything between the hours of eight p.m. and eleven a.m. is not subject to filtering.”
I glanced back at her. “Does that mean you can talk dirty then?”
“Why? Are you lacking in that department?” Her eyes sparkled, her lips curving. “Because I can recommend some books if you are.”
I tugged her into my side and wrapped an arm around her waist, anchoring her against me. “Not at all. I was just wondering if you partook in the activity.”
“Partook in the activity?” She leaned into me and giggled as we walked. “Excuse you, William Shakespeare. Have you been reading?”
“Only the sports news.” I directed around a group of teens who weren’t paying attention to their surroundings. “I was trying to be dignified.”
“Picking up socks is dignified.”
“I picked up the fucking socks!”
Shelby laughed, wrapping both arms around my waist and stopping us dead in the middle of the pier. She beamed up at me, her hair in loose waves, her brown eyes stripped back to show how much she loved this.
“I know.” Her smile only widened as she tightened her grip on me. “You know, I don’t care.”
“About what?”
“About anything,” she replied. “About the bets our family apparently set.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “They threw me for a minute, but I really don’t care, not when I think about it. We had the best date ever.”
“You did wear heels for me.”
She extracted herself from my arms for a second to mock-curtsey. “And you appreciate what I did. That’s teamwork, you know?”
I pulled her back to me and kissed her forehead. “Is it teamwork if you wash my shorts from now on?”
“Is it a communal laundry basket? That’s a real issue.”
“Does it need to be?”
“If you think I’m doing yours and mine…”
“No!” I laughed, holding her tighter when she tried to level me with a dark look. “One wash a week. Each. Is that fair?”
She leaned back just enough to eye me. “We need a new chore chart. And a new meal plan. And—”
“Shut up.”
I kissed her. She squealed, but I didn’t care. She had an awful lot of time to talk about her to-do lists and her chore plans and her meal plans and whatever else she needed to make her life be organized. I laughed because she was such a flighty person with her imagination, yet she needed control over every other aspect.
That could be figured out.
Today.
Tomorrow.
Next week.
It would be done.
For now, we could abide by the rules we had. That no pants were the best pants. That Oreos had to be labeled. That bathroom doors had to be locked. That the feather duster was my friend. That we both had to clean our hair out of various sinks and drains.
I’d figure out the vacuum tomorrow.
I’d put a pen next to the notebook on the windowsill in the bathroom.
I’d work out how exactly to load the dishwasher next week.
I’d replace the candle she liked to burn while she wrote next month.
I didn’t care. I didn’t care about chores or routines or rules as long as she believed in us, and by the way she kissed me back, she did.
She kissed me hard, in the middle of the pier, surrounded by a bunch of people.
It wouldn’t be easy. It’d be hard, in fact. So hard. But she was the one who wrote romance. If anything, she was more prepared for this than I was.
All I knew was that I was standing here with my arms around my best friend as she kissed me back. As she sent fire through my veins and desire straight to my cock.
As she brought her body so hard against mine through tiny giggles that I knew that, somehow, somewhere, at some point, we’d be totally fucking okay.
She wrapped her arms around my neck.
I gripped her ass.
And I smiled against her lips as she did the
same.
Yeah.
We were gonna be just fine.
EPILOGUE – SHELBY
The Future Includes A Hot Tub
Three Years Later
The door to the apartment swung open.
Jay appeared in all his glory. His hair hadn’t changed, and he wore the uniform of a white tank top that showed off his tanned biceps and a pair of gray sweat shorts that did things to a girl’s clitoris.
“Jay!” I squealed, making a run for him.
His green eyes widened. He was only just ready as I launched myself at him and clamped onto him like a shellfish. My legs went around his waist as my arms circled his neck. Together, we staggered back into the hallway as he cupped my ass to hold me in place.
“That’s what I call a welcome home.” He laughed, steadying us both. “Hi to you, too.”
“I have the best news!” I bounced as he carried me back into the apartment.
“So will my cock if you don’t get on with it.”
I blushed and jumped down. “The publisher bought my book!”
His eyebrows shot up. “No way! They finally agreed?”
“Yes!” I threw myself at him again, and this time he was ready for me.
He spun me around. My legs flew through the air as his arms clamped tight around my waist, holding me flush against him.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded, setting me down.
“I got the final email like twenty minutes ago!” I bounced on the balls of my feet. I was a ball of nervous and excited energy. This was a dream I didn’t know I had, but the publisher had agreed to put my books on shelves, and while I knew this wasn’t a guarantee, it was a nice thought.
I didn’t know what would happen. It was that simple. But in the last five years, I’d learned that not knowing was the best policy.
I’d evolved from ghostwriting. Two years of working hard had finally established my name as an author, and I’d been able to give up writing for other people. Jay had been nothing but supportive the day I’d sat him down and told him I wanted to write for me. He’d picked up the slack in the apartment when I’d been on a deadline or I just couldn’t stop writing.
He’d loaded dishwashers and emptied vacuums and bleached toilets and polished tables.
All alongside his own job.
His dad was preparing to retire and hand the reins over to Jay. It meant he wouldn’t just manage one gym, but six. Across the state. Cutting down our time together.
The good thing about what I did was that I could do it anywhere. And the advance I’d been given—while meager—was enough to top up the money we’d saved in the past three years.
“Listen—actually, no, look!” I grabbed my phone from the coffee table and unlocked it before I shoved it in his face.
His eyes scanned the screen. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. “I already calculated taxes based on what my agent said and our projected incomes.”
“You little nerd.”
“Shut your mouth. We can buy a house!”
He plucked the phone from my hands. Grinning, he slid his fingers into my hair and planted his lips on mine. “You sure?”
I nodded, never taking my mouth from his. “One hundred percent. We’re over-budget, actually. We saved a lot living together.”
“Mhmm. I was going for that all along.”
“Sure you were.” I wrapped my arms around his waist, laughing. “You were a poor little twenty-something ass who couldn’t do his own laundry and inadvertently starting a family betting pool about when we’d finally get together.”
“And if you’ll remember,” he said, circling his arms around my waist. “We were the eventual winners because everyone was wrong.”
I pressed my face against his chest. He was right. We’d found out the parameters of the bets were tighter than we’d been led to believe, so we’d demanded the eight hundred dollars in winnings and put that cash into a piggy bank until we’d figured out what to do with it.
It’d taken us a year, but we’d finally found the house we wanted. It was a few miles down the road on the coast and needed some serious TLC, but we were ready for whatever was thrown our way.
“You’re right. They were wrong.” I slipped my hands up his muscular body and wrapped my arms around his neck, taking a look at the ring on my left hand. “I mean, they thought we’d both be thirty by the time you finally got on one knee.”
Jay laughed, burying his nose in my hair. My freshly-washed hair, if you please. There was something to be said for secretly planning to marry your best friend.
“How much longer are we going to keep them guessing?” he said into my ear.
“Not sure.” I turned my face into his. “Who guessed that we’d keep it secret for six months?”
“Nobody.” He brushed his lips over mine. “You know they’ll take secret bets on the wedding?”
“I know.”
“Are we eloping, then?”
“Can you imagine the carnage if we disappeared for a weekend and came back married?”
He paused, tilting his head to the side. “Vegas, then?”
Laughing, I leaned right back. “The Bellagio does have rooms available this weekend.”
His green eyes captured mine, dancing with the laughter I’d come to love so much. “You book the hotel, and I’ll book the flights.”
I grinned and walked back. “I’m still taking photos of you with your little submarine.”
“That is how you show me you love me,” he replied, his expression mirroring mine. “And to show you how much I love you, I have a video of the pageant you auditioned for when you were eight.”
I gasped. “I’m rethinking how much I love you.”
“You can try.” He smacked his lips together in an air-kiss. “But I’ll always be the guy who picked up his socks and bought you unicorn stickers for when you hit your word count.”
I turned and walked backward. “You play dirty, Cooper.”
He grinned. “You want a sticker for that observation, the future Mrs. Cooper?”
“Watch your mouth,” I warned him. “I might love you, but I’m not above giving you a Post-It warning everyone that your ass belongs to me.”
“That’s one sticker I’ll wear with pride.” He smirked. “As long as there isn’t a smiley-face on it.”
My lips tugged up. “Nope. It’ll be a sad face.”
His laughter followed me into our room, and I managed to keep mine under wraps until I was alone.
Dear Past Shelby:
Falling for your best friend?
It’s not such a bad idea after all.
THE ACCIDENTAL GIRLFRIEND
COMING JULY 25TH!
Top Tip: Don’t put out an online ad offering your services as a fake date. Someone will take you up on it.
And it won’t just be for one night.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is how I ended up being Mason Jackson’s fake girlfriend.
He didn’t even want me to be. No—his sister was solely responsible for me being his date for his ten-year high school reunion.
Now, she’s responsible for telling his parents our relationship is real.
We have no choice. We have to act like this isn’t all a mistake, like it’s not all fake, like we’re totally, completely, utterly, head-over-heels in love with each other.
Simple, right?
Wrong.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emma Hart is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of over thirty novels and has been translated into several different languages.
She is a mother, wife, lover of wine, Pink Goddess, and valiant rescuer of wild baby hedgehogs.
Emma prides herself on her realistic, snarky smut, with comebacks that would make a PMS-ing teenage girl proud.
Yes, really. She’s that sarc
astic.
You can find her online at:
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BOOKS BY EMMA HART
Standalones:
Blind Date
Being Brooke
Catching Carly
Casanova
Mixed Up
Miss Fix-It
Miss Mechanic
The Upside to Being Single
The Hook-Up Experiment
The Dating Experiment
Four Day Fling
Best Served Cold
Tequila, Tequila
Catastrophe Queen
The Roommate Agreement
The Vegas Nights series:
Sin
Lust
Stripped series:
Stripped Bare
Stripped Down
The Burke Brothers:
Dirty Secret
Dirty Past
Dirty Lies
Dirty Tricks
Dirty Little Rendezvous
The Holly Woods Files Mysteries:
Twisted Bond
Tangled Bond
Tethered Bond
Tied Bond
Twirled Bond
Burning Bond
Twined Bond
The Holly Woods Files Mysteries Boxset, 1-4
Tricky Bond (A Short Story)
By His Game series:
Blindsided
Sidelined
Intercepted
Call series:
Late Call
Final Call
His Call
Wild series:
Wild Attraction
Wild Temptation
Wild Addiction
Wild: The Complete Series
