Copyright © 2020 by Jessie Harper and Stolen Barn Books
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The book is a work of fiction. The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover Design: Deranged Doctors
Editing: Tamara Mataya
Ebook ISBN:978-1-7350961-2-4
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
SNEAK PEEK: FIX IT
1
Cassie
“And here’s to many happy years!”
I lift my glass and toast the happy couple for what seems like the millionth time. It’s only 9:30 and already I’ve reached my engagement celebration limit. I’m going to claim my right to be annoyed. After all, how many people can say they’ve had their best friend lap them twice when it comes to walking down the aisle? Yes, Julia is headed to her second happily ever after and I’ve got the dubious distinction of being her maid of honor. Again. Not that I want to be getting married. I’m a certified wedding hater. I love a good true love story, but do we have to slather the whole thing in white icing and release a bunch of butterflies every time someone decides to commit? I’m happy just the way I am—free to do what I want when I want with whomever I want. I’m not a relationship girl. And marriage? That definitely counts as a relationship. I can barely handle a second date with most men let alone the rest of my life, so I empty my pint glass in honor of Julia and Zach and make my way to the bar for a refill.
Julia’s been my best friend since middle school so I’m not all gloom and doom about her upcoming wedding. She’s managed to find love again after not only enduring the death of her first husband, but the later realization that he wasn’t who she thought he was. That’s enough to make most people want to crawl in a hole and never come out. The fact that Julia’s here tonight surrounded by friends and family celebrating her engagement to the world’s nicest guy is something that does warm my cold, black heart. But another wedding? I wish I didn’t have to keep raising my glass to toast this shiny happiness, especially since I keep finding it empty. By the end of the night I should be well on the way to excessively happy, myself, if I keep drinking like this. Weddings are the worst and engagement parties are coming in a close second right now.
I slide in front of the cantina style bar and make eye contact with the only person who might be feeling less excited about this wedding than me: Julia’s ex-boyfriend Graham. He’s sitting at the end of the bar with the worst fake smile I have ever seen plastered on his face. Under normal circumstances I would be enjoying his pain—we’ve been enemies since middle school, after all—but I’m pretty sure my own face has a very similar look to it. Graham pulls out the bar stool next to him and pats it with his gigantic paw.
“You wanna sit?” He turns his face toward me and lets the smile slide from his mouth. The grim line that replaces it looks more like what I would have expected. “We can talk about all the crap we have to plan.”
The last thing I want to do is sit with Graham and discuss wedding stuff, but as the two members of the wedding party on the bride’s side we do have a ton of stuff to organize. Yes, that’s right, I’m Julia’s maid of honor and Graham is her other bridesmaid. It would be funny if it wasn’t so horrible. Not only do I have to spend more time than I’d like with the boy who tormented me in middle and high school, but I have to do it in taffeta. He can’t be having an easy time of it either, having agreed to watch the love of his life get married for the second time to someone else. But he’s the one who promised to be in the wedding party when Julia asked him. He’s the one who would have been able to say no. Not that he’s ever been able to say no to Julia, but at least as a hulking football dude, and her ex at that, it wouldn’t have looked strange for him to have refused to stand next to her at the altar. He could have wriggled out of this obligation way easier than I could have. Yet here we are, toasting the bride and groom and drowning our sorrows at the bar where Zach and Julia’s relationship got its start.
“Are you sitting or not, Cassie?” Graham’s impatient bark cuts through my indifference.
“Fine, I’ll sit if it means you stop grimacing like you have been. It’s creeping people out.” In reality, I’m sure no one’s been paying as much attention to Graham’s discomfort as I have. Maybe Julia’s parents have noticed since they love Graham like a son. I’m sure they were hoping the two of them would end up together after she moved back to our hometown. Everyone else, however, is focused on Julia and Zach and the happy little bubble they’re floating around in.
“Is it that bad?” he asks. “I just hate events like this.” He reaches for his drink and finishes it in one gulp. “You empty? Up for another round?”
I settle myself on the stool next to him and catch a whiff of his cologne. Why do the guys who are the biggest jerks always smell so damn good? There should be some karmic retribution for jerkiness that prohibits guys like Graham from smelling like I imagine Superman smelling.
“Oh, I’m getting another drink. That’s the only way I can keep smiling through this.”
“Upset about always being the bridesmaid and never the bride? Afraid of becoming an old maid, Mama?” There’s the caring commentary I’ve come to expect from Graham. And he threw in my old nickname from when I was the fat girl. Extra points for that.
“Hardly. I’m just not excited to do all this wedding stuff another time. How about you? Getting used to having your girl swiped out from under you again? I would think you’d be a pro at that by now.”
Graham ignores me and motions for the bartender.
“It can’t be easy to watch your dream girl get married to someone else. Again. Did I say that already?” I can’t help but poke a little at what I’m sure is a soft spot.
Graham doesn’t give me the benefit of a reaction; he’s used to my biting remarks by now. The only reason we ever hung out was because of Julia and now we’re stuck together again. I have no idea how she put up with him when they were together and no idea why she does it now. Obviously we’re at each other’s throats.
“She hasn’t been my girl for a long time.” Graham goes back to ordering drinks. Julia considers him more like a brother now, not that she tells him that. The thought of actively choosing to make Graham an honorary family member makes me gag.
“But she still managed to convince you to be a bridesmaid,
” I remind him. “She asked and you didn’t even think about it, just said yes.”
“Old habits, I guess.” Graham slides a tequila shot over. “And I thought we agreed to drop the ‘bridesmaid’ thing. She asked me to be in the wedding party.”
“No matching dresses then?” I feign disappointment. “But you would have looked so nice in something frilly.”
Graham gives me a slight smile but doesn’t fight back. Instead he motions to the salt shaker. “You salting up or just drinking?”
“Who said I was drinking tequila?”
“This situation. If you and I have to sit here and deal with all this then we’re getting drunk.”
From the back corner of the room one of Zach’s friends starts another toast. I can barely hear what he’s saying, but the repeated aahs from the crowd let me know I’m going to be drinking to that for sure. I lick the back of my hand and sprinkle it with salt before giving it another lick. Graham does the same and we lift our glasses, clinking them together.
“Then here’s to making sure we don’t remember any of this happy night,” I say.
“I’ll drink to that.”
We both knock back our shots. I shove a lime slice in my mouth to combat the burn of the tequila. “Keep ‘em comin’,” Graham tells the bartender and she sets us up again.
“And here’s to the best set of bridesmaids anyone’s ever seen,” he jokes, giving me a wink. Maybe spending all this time with Graham won’t be nearly as bad as I thought.
There is nothing worse than the sound of jack hammering before the sun’s even up. Scratch that—there is nothing worse than the sound of jack hammering in the morning when you have a raging hangover. I can feel actual throbbing in my temples as the noise starts up again. Isn’t there a rule against construction so early? And on a Saturday? I pull the pillow over my head to block it out. This proves to have zero effect on the overall noise level in the room. What time is it anyway? I thrust my hand out to grab my phone from the bedside table.
Instead of the cool surface of the nightstand my hand hits something else entirely.
Something decidedly warmer. Something bulkier.
The noise stops and I realize it isn’t the sound of construction at all, but rather, the bulldozer-like snoring coming from the massive dude still asleep next to me.
I freeze. Shit, Cassie. I barely remember the rest of the night—once Graham convinced me to start on the tequila things got a little fuzzy—and I definitely don’t remember coming home with whoever this is. I lift the tangled sheet high enough to see that, yep, I’m totally naked and so is my new friend. I let my eyes travel down his muscled back to the curve of an impressively toned ass. Even in the dark I can tell this guy is built. At least the liquor didn’t keep me from picking wisely in the body department. Still, unless I want to make some seriously awkward introductions this morning I’m going to need to sneak out of here, and fast.
Luckily, I haven’t brought Mr. Mystery back to my apartment. That would require me waking him up in order to convince him to leave. This way I can get my stuff together and be out the door, hopefully before he even notices. I’d like to do this walk of shame without an audience.
I slide to the edge of the bed, noting the silkiness of the sheets. The high thread count would most certainly have impressed me had I been in any state to notice details last night. As it is, I don’t even have time to really appreciate what is turning out to be a very impressive bedroom. It isn’t thrown together like most of the places single guys end up living. Stuff matches. There are a few pillows thrown on the floor next to my side of the bed. Pillows that imply this bed was actually made when we fell into it and suggest an interior decorator. Did I sleep with a married man?!
Although, maybe I haven’t slept with him at all. Naked doesn’t automatically mean sex, right? I keep my fingers crossed as I make my way across the king-sized bed to freedom. My friend stirs a little and grunts as I work to ease myself off the mattress. I hold stock-still, barely breathing, until he settles back down again.
Any hope that my visit was purely platonic evaporates when I see the condom wrappers on the bedside table. Wrappers plural. At least I don’t have to obsess over whether or not I’ve exposed myself to some horrible STD. I mentally kick myself again for being dumb enough to go home with some idiot from the bar.
Some idiot who has the money to buy some genuinely gorgeous bedroom furniture.
I run my fingers over the edge of the lamp on the table, avoiding the pile of wrappers as I go. The possibility of finding a wedding ring on this guy’s hand is becoming more and more likely. Looking over at his sleeping back, his face pressed into a pillow, I resist the urge to move around the bed to get a glimpse of his face.
I bend over to pick up my discarded panties. I would say it was lucky that I had on sexy underwear last night, but I always wear sexy underwear. And I wear it for myself, not because some guy might see me in it. Still, I hope this snoring pile of muscles appreciated my lacy black bra before he launched it up onto the edge of the blinds currently covering his extremely tall windows. I shimmy into my panties before I try to jump high enough to reach the rest of my underwear. Silent jumping is harder than I imagined—my pounding head does not appreciate it and neither does my roiling stomach—and manages to get my bed buddy stirring on his side of the bed. The rest of my clothes seem to make a trail out of the bedroom and toward what I’m hoping is the front door. I could leave the bra where it is and make my escape, but I hate to leave such a pretty—and expensive—reminder of this evening here. I don’t want to leave any evidence or any reason to meet up again. Not that I could—I don’t even know who this guy is. But there’s the chance he wasn’t nearly as drunk as I was last night. He could have my name and number in his phone for all I know. Damn you, Graham and your tequila shots. Hopefully he’s feeling as awful as I am this morning. Not that I’ll mention this part of my morning to him or anyone else. Ever.
I make one last attempt to free my bra from the lip of the blinds. The strap is clinging to the sharp corner of the edge, refusing to slide free. There’s a chair strategically positioned in the little alcove across from me, if I could stand on that I could easily liberate the rest of my underwear. I try to lift it, but it’s too heavy to move without lots of huffing and puffing. Pushing it makes the floor creak and I curse whoever decorated this room. The wood floors are beautiful, but don’t muffle any of the sounds of my struggling. I go back to my original plan, throwing my arms around in the hopes of getting my bra down. I grab the part of the strap I can reach and give it a tug. I can see the fabric straining, but still it hangs there, taunting me. I jump again, accidentally slapping the slats and grabbing an edge. I hang there for a second, as the bolt slowly pulls from the wall. The blinds come crashing down, flooding the room with light. They swing back and forth, banging into the window frame as my eyes squeeze shut, protesting against the light.
My secret lover groans, rolling over in bed. I hold my breath, keeping my back to him. I try to think like a rabbit. Should I drop to the floor? Try to scurry away? The bra’s free now, of course, but it’s not like I can put it on, or get into any of my other clothes either. Even if I could make it out before he wakes all the way up, I’ll still be standing outside basically naked. Can you call an Uber and expect them to let you dress in the backseat? There’s a question I never thought to ask.
He’s groaning louder now, the sheets rustling as he moves. Yep, he’s awake and obviously not all that happy about how it’s happened. I’m destroying his bedroom along with my ability to flee the scene.
“Jesus, Cassie. What the fuck are you doing?”
That voice. Not a stranger at all. A voice I’ve known for years. I spin to face him, hoping by some miracle I’m wrong.
“If you wanted the blinds open you could have just opened them, Mama. You didn’t need to rip the whole thing down.” He’s using my old nickname from middle school. The one I hate. He’s calling me that name as he rises up, let
ting the sheet slide down, exposing his chest as he sits up in bed. He’s looking at me in only my thong as he tries to block some of the sunlight with one of his giant hands. The sheet settles low on his hips. I take in his square jaw, the massive span of his shoulders against the headboard. “Do you want breakfast?” he asks me, amused, rubbing across his nipples with the other hand.
Like a flash of lightning I suddenly remember those hands in places they shouldn’t be. Snippets of last night come rushing back, flooding my head with all sorts of X-rated images. I gape at him, my brain refusing to process what I’ve done.
I’ve slept with Graham.
I’ve slept with my childhood nemesis, the boy I’d vowed to hate for all eternity. My best friend’s ex. An egomaniacal professional athlete. The worst choice ever.
I’ve slept with Graham Stevens. Fuck.
2
Graham
How did I manage to get myself into this mess? From the moment I woke up—or was woken up, actually, by a nearly naked Cassie—I’ve been scrambling to fix things. Anyone could have predicted that bringing her home last night would be a colossal mistake. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking things through after she and I consumed a vat of tequila. By the end of the night the bartender had just left us the bottle and we made short work of it once we were in charge of pouring our own.
I’m not sure when things changed from adversarial in a friendly way to ending up naked in my bed, but somewhere during the evening, there was a definite shift. Cassie went from giving me her usual barbs and irritated looks to resting the full length of her thigh along mine. Laughing at my jokes. Giving me that look she’s probably given countless guys before when she’s been out on the prowl. I shouldn’t have let things get out of hand, but in the end, I let my baser instincts take over. It’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone. I’ll admit that I was weak.
Forget About It Page 1
