Back to Life Series Box Set

by Danielle Allen

  “The horror!” I feigned disgust and we both giggled.

  “But seriously, watch how they are together as they leave. It’s not very romantic, but it’s nice. Does that make any sense?”

  My lips turned up into a grin. “It does and of course I’ll be watching! Okay, this is the last thing I’m going to say about him tonight and then we are not talking about this ridiculous little crush again.”

  She had a twinkle in her eye as she said, “Yeah right, but go on.”

  I laughed. “How hot is he? I know you don’t look at him like that, but damn! I did not know all of that was under his clothes.” I dramatically fanned myself.

  Addison’s laugh was loud, carried over the music, and interrupted many conversations around us. “Are you going to be able to keep it in your pants long enough to meet the guy I wanted to introduce you to?”

  My mouth dropped open. “No… You said ‘I want you to meet my fiancé’s friend’ and I said ‘I can’t believe I haven’t met your fiancé yet. The suspense is killing me.’ And you said—”

  “And I said, ‘You’ll meet them both at the engagement party’ and when that didn’t happen, I planned for you two to meet today.” Her smile dimmed a little, but still remained on her beautiful face. “But I do have to tell you something.” The hesitation was a beat too long and made me immediately uncomfortable.

  “What’s up?”

  “Oh wait…stay strong and watch.” I turned to see what she was looking at. “Are you two off to the work thing?”

  The picture on CJ’s phone did her no justice. Cameron was a complete stunner. Wearing a sky blue summer dress, she managed to conservatively show off a lot of leg and ample cleavage without it looking overdone. She had the perfect amount of sexiness and cuteness that made her everyone’s type. Her light brown skin was flawless, her light brown eyes were stunning, and her smile was illuminating. And after finding out she was a nice, sweet woman who made CJ happy, I had nothing negative I could say about the woman.

  Not that I was looking for a reason to dislike her or anything.

  She stuck out her hand. “Hi, you must be Emily. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Hi, yes, I’m Emily. You must be Cameron. You are stunningly beautiful. I mean seriously, wow!” I couldn’t stop staring at the two of them together. “You two look like you belong on a book cover or a magazine or…something.”

  Cameron smiled. “Had I known you were as gorgeous as you are, I might have been a bit more concerned about CJ being at your hotel.”

  “Oh!” I was shocked by her statement and didn’t know what else to say. I looked at CJ, who was wearing a white shirt that fit snuggly across his chest, and he looked just as stunned. “I um…”

  CJ draped his arm over Cameron’s shoulder and it was her turn to look shocked. “I told you before and I’ll tell you again. Emily and I have never dated.”

  “Never kissed, never had sex, none of that,” I added, hoping to quell the roaring in my belly and the awkwardness of the situation.

  It didn’t help either as silence surrounded us. The three of them stared at me.

  “Okay, well that was a lot of information,” Addison giggled, wrapping her hand around mine and squeezing for support.

  Cameron smiled her perfect smile again. “I was kidding. I know CJ and the type of man that he is. I’m not worried.”

  Although she said it with a smile, the way she said ‘I’m not worried’ rubbed me the wrong way.

  “I’m glad you know me well enough to know that you have nothing to be worried about,” CJ informed her, looked down at her sweetly.

  “We have a good thing going, don’t we?” Cameron asked.

  I squeezed Addison’s hand tightly. She returned with a squeeze of her own.

  “Yes.” CJ nodded before giving her a sexy smirk. He turned his head to us and avoided eye contact with me at all cost. “We must be leaving now.” He stepped away from his girlfriend to embrace Addison. “Happy Birthday, Addy. Thank you for having us.”

  While they were hugging, Cameron gave me a hug. “You’re beautiful and I’m not going to let that negatively affect how I feel about you and your friendship with my boyfriend. I trust him and he trusts you so I trust you, too,” she whispered before kissing me on both cheeks. Pulling away, she grabbed my hands and continued, “I am honored to have finally met you, Emily. I hope we are done early enough to swing by the party tonight. Maybe we can get to know each other and become friends.” Her words and her eyes dripped with sincerity and kindness. “I would really like that.”

  My heart cracked open a bit. She really is the nicest person ever.

  I nodded. “I would like that too.”

  Cameron and CJ switched places.

  While Cameron hugged Addison, CJ embraced me.

  My heart palpitated and I closed my eyes. I melted as soon as I was enveloped in his arms. Inhaling, I consumed his familiar scent which wasn’t diluted with cologne. It just smelled of his sweet skin.

  “It was good seeing you, Em,” he whispered into my hair. I felt his chest expanding as he breathed in deep. “Your hair smells like mangos.”

  “You smell like mangos,” I said, not letting him go yet.

  He chuckled softly. “Bullshit.”

  “I’m glad we got a chance to see one another as well. I was hoping it would be for longer, but I’ll take what I can get.”

  We pulled apart and when my grey eyes met his brown ones, I got lost in them. I saw myself reflected in the almost black orbs. And I liked what I saw.

  My belly trembled.

  “You look happy, Emily.” He brushed a hair away from my face. “I like seeing you happy.”

  “I’m happy for you, Cedi.”

  Addison cleared her throat and I snapped out of my daze. Dropping my arms from around his waist, I forced a smile and stepped back.

  “You two have fun tonight,” I called out to them as they were starting to walk toward the exit.

  “Don’t party too hard at the boring party! Bye!” Addison shouted playfully. As soon as they were out of earshot, she turned to me. “What the hell was that?”

  Heat coated my insides and I knew my face was reflecting that temperature change. “What was what?”

  “Um, the hearts that floated above your head when you two said goodbye!” She threw up her hands. “Cameron glanced down at her phone for a text message or something so I don’t think she saw the love connection that was being made.”

  I scoffed. “Love connection? Seriously? Addy, I told you, I have a crush on a guy who got me home safely eight months ago. It’ll die off soon I’m sure. It was probably only back in full force because he had on no shirt when I first saw him. You can’t see someone for the first time in a while and they have on no shirt with a body like that. That was a set up.”

  Addison laughed and as her eyes landed on something behind me, she became suddenly serious. “I have to tell you something about my fiancé before you two meet.”

  I started to turn around, but she stopped me. “His friend is with him. So before you meet him, please keep an open mind.”

  The change in mood made me uneasy. “This is kind of freaking me out, Addy. If you tell me your fiancé doesn’t exist and that’s why you never told me his name, I’m going to be mad. We’ll make up shortly after a psych evaluation, but I’m going to be mad in the meantime,” I joked, trying to get the smile to reappear on her face.

  I noticed her eyes darting over my shoulder and when I went to turn around again, she grabbed my arms. “Okay, so before you turn around know that he doesn’t know anything about you either. He refers to you as my Atlanta best friend.”

  “Okay…” The hair on the back of my neck started to stand up.

  “I didn’t figure this out until the end of May so I didn’t know the whole time. It was that week when I went to Maryland. You had said something and it clicked with something he said and…”

  I swallowed hard and the uneasy feeling in the pi
t of my stomach rolled. “What’s going on, Addy?” I asked seriously, no longer in a playful mood. “You’re freaking me out.”

  “Then Addo was in the hospital and then your niece passed away and then it was my fiancé’s birthday and then you’ve been gone to Philly to help with the kids and it’s just been a busy summer,” she was talking so fast, my head felt like it was spinning. “Just remember that I really like you”—her eyes shifted up and over my left shoulder—“And baby, I’m madly in love with you.”

  She let my arms go and I turned and gasped. I stumbled backward and put my hand over my chest in shock.

  Addison’s fiancé was exactly as she’d described him: tall, dark, and handsome. He had a milk chocolate complexion, a toned, muscular body and the jawline of the male model Tyson Beckford. She’d always described him as a male model dressed up as a regular person. But what she never let on to was that he would look so familiar to me.

  “Tyree?

  “Emily?”

  Chapter 16

  Saturday, August 12th – 6:03pm

  As I stared at my best friend’s ex-boyfriend, my mouth hung open. I blinked and then blinked again. His expression seemed to match mine as we gaped at each other in utter confusion.

  “Wha-what’s going on, Addy?” I asked ripping my eyes from the man in front of me.

  Addison looked between Tyree Barker and I with an almost scared expression. “I’m sorry I didn’t say something when I figured out you two knew each other. I just care about you both so much and I didn’t know if there was going to be any weirdness or misplaced anger or whatever and I didn’t want any bad blood to trickle into this.” She gestured to the space between the three of us.

  “Baby, you know how much I love Emily,” Addison started her plea to him, hands tugging on his shirt as she lured him closer to her. “She’s been a breath of fresh air and with Natasha so busy and in a completely different time zone, I need a creative bestie.”

  Turning to me, she kept her hands firmly planted on Tyree, but she implored me with her eyes. “And Em, you know how much I love Ty. Just having him as my fiancé has been the highlight of my year. I’ve told you the things that he’s done for me and how much he loves me so you know that this is real and true.”

  She took a step back and looked at us both. “Please don’t let this be a deal breaker because I want you both in my life and I want you both to coexist peacefully. So I’m going to give you a minute to talk and I’ll find Bennett and—”

  “Wait, wait, wait… Bennett is the guy you were going to try to introduce me to? As in to hook me up with?” I asked incredulously, my face not even trying to mask my disgust.

  Addison looked around nervously. “Your rebound guy needs to be attractive and a good time. That’s it. Not someone you’d fall in love with.”

  “Yeah, I get that. But I’m not attracted to Bennett because he’s an ass. And he’s not a good time…because he’s an ass.”

  Tyree let out a little laugh. “I told you introducing him to a divorcee isn’t a—wait…” He turned his full attention to me. “You’re divorced?”

  I nodded. “Still waiting on the paperwork to be finalized, but in every other sense of the word, yes.”

  He made a face. “I’m sorry to hear that. I only spent a little bit of time with him, but he seemed like a good guy. You two seemed happy.”

  “We were.” I shrugged. “He’s just an entitled asshole so he ruined it.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I gave him a genuine smile and answered honestly, “I am. I really am.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. You look happy. It’s still crazy to me that you two didn’t make it.”

  “No matter what”—I looked between Tyree and Addison—“if you want your marriage to work, you both have to work for it. It doesn’t matter if one of you is doing everything they can to hold it together, if the other person drops the ball and doesn’t pick it back up”—I lifted my hands up—“game over.”

  They both nodded.

  “True. So true,” Addison agreed distractedly as she looked across the pool near the DJ booth. “I see Bennett talking to Natasha so I’m going to check on that situation because I didn’t realize what a problem Bennett was until I just saw Emily’s face scrunch up like that. Bennett seemed like a good choice for a rebound…Natasha is in a constant state of rebound so Bennett would be detrimental.” Pulling her eyes away from her best friend and the beefcake of a man putting the moves on her, she gave us a big smile. “You two keep talking! This is good!”

  “She’s great,” I pointed out with a smile as she floated around the outskirts of the pool to the dance floor. “I love her.”

  “She is great and I love her, too.”

  I looked back at him, staring into his brown eyes. He was a good man and I’d always thought he was a good man. I didn’t have any bad blood with him and I hoped he didn’t have any with me. What happened in the past was the past and didn’t have to negatively impact either of our futures with Addison.

  I sighed, reaching out to touch his arm affectionately. “How are you?”

  “You mean since your best friend broke my heart then moved on to break your brother’s and then back to break mine and then his a—”

  “Let’s not do that.” I shook my head. “Sahara may have been a little heartbreaker in her day, but she’s now happily married. But I will tell you this—I get it. She’s broken your heart. She’s broken my brother’s heart. And I remained her best friend through it all. I will always remain her best friend through it all. But I get having conflicting feelings about hanging around your ex’s best friend. I get it. And I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. But that whole love triangle has imploded and you have moved on from that, Sahara has moved on from that, Manny has moved on from that. Everyone has moved on and you’re about to get married to someone fantastic. So this is not about Sahara. This is about your fiancé.”

  “True,” he murmured as I continued.

  “I don’t want you to feel weird about my friendship with Addison. You come first. You’re going to be her husband and I respect that because I respect marriages. If you don’t want us to be friends because you don’t want to be reminded of the first woman to break your heart, that would suck for so many reasons. But if Addison felt like she didn’t want to be my friend because I’m best friends with your ex-girlfriend, that would hurt me to my core. But at the end of the day, I would respect whatever you and Addison decided was the best thing for your relationship. It’s not like I would bring Sahara to your wedding as my date or anything, but Sahara is my sister. Sahara will always be my sister. I love Addy and I want our friendship to continue because she’s important to me, too. So the ball is in your court.”

  Tyree shook his head. “I’m not petty, Emily. I don’t want to take you away from Addy. She loves you. She wasn’t kidding when she said that. We call you her Atlanta best friend because that’s how highly she thinks of you.” He sighed and looked around. “Come here.”

  I followed him to one of the couches near the bar and sat with him. He sat on one side and I was on the other with plush cushion between us. He rested his elbows against his knees, leaning forward with his hands clasped together. I studied his contemplative profile and braced myself for whatever he was about to say.

  “Addison wants us to be friends,” Tyree started, turning his head to face me.

  “Yes,” I agreed slowly.

  “You love Addy.”

  “Yes.”

  “I love Addy.”

  “Yes.”

  “So we will be friends for Addy.”

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  He stuck out his hand for a handshake, but I pushed his hand to the side, going in for a hug.

  “Okay, so we’re friends,” I affirmed, sitting back, relaxing. I crossed my legs and grinned at him. “Now that it’s confirmed that we’re good and we’re not going to be weird, here’s the fifty-thousand-dollar question: Next year, for my birthday, if I hav
e a dinner party and I invite my friends and family, no matter how it shakes out, that’ll leave you, Sahara, and Manny all in the same room at the same time. Will that be a problem?”

  Tyree looked from me toward the bombshell in the yellow dress as she laughed with Natasha. “What happened in the past is in the past. I’m focused on my future.”

  “That’s good.”

  He paused for a minute. “Is she happy?”

  “Sahara’s happy.” I caught him up with a brief update on her life with running the Human Resources department at a new division of her old company before taking a brief hiatus to care for her multiple babies with the help of her doting husband. “Busy, exhausted, but she’s really happy.”

  “Good. It’s about time. And how’s your brother doing after…”

  He trailed off and I knew he meant the woman my brother was engaged to, Ashlyn, who went crazy on him and torched his townhouse. Everyone who knew him or at least knew of him asked about it. Fortunately, with my last name being Diaz, no one automatically equated me to the headline “Former Flame Fans Flames.”

  Ashlyn’s a little crazy bitch. I stopped and pondered for a moment. What did my brother see in her?

  Manny was already in the process of moving so he wasn’t there, but most of his stuff was. Being the IT geek that he was, he’d moved his computer and electronic equipment first and was getting his clothing the following week.

  “He’s doing a lot better. Three years can make a whole hell of a lot of difference.”

  He nodded. “Don’t I know it?” His eyes were glued to Addison as she wiggled her hips. When she laughed and pulled Natasha off of the dance floor, he turned to me again. “All that stuff back then doesn’t matter because it led us to where we are now. And if we’re all happy, then it was all worth it. The love, the pain, the fights.”

  I groaned. “I can’t believe you almost fought my brother.”

  He laughed as he continued. “All of that made us who we needed to be to end up with the people we were meant to spend our lives with.”