Friends Like These: A Romantic Comedy (A Love Like This Book 3)

by Carina Taylor

  “Jenny, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Thank goodness; I don’t either.” She popped the cap off a bottle of chocolate milk and passed it to me.

  “But I’m going to anyway.”

  She glared at me. “I’m going to kill you.”

  “You wish. I think you’re just upset that I was the one to kill Lucifer.”

  She nodded slowly. “Maybe. All right, I’ll give you ten minutes. Whine and complain about your boyfriend, and then I don’t want to hear another word.”

  It was the best offer I’d ever get from someone like Jenny.

  “I love him. I wanted it to work out, but I guess you can’t change that we’re from different worlds.”

  “Does he have a bunch of money or something?”

  “No, the golf course was close to bankruptcy when he took over. He’s not a snob, if that’s what you mean,” I defended him.

  Jenny held up her hands in a surrender motion, “I was just trying to figure out why you ended things.

  “It’s just that the world he’s in is so, stuck up. Rule following. Traditional.”

  “So you’re saying his world is snobby, but he isn’t?”

  I opened my mouth then closed it. “Well, yes, I guess so. It’s just when we’ve been hosting the art and golf nights. I feel so out of place. Then that cantankerous old man told me I was too fresh for that scene and that Noah would never gain traction in the business world with me at his side. I quote, ‘you’re too colorful.’”

  “Well, where does he live? I’m going to have to kill the man now. Who is he?”

  “Noah’s grandfather.”

  Jenny picked up another beignet and shoved it in her mouth. “Well, didn’t you say that Noah inherited this golf course from the grandpa?”

  “Well, yes. But what does that have to do with it?” I took a drink of the too-sweet chocolate milk.

  “Oh, nothing; I’m just trying to get a clear picture of what’s going on with you and Noah.”

  “Stop trying to figure it out and sympathize with me. He spent all his time at the golf course. I wasn’t a priority in his life. I think maybe all that work was an excuse to avoid me.”

  “Are you sure you’re not projecting?”

  “Of course not!” I snapped at her. “You’re projecting.

  It was going to be a long evening...

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  NOAH

  I don’t know how long I sat in my chair staring at my computer screen. It’s what I’d been doing for an entire week.

  Shocked. I didn’t see this coming. I thought we were fine. Heck, I loved her. I’d even told her. I’d had a ring made specifically for her.

  “Boss. Everything okay?” Kent asked as he stepped inside my office.

  “Peachy.”

  “So...I wouldn’t ask normally, but I passed Page in the hall a week ago when she was running and crying. I didn’t know she was capable of crying. And now you’ve been worthless ever since.”

  I glanced up sharply. “You didn’t tell me you’d seen her. What did she say to you?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. As I said, she was running out crying.”

  I slammed my fist into my desktop. If she truly wanted to break up with me, why would she be so hurt by it? I was going to figure it out. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe that she was happy to break up with me. There had to be something more at play here.

  “I’ve got to figure out what happened.”

  “I know what happened.”

  Kent and I spun around to stare at Jenny standing in the office doorway, holding a nine-iron.

  “Jenny. I thought you were in Oregon.”

  “Not yet. I couldn’t exactly leave when Page has been a blubbering mess on my couch.”

  “You know what happened?”

  “Your grandpa sabotaged you.” She strode into the office, tapping the club along the ground like a cane.

  “Yes, I know, we figured out about the bribing last week. He’s been trying to tank this business ever since he handed it over.”

  Jenny tapped the golf club against my desk. “That’s not what I meant. He planted the seed of doubt in Page’s mind.”

  I sighed. “Whatever he planted in her mind shouldn’t have had a chance to grow if she was really giving us a chance.”

  “Okay, so maybe she watered and fertilized it. But she needs you.” Jenny thumped the club against the desk a little harder. Kent jumped where he stood by the door.

  “Hey, knock that off; you’ll dent the wood. It might be the only genuine piece of furniture in this office, and I need it to last.” I ran my hand over the surface but couldn’t feel a scratch.

  “Your grandfather told her that you needed someone more serious at your side if you’re going to be successful as this golf course and as a businessman.”

  “My grandpa wouldn’t know a successful businessman if he were introduced to one—and he has been.”

  “Amen to that,” Kent muttered as he sat down in a chair next to my bay window.

  “Oh, I know that. And you know that. But Page wants the best for you. I mean,” Jenny paused and stifled a yawn with her hand, “she even loves you. That’s why she’s sacrificing her happiness.”

  I stood up. “I knew it. What a ridiculous idea!”

  “Sit down. Let me tell you something about Page. You can’t tell her something just once; you need to tell her over and over again. Then you need to keep on telling it to her. She needs spontaneity and affection. She’s pretty much like a cat. When was the last time you initiated a hug?”

  “We hug all the time.”

  I tried to recall our movie marathon nights and every date we went on. It wasn’t hard to do. Every occasion was pressed firmly into my memory. “Well, I guess she instigated most of it.”

  “Exactly. She thinks her love for you is one-sided. Page thrives on affection. You have to tell her you love her constantly, hold her hand, kiss her in public, and she’d probably follow you off a cliff.”

  “Me specifically or anyone that treated her this way?”

  “You, you thick-headed—”

  I waved her off. “Okay, I think I get the general idea.” Frustrated with myself that I hadn’t realized it before. Page was very affectionate. It was one of the many things I loved about her. She wasn’t afraid to show her love for someone.

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to go order the biggest cup of coffee, tip like crazy, and tell her I love her.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, where’s your grand gesture? You can’t just waltz in there and pretend like a few words will solve everything.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked at me as if I was the biggest idiot on the face of the earth.

  “Knock-knock,” Mack called from the open doorway.

  “Oh good, you’re here. Come talk some sense into him,” Jenny said as Mack entered the office.

  “What’s going on?” Mack asked as he sat in the leather chair that faced out the big bay window.

  I walked over to stand next to the window and looked out over the course. It was almost as if I could still see Page napping on the green, like the first day I laid eyes on her.

  “She broke up with me.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s been a week. The news is all over the family,” Mack answered. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Do about it? What is it with you Boones? Why can’t I go grovel and ask her out again?”

  “Because she’s a Boone. Even more important, she’s Page. If you want her attention, you’ll have to play by her terms. She wants unconditional love.”

  Jenny flopped into the empty leather seat next to Mack’s.

  “She’s got my unconditional love.”

  They said nothing, just kept staring out the window.

  “She’s amazing to be around; she brightens every room she walks in. She’s always showin
g me affection. She’s even always trying to fix my problems for me. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. How could she not know I adore her?”

  Neither of them answered me.

  “Crap.”

  “On a stick,” Jenny added.

  “She’s been doing all the work in our relationship, hasn’t she?”

  “Yup,” Mack answered.

  I’d assumed she knew. I’d thought I was clear with my love for her. I had to find out exactly where I’d messed up. “Okay. You two. You’re going to help me figure something out to make this up to her.”

  Jenny’s smile turned positively evil. Maybe asking them for help wasn’t one of my better ideas.

  Kent groaned. “You’re asking this one for ideas? That’s a bad idea, Noah.”

  Jenny pointed the golf club at Kent, who immediately closed his mouth. She turned back to face me. “I think you should kidnap her.”

  “No,” Mack shook his head. “Too illegal. She might kill you. You should just ask her to marry you.”

  Jenny frowned at him. “She’d kill him if he did that right after she broke up with him.”

  The two of them continued to argue about my grand gesture, and I pulled out a cigarette from my pocket. I didn’t even care if it was against code to smoke in my office. I needed a cigarette. Before I brought it to my lips, something knocked it out of my hands. Jenny stood there with the golf club pointed at me. “I promised Page I wouldn’t let you take up smoking again.”

  “She told you about that?”

  “Yes, while she was sobbing into a chocolate milk container because her ‘life was over.’ She wanted to make sure someone still took care of you.”

  “She could have taken care of me herself!”

  “I know. But Page doesn’t see it that way. She wants you to marry someone you truly love. She’s convinced herself you weren’t very serious about her.”

  I groaned as I opened another can of iced tea instead. I’d consumed more caffeine the last week than should be humanly possible. The longer I was away from Page, the harder it got. I was getting desperate. I needed a Page fix.

  “Of course, I love her! Who did she think was taking her on all those dates these past couple months? Who was getting ready to give up his business so he could travel the world with her?” I couldn’t stop the rant once I started.

  “Oh no,” Jenny muttered. “He’s talking about himself in the third person.”

  “You’ve done it now. I’ve never seen him mad before.” Mack eyed me warily. Well, they were the ones who barged into my office, so if they saw me unhinged, it was their own fault.

  “Who tried to support her with her design business? Who told her she should travel wherever she wanted—with a friend? Who bought her a ring and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her?”

  Someone gasped. I wasn’t sure which of them—probably Mack.

  “He bought her a ring,” Mack coughed out.

  “Well, if you want a finger to put that ring on, you better make sure she knows what you think,” Jenny goaded.

  “Pushy, pushy,” Kent mumbled loud enough for us to hear.

  I nodded at him before I responded to Jenny. “Don’t think I don’t realize you’re trying to get me to do something incredibly stupid like show up at her work and kidnap her.”

  Jenny shook her head rapidly and made a poor imitation of an innocent face. “I would never!”

  “Good. It’s not going to happen. I’ll explain it to her over dinner like a civilized person. There will be no kidnapping or drastic anything. And that’s final.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  PAGE

  I messed up five orders in a row and cried when I made a coffee for a girl named Nola because it sounded similar to Noah. I dropped a gallon of milk and forgot all the regular customers’ coffee orders.

  Time was not healing all hurt. I was getting more obsessive over it. It wasn’t getting easier. I knew I made the right choice. I only wished that would help me sleep at night.

  I was well on my way to becoming the next meme of a klutzy girl. Cletus relegated me to cardboard duty. It was glamorous. It involved a box cutter, minimal folding skills, and expert level stacking. Once the stack got too high, then it had to be carried out of the back room and into the recycle bin behind the shop. I was preparing to take the first load of five hundred and forty trips when Cletus stepped in front of me.

  “You really liked that fancy fella, didn’t you?”

  I stamped my foot and glared at the wrinkles next to his eyes. “Yes, Cletus. I liked that ‘fella,’ as you call him. He was wonderful. But I just didn’t belong in his world, and he didn’t love me as much as I loved him.”

  “You sure about that? I saw you two together. He looked plenty happy having you on his arm.”

  “Cletus, where are you going with this? Just the other day, you told me we were better off without Noah and Caroline.”

  “Since when have you ever listened to anything someone told you to do? If he asked you to marry him, would you?”

  “If he meant it. If he loved me as much as I love him, I would in a heartbeat.”

  “Well, good.”

  “But, he doesn’t.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I’m not a priority. He doesn’t like to be around me as much as I like to be around him. We come from different worlds. His is very proper. Mine is fairly carefree. He doesn’t know how to bend the rules—he has to succeed in his mind.”

  “You mean he’s no fun.”

  “If he’s not willing to risk anything for me, that means he doesn’t care for me.”

  I was getting tired of the conversation, and I needed to add the cardboard to the recycle bin out back.

  “Well, I think he’s about to change your mind,” Cletus muttered as I walked past him and grabbed the door. I glanced at him over my shoulder.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, nothing.” He waved me away and headed back towards the front of the coffee shop. He really was a strange one. If he didn’t need me so much, I’d up and quit with all his nosiness.

  I opened the door and dragged the folded boxes outside. Setting them down, I closed the door after myself. We didn’t want to leave the door open too long; Cletus and I hated to overwork the air conditioner.

  I turned around again to grab the boxes but came face to face with a chest. I glanced up and met Noah’s stormy eyes.

  “What—what are you doing here?” Excellent work playing the calm and collected ex-girlfriend, Page.

  “I’m here to make sure you can’t walk away from me again.”

  I had no idea what he meant. Obviously, he wasn’t here to kill me; at least I knew that much about him. “What’s it to be? Dumped in the river or the dumpster?”

  “Something even better,” he said as he leaned forward and wrapped an arm around my waist and started dragging me off toward the back of the parking lot.

  “Noah, knock it off; I have to get back to work.” I dug my heels in, but he lifted me off my feet. His arms wrapped around my waist, and he held me off the ground. My chest pressed against his chest, my legs dangling against his.

  “Those boxes aren’t going to break themselves down, you know,” I told him, even though I didn’t care one bit about those boxes. Good riddance. Noah was holding me. It was unconventional, but he was holding me. Maybe it was because it was unconventional that I liked it. It had been a long week without him.

  Noah’s arms tightened around me. All right, it was unconventional, but I had tips to make inside, and false hope was a devil. “Seriously, Noah put me down. I refuse to be the next Lucifer at your golf course.”

  “I don’t want to share you with anyone, but I’m sure if you were our mascot, we would have more club members than any other golf course in the world.” He stopped walking and stood there looking at me, my feet still dangling a foot above the ground. “Actually, that’s a wonderful idea. I’ll have to tell Kent
. He’ll love the idea. We could make t-shirts with your face on them. They would read, ‘I survived Page.’”

  I smacked his chest and tried to knee him in the side, but it wasn’t easy to do when he held me tight against his chest. “What do you want, Noah? You let me go already. I don’t know what you’re doing here. And why are you carrying me?”

  He pressed his lips together, and it looked as though he were planning his answer. “Okay. Yes, I let you go, but that was the biggest mistake of my life. I want you.”

  I studied his chocolate eyes. “An even bigger mistake than taking on that golf course?”

  He nodded and adjusted his hold around my waist, “It was an even bigger mistake than taking over that golf course. As for what I’m doing here, that should be obvious.”

  “You’re trying to strain your back by holding me too long?”

  “No, this is my grand gesture.” With a big grin, he took off across the parking lot at a brisk pace, our legs knocking together with every step he took.

  “What’s the grand gesture? Showing me how strong you are?” I reached my arms around his neck and held tight. It felt so good to be touching him again. He wanted me. Whatever this grand gesture thing was that he was talking about, at least now I knew he wanted me. We could work out all the details later; it didn’t matter to me.

  “I’m kidnapping you.” He grinned as a sleek black SUV pulled to a stop next to us.

  He set me down and opened the door. “After you.”

  “Wait. I’m not getting in that car until you tell me what you have planned.” I said. I wanted to see know how far he was willing to take this grand gesture of his.

  He clenched his jaw and nodded as he met my gaze. “Well, then.”

  I yelped as he scooped me off my feet bridal-carry style and set me into the car. He climbed in after me and slammed the door. The doors locked immediately after.

  He’d done it. He’d picked me up and shoved me into a car.

  “You... you...” I couldn’t think of anything to call him. He was breaking the rules; he was trying to show me he loved me. He was acting without thought. He was acting like—well, like me. “You kidnapped me!”