Sweet Sunshine

by Jessica Prince

  “Uh,” she cleared her throat as she pulled against my arm. I could either refuse to let her put any space between us — like my body wanted to do — and risk some seriously fucked up mixed signals, or I could loosen my hold, allowing her the space she seemed to need from me. I went with the latter, even though every inch of me rebelled at the loss of her warmth. “I’m there,” she answered, pointing to a small, two-door Honda.

  “Keys?” I asked quietly, closely, unable to help but close the distance whenever the chance arose.

  With a small, shuffled step to the side, she dug in her purse until she unearthed her keys and handed them to a butt-hurt Carla. Turning her face toward mine as Carla climbed in and started the car up, those bright green eyes shone up at me, just a hint of glassiness thanks to the wine. “I should — I should probably ride with her.”

  “You’re riding with me,” I insisted, my tone sounding a little too direct, even to my own ears. Jesus, what the hell was wrong with me? I couldn’t seem to think straight and all the blood in my body was rushing to one particular area. Since walking into The Peak and seeing Chloe dressed to the nines, something inside me, some protective instinct had scratched and clawed its way to the surface, only growing stronger and stronger as both Carla and Layla spit their hatefulness at her. I couldn’t stand to watch it.

  “But—”

  “I don’t want you alone with Carla.”

  She stared, mouth open, eyes wide for a few seconds. “You think I can’t defend myself to her? Please,” she snorted. “I could take her.”

  “I have no doubt about that, killer,” I chuckled. “But fact of the matter is, she’s been a bitch to you all night long.”

  “Only because I crashed your date!”

  “If I remember correctly, I was the one who insisted. You didn’t crash anything.”

  Her face grew contemplative as she stared up at me. “Yeah. Yeah, you did kind of push in. What was up with that? Were you just itching to have the world’s most uncomfortable date or something?” She snorted again, and damn if I didn’t want to lean down and kiss her cute mouth.

  I needed to get my shit together, and fast, or I was going to do something to screw up our friendship — and why the hell did just thinking that word suddenly leave me feeling bitter?

  “What can I say? I’m a masochist like that.” I guided her to my truck and had to help her into the cab, I wasn’t sure how much more my poor, high strung body could take. I needed a cold shower and a couple minutes alone with my palm before my head exploded.

  I walked around the hood of my truck and climbed in, twisted the key in the ignition and put it into drive, only to be hit with the realization I had no clue where Chloe lived. Suddenly, my dick wasn’t the problem anymore. No man alive could maintain an erection once he recognized what a shitty human being he was. I’d known Chloe for a year and a half, I claimed to be her friend, and all this time, I didn’t know anything about her. Hell, I didn’t have the first clue where she lived.

  I coughed awkwardly, drawing her attention. “Are you, um… are you sober enough to give me directions to your place?”

  The glimmer that was just in her green eyes moments ago got swallowed up by something else. Her usually open expression closed down as she spoke in a small, pained voice, “You don’t even know where I live?”

  “No,” I admitted, my tone apologetic. “I mean… well, I just never really thought about it.”

  “My apartment’s right above the bakery,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice as she turned to look out the window. I couldn’t have possibly felt any lower if I’d tried.

  “Well that’s convenient, huh?” I asked way too enthusiastically.

  She didn’t look at me. “Yep.”

  “I didn’t even know there was an apartment over the bakery.”

  “Mmhmm,” was all I got in return.

  The whole drive back to Pembrooke was made in uncomfortable silence. I’d finally felt like I’d taken some big steps forward when it came to Chloe, and after tonight, I couldn’t help but think that I’d just put myself back at square one.

  Chloe

  THE POUNDING ON the front door pulled me from a fitful sleep. Rolling over, I glanced at the alarm clock before burying my face in my pillow and letting out a muffled cry. It was eight in the morning. On a Sunday. One of my only days off this week. I wanted to sleep until well past noon. I needed it.

  “Go away,” I groaned into my pillow, praying whoever was at my door would eventually just give up and leave me in peace.

  “Chloe! Open up!”

  “Damn it,” I hissed, dragging myself from the comfort of my bed. “I swear to God,” I cursed as I pulled the door open. “If you weren’t pregnant, I’d kick your ass.”

  Unconcerned by my threat of violence, Harlow pushed past me and waddled into my living room, collapsing on my couch with an exaggerated huff. “Well, if you’d answer your phone, I wouldn’t have to drive my ever-widening ass over here and beat your door down.”

  I shot her a withering look as I rounded the couch and headed for the kitchen, in search of a cup of coffee. I was one of those people who desperately needed caffeine in order to function. “It’s eight o’clock! Of course I didn’t answer my phone. I was sleeping. Like a normal person.”

  “Yeah well, Noah’s spawn won’t allow me to sleep anymore, so I figured I’d come over here and share the love.”

  I glared over the eat-in breakfast bar that separated my kitchen from the rest of the apartment. That was one of my favorite things about my place. Everything was open and airy. The building had been around since the early nineteen hundreds, and despite countless renovations, it still held a lot of the original charm along with the modern amenities a person this day in age couldn’t live without. My apartment spanned across three of the shops below, leaving me with more than enough square footage. The wood floors were original and three of the four walls were exposed brick, giving the space a rustic feel I absolutely adored. The entire place was an open concept with the exception of the bathroom, my favorite room in the place. Everything in there had been updated, from the black and white subway tile to the amazing claw foot tub. My bathroom was every woman’s dream.

  “Don’t you have a husband you can torture instead of me? I didn’t realize being your best friend meant I had to share in your misery.”

  “Well, now you know,” she waved her hand dismissively. “Besides, I’ve tortured poor Noah enough. If this baby doesn’t come soon, he’s liable to be elected for sainthood just for putting up with me, then I’ll never hear the end of it. The more I stay out of the house, the less ammunition he’ll have to hold over my head in the future.”

  I smiled despite the fact I was still exhausted. “So what you’re saying is, you’re playing the long game.”

  “Exactly.” Harlow grinned wickedly as I took a seat next to her on the couch. “A wife should never allow her husband the upper hand. That’s a part of the vows no one knows about.”

  “Well thanks for the heads up.” I sucked down a gulp of my coffee, hoping it would help me to feel somewhat human again.

  “Sooooo,” she dragged out clapping excitedly. “Tell me about your date! I want to know everything.”

  I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and dropped my head to the back of the couch. “It was a complete disaster,” I started. She held on to my every word as I told her about the worst date in the history of bad dates, everything from Austin’s assumed steroid use, to Derrick showing up with Carla and turning the evening into the double date from hell, to Layla’s unexpected and unwanted appearance. By the time I was done, her mouth was hanging open in disbelief.

  “Wow,” was all she could say for several seconds.

  “Yep. So obviously the excess wine was necessary.”

  “So, let me get this straight. He actually made Carla drive your car home while he drove you?”

  “One of the fewer highlights of the evening, but yes.”

  “And she di
dn’t key it or slash your tires?”

  My back shot straight as I looked at Harlow with wide eyes. “I don’t know. I haven’t been out to check it. Do you think she would?”

  Harlow snorted. “Carla Fitzgerald, are you kidding? Hell yeah, I think she’d do something like that.”

  My mug hit the coffee table with a loud thunk as I bolted from the couch, out the door, and down the steps to the small parking lot at the back of the building. A cursory inspection showed that there wasn’t any external damage, at least none that I could see.

  “Anything?” Harlow asked from the landing as I made my way back up the stairs.

  “Not that I noticed, but I won’t know if she cut my brake lines or anything until I actually get in and drive it.”

  “Nah,” she said, following me back into the apartment. “Cutting brake lines would take smarts Carla isn’t capable of. I think you’re safe for the time being. Just don’t get caught alone in a dark alley with her or anything. You’re spunky, but that woman’s a straight up hair-puller.”

  “Duly noted,” I sighed as I sat back down, closing my eyes against the headache pushing at the backs of my eyes. I really hated hangovers. “I just want to forget last night ever happened. It had to have been one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever been forced to live through.”

  “Well, I hate to say it, seeing as he made you cry and all so I have no choice but to want to gouge Derrick’s eyes out, but it’s a good thing he was there last night. At least you weren’t stuck paying for your own meal. He seems to be taking this whole friends thing to heart, huh?”

  “Seems like it,” I answered, thinking back to how he hadn’t even remembered where I lived the night before. It shouldn’t have hurt my feelings as much as it did, I know that. But it was just more proof of the fact that, after spending a year-and-a-half pining over the guy, I really had been pretty invisible to him until recently. No woman likes hearing something like that. But I was determined to push that out of my head. I’d made a decision last night and I was going to stick to it. Derrick and I were friends and I was happy with that. So it wasn’t a love match, so what. At least I had another person in my life who’d have my back. He’d proven as much the night before. I was moving past that phase of my life. This was a whole new Chloe. A take-no-prisoners woman who was open to new experiences, and refused to settle for less.

  The world was my oyster, and I was going to shuck the hell out of it.

  ONE OF THE things that Pembrooke shared with all small towns across the country was its love for football. Everyone in town worshipped at the altar of the Pembrooke Bulldogs starting with the scrimmage games until the end of the season. There was an electricity in the air that made the excitement so infectious that even people such as myself, who didn’t care much for sports couldn’t help but get sucked into the fanfare.

  That was why, despite the fact I hadn’t been feeling all that well most of the day, I found myself rounding the stadium bleachers that seemed to hold every person in town, including Pastor Mike, the minister of our Baptist church, while I was in search of Harlow. It might have just been a scrimmage game, but I never missed when they played at Bulldog Stadium, sick or not, and with Ethan playing for the second year in a row, I wasn’t about to let the start of a pesky little head-cold stop me.

  My eyes were scanning the sea of people when I somehow managed to hear a loud, familiar voice yelling over the din of noise coming from the bleachers.

  “MISS CHLOE! OVER HERE!”

  My head shot sideways toward the fence line that separated the field from the stands and a huge smile broke out across my face at the sight of Eliza jumping up and down, waving her hands in the air frantically. Her excitement to see me was enough to make me forget I wasn’t feeling all that great — at least temporarily.

  I made my way to the small group at the fence, where Eliza was standing next to Harlow as she spoke to Noah over the waist high chain link. “Hey there,” were the only words I’d been able to get out before Eliza’s tiny frame barreled into me, knocking the breath from my chest as she wrapped her arms around my waist. I returned her hug with a small laugh as I sucked in tiny breaths in an attempt to re-inflate my lungs.

  “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she said dramatically, making it sound like it had been years as opposed to a little over a week. But I was flattered, nonetheless. I adored the ground Eliza walked on, so knowing she felt the same warmed me from the inside out.

  “Well I’m glad you’re here,” I answered, running my fingers through her dark, silky hair. “I’ve missed you. Did you come with Ms. Harlow?”

  She shook her head animatedly. “Nope. Daddy always brings me to the Bulldog games on his weekend. He went to get peanuts and popcorn. It’s our tradition.”

  “That sounds like a fun tradition,” I said, trying hard not to give in to the ingrained desire to look for Derrick whenever I knew he was close by. I was still a work in progress.

  “Hey, Chlo,” Noah spoke.

  I cocked my eyebrow playfully. “Noah. Aren’t you supposed to be coaching?”

  “And miss a chance to neck with my smokin’ hot wife?” he asked, shooting me a cheeky wink.

  “What’s necking?” Eliza asked, her gaze darting between Noah and Chloe.

  “Ask your father,” Noah answered quickly as Harlow and I shot him varying looks of shut the hell up.

  “Ask her father what?” The deep timbre of Derrick’s voice sent a chill up my back — or maybe it was the fact that I was starting to feel a little feverish, either way, I felt the effects of his sudden presence.

  “What necking is,” Eliza answered innocently as she snatched the bucket of popcorn from her father’s hands. It was almost impossible to choke back the laughter at the murderous glare he gave Noah.

  “Hey, Murphy!” A man shouted from the field, fortunately for Noah, drawing our attention. As he jogged our way, it was almost impossible to miss how attractive he was, even from a distance.

  “Holy damn, who’s that?” Harlow mumbled under her breath, giving voice to exactly what I’d just been thinking. He was good looking, no doubt about it. I didn’t think he ranked quite at Derrick’s level of hotness, but damn if he wasn’t close.

  “Guys,” Noah spoke, pulling us from our obvious perusal, “This is our new assistant coach, Fletcher McMillian. Fletch, this is my wife Harlow, Derrick Anderson and his little girl Eliza, and Chloe Delaney.”

  Fletcher looked at me with a grin that probably made women across the globe swoon. “Nice to meet you, Chloe.”

  “You too, Fletcher,” I smiled back.

  “All my friends call me Fletch.” His smile positively devastating as he reached over the fence to shake my hand.

  “So does that mean we’re friends?” Holy shit! Was I flirting? I was totally flirting! How the hell had that happened? It was his smile, it had to be. No woman in her right mind could be immune to a smile like that, whether she wanted to or not.

  “Well I certainly hope we can be.” Another blinding smile. Holy crap, the women in this town were so screwed.

  Noah’s voice cut into whatever crazy voodoo Fletch was working. “Chloe here’s the one that runs that bakery I was telling you about. Best coffee and pastries in Wyoming.”

  “Is that right?” he asked. His rough palm was warm as it enclosed mine in a strong, firm handshake. “Well, I’ll have to get over there as soon as possible. I haven’t been in Pembrooke long enough to really look around, but Noah’s been telling me I need to make Sinful Sweets one of my first stops.”

  “You won’t be disappointed,” Harlow chimed in, a devious glint in her eye as she talked me up. It wasn’t until she asked, “Does your wife not bake?” that I realized she’d just jumped on a golden opportunity to matchmake.

  “No wife,” he replied, and I wasn’t sure if it was my foggy head causing me to see things, but I could have sworn his gaze shot back to me as he continued with, “I’m single.”

  “Really.�
� The sideways look Harlow shot me couldn’t have been more obvious. There was no reason for her to throw in, “What a coincidence! So is Chloe.” Not that it stopped her, to my utter mortification.

  “I’d say that’s definitely a lucky coincidence,” Fletcher returned, causing my blush to grow almost painful as my eyes went wide.

  “Aren’t you guys supposed to be doing something right now?” Derrick cut in, pulling my gaze from Fletcher at the harshness in his tone. “It’s the first game of the season and all. Shouldn’t you be giving the boys a motivational speech or something?”

  “He’s right,” Fletcher answered. If he’d registered the bite in Derrick’s words, he didn’t let it show. “It was great meeting you, Chloe. Hope to see you around sometime soon.”

  “Oh, uh. Y-yeah. I mean, yes.” I cleared my throat awkwardly. “I look forward to it.”

  Noah and Fletcher headed off and the rest of us turned to take our seats on the bench right behind us. I couldn’t help but notice Derrick’s frown as he sat down on the cold metal bench next to me.

  “Miss Chloe, I think that guy likes you,” Eliza giggled from my other side.

  “I think she’s right,” Harlow added.

  I couldn’t be sure if my ears were deceiving me, or if it was just the noise of the crowd around us, but I could have sworn I heard Derrick growl.

  Derrick

  THE SOUNDS OF the crowd cheering and yelling around me were muffled by the blood rushing through my ears. And believe me, no one was as shocked by the intensity of my reaction to Chloe flirting as I was. I knew I was attracted to her. I knew I wanted her, but as the desire to pummel the dickhead on the field continued to grow, my brain kept repeating “Mine, mine, mine. Hands off, limp dick,” over and over again.

  But that wasn’t really the case at all, was it?

  Chloe wasn’t mine. She couldn’t be. Because I couldn’t give her what she wanted. I’d tried the white picket fence thing already. It just wasn’t in the cards for me. If I’d been completely rational at that moment, I’d have been happy for her. I was her friend after all, right? I should have wanted her to find someone she could be happy with, someone who’d put a ring on her finger and give her a family.