Casual. Keep it casual.
“Yesss…” He drew the word out slowly, still watching her. “So we’re friends?”
“With benefits?” she suggested hopefully.
“Oh, thank God.” He sounded truly heartfelt, and she couldn’t help laughing.
“I’m not an idiot, Noah. Nobody gives up sex that good.”
“I agree. Wholeheartedly.”
She smiled down into her plate. “I had a great day.” She looked up and met his eyes. “Thank you. For all of it, not just… you know.”
He smiled back, and she basked in the warmth of his gaze. “I did, too. All of it.”
“So… should we have another Friendship Day soon?”
“As soon as possible,” he agreed around a mouthful of taco. “I’ll come over and break some more of your plumbing, if it’ll facilitate things.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I’m a really good friend,” he said with a grin.
That was certainly the truth.
Angelica couldn’t wait for the next Friendship Day.
Chapter Eleven
Noah stretched, his calf muscles pulling taut as he arched his foot with a groan. Even though he worked out regularly and was in relatively good shape for a thirty-five-year-old, yesterday he’d exerted his body in ways he hadn’t in a good long while and this morning he was feeling it. He rolled to his side and grabbed his phone off the nightstand to check the time and then set it back down.
Nine o’clock. How was that even possible? He hadn’t slept that late in ages.
You haven’t fucked that long and that well in ages either, his subconscious reminded him.
That was certainly true. He’d known he and Angelica had amazing chemistry, but never in his wildest dreams had he thought they would be quite so explosive together. Even all these hours later, he swore he could still feel her lips on his skin. With that thought in mind, Noah took his morning wood in hand, intent on reliving all the ways they’d pleasured one another when he was startled out of his reverie by the ringing of his phone.
Noah ignored it, hoping whoever was calling would take a hint and hang up. When the ringing finally stopped, he screwed his eyes shut and tried to recapture the feeling of Angelica’s soft curves beneath him. When it started ringing again, the chorus from Michael Jackson’s “Leave Me Alone” echoed through his bedroom.
“Ah, for fuck’s sake.” His eyes popped open and he let go of his dick. Picking up the phone and bringing it to his ear, he said, “This better be good, mother.”
“Well hello to you too, dear,” she responded. The necessary pleasantries out of the way, she launched right into her reason for calling. “Why haven’t you sent in your RSVP for the charity gala next weekend?”
“I’m busy that night.”
“Doing what?”
“Watching paint dry.”
“Noah Carter Bradstone. Don’t you get smart with me.”
He groaned. “Sorry, mother.”
“Apology accepted. Now, who are you bringing?”
His first instinct was to tell his mom he’d met someone, but then he recalled his and Angelica’s conversation at the restaurant. They were friends with benefits, nothing more. And while the benefits were quite exceptional, the friends part was what was important here. They might have spent an awesome day together, but the gala was on a whole other level. He would be photographed extensively with whoever he brought as his date, and that’s not what he and Angelica were about. Even though her time in Hollywood had probably desensitized her to the pomp and circumstance of a black-tie event, he couldn’t really picture her mingling with the doyens of the San Francisco elite. Hell, he could barely picture doing it himself and he’d been born into their rarified ranks. If he was being honest, he enjoyed the fact that Angelica didn’t know that Noah, didn’t expect him to be that buffed and polished version of himself.
But if he didn’t take Angelica, where did that leave him? Before he could open his mouth, his mother had the answer. “You know, Naomi Klein is such a lovely girl, and you make the most adorable couple.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “First of all, Naomi is not a girl; she’s a woman. A very successful one at that, and I know for a fact she’d hate it if she knew you talked about her like she was some naïve debutante.”
“You know what I mean, dear.” He could practically picture her brushing his comment aside with a wave of her hand.
And even though Noah knew his mother would probably ignore his next comment too, he soldiered on. “And second of all, we are not a couple. I’ve told you that a hundred times. Naomi and I are friends. That’s it.”
“That’s not what I hear,” she replied coyly. “Soraya Morrow saw Naomi leaving your tasting room well after dark last month.” With a tinkling laugh, she added, “And you and I both know what happens between a man and a woman once they get a few glasses of wine in them.”
Noah held back a shudder. He’d heard this story often enough he could practically recite it himself, and he still wished he’d never been told. No son needed to know he’d been conceived on his father’s tasting room bar after his parents had cracked open a bottle of the latest vintage of Bradstone Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon.
“That was a business meeting.”
“Hmm. Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”
“She’s designing my new wine labels,” he countered.
“Of course she is, dear.”
Noah sighed in defeat. There was no getting through to his mother when she got like this. Pit bulls had nothing on Bernice Louise Winchester Bradstone.
“All right, mother. I’ll ask Naomi if she’s free. I’m not making any guarantees though. She might be busy that night.”
She laughed. “Oh Noah, you’re a hoot sometimes. You know the Kleins would never let their only daughter skip out on the most important gala of the year. Especially not when her mother practically runs the gala committee and her father is gunning for the Chief of Staff position at the hospital next year.”
Shit. The woman had a point. The last time Dr. Klein had pushed to move up in the ranks at San Francisco’s largest hospital, he’d dragged his beautiful and intelligent daughter to every event he attended in the hopes that she’d boost his public persona. The hospital’s Board of Directors loved her. She was a credit to the Klein name and everyone in that family knew it. For the next year, he suspected Naomi would be forced into attending three times the number of events as usual, no matter how much she hated it. The man was a perfectly good surgeon. Couldn’t he score the hospital directorship on his own? Apparently not.
But he didn’t want to give his mom the satisfaction of admitting that she might be right out loud. He and Naomi had both managed to carve out lives for themselves outside of the glitz and glamour of their vaunted family names. But secretly, they’d admitted to one another that when their parents really wanted something from either of them, they mostly acquiesced. Noah had often thought things would be so much easier if neither he nor Naomi actually liked their parents. Disappointing them would have been less tortuous than being trotted out for the dog and pony show they’d been enduring their whole lives.
“I’ll call Naomi later today to find out if she’s going. If she is, and she doesn’t already have a date, we’ll do the media line together.”
“And dance together,” his mother bargained.
“Maybe.”
“It’s just one dance, Noah. I don’t know why you have to be so recalcitrant. You like Naomi, don’t you?”
“Yes, mom. You know full well she’s one of my closest friends.”
“I always did say the best love affairs were built on solid friendships.”
“Bye, mother.”
“Goodbye, Noah. See you for lunch on Wednesday.”
Once he’d showered, Noah puttered around the house catching up on email and then watching an episode of his favorite show on Netflix. And through it all, he wondered what Angelica was u
p to. Had she woken up thinking about him? Were her muscles sore from exertion, too? He was about to pick up his phone to call her when there was a knock at his door.
“Yoo hoo,” Naomi called as she pushed through the screen door with a box in her hands. “I’ve got your labels.” She set them down on the entry hall table.
“You didn’t have to bring them here, especially on the weekend. I could have picked them up from you tomorrow.”
“It’s okay,” she said, swiping her palms down her paint-spattered jeans to clean them off. “I wanted to come by anyhow so we could talk.” Naomi Klein was tall and slender, with her father’s dark, wavy hair and her mother’s high, pale forehead. She spent most of her time in her studio, so her skin stayed practically translucent. Noah was pretty sure his friend hadn’t seen the actual outdoors in years other than from inside the tinted windows of her Mercedes.
“Talk?” Noah asked, worried where this might be going. He hadn’t lied to his mother. Naomi was one of his closest friends, but they’d blurred the lines of that friendship pretty frequently over the years, and he’d never quite gotten comfortable with where that might eventually leave them. They’d promised not to fall in love with one another, and while he really didn’t think that would be a problem, he couldn’t help but flinch any time a woman said they needed to talk. More often than not, the relationship discussion followed.
“It appears you’re taking me to the gala next weekend.”
He groaned. “Yeah, my mom called this morning and roped me into going. I tried to get out of it, but you know how she is.”
“Better than most.” She dropped into the distressed leather club chair across from him and took a swig of his beer.
“Hey, get your own.”
“I will,” she said with an impish grin. “After I’ve finished yours.”
“Bitch.”
“Asshole.”
They smiled at each other, the familiar insults ones they’d been trading for more than two decades.
“So, what time are you picking me up?” she asked, tipping back the bottle. True to her word, she’d emptied the last dregs of his favorite IPA.
“Does eight o’clock work for you?”
Her lips pursed, and she looked to the ceiling. “Seven would probably be better.”
“But that means we’ll get there early.”
“It means we can leave early, too.”
“Good point,” he acknowledged, pushing off the sofa to grab another bottle. “You want one?” he asked over his shoulder as he stepped into the kitchen.
“No thanks, I have to drive down to Sausalito tonight for a gallery opening.”
Noah groaned. If there was anything he hated more than going to galas it was schmoozing at hoity-toity galleries. That was one of the reasons he and Naomi would never have worked as a couple. As an in-demand sculptor, she spent most of her free nights in them—by choice—while he’d find any excuse to avoid them.
When he came back into the room, Naomi was staring at him with a look on her face he couldn’t interpret. And that had him worried. After twenty years, he thought he knew all her expressions.
“What?” he asked, settling into the soft cushions of his worn leather sofa. “You’re staring. You know I hate it when you stare.”
“You don’t have to be my date, you know.”
He shrugged. “I know. But it’s kind of our thing by now.”
“You could take someone else if you wanted.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “And who would I possibly take? You know every woman I’ve ever brought to one of these things thought it meant a ring was forthcoming. No thanks.” He raised the bottle to hips lips and drank down a few deep gulps.
“You could take Angelica Travis.”
Noah choked on his beer and his eyes watered as he fought back his coughing fit. He hadn’t told Naomi about Angelica yet, but he had been wondering how to bring it up without coming off like an asshole. It’d been months since they’d last fooled around, but Noah was smart enough not to talk about the new woman he was fucking with the one he’d once fucked on the regular—no matter how close of a friend she might be. While this particular situation had never been covered in one of the umpteen etiquette courses his mother had forced him to attend, he knew doing so would be poor form any way you sliced it.
“Angelica?” he asked, going for nonchalant and failing.
“Oh, come off it. Her camera crew is a big bunch of gossips, and they hit the bar almost every night.”
“Those fuckers. I knew I didn’t like them.”
She laughed. “And I just came from Frankie’s. Max confirmed everything.”
“What did that rat bastard confirm?”
Naomi tilted her head and studied him, like she might one of her sculptures as she searched out any obvious flaw in her work. “You’re into her,” she eventually said.
“She’s my neighbor, and we’re friends.”
She raised one of her perfectly groomed eyebrows. “Like you and I have been friends?”
Noah didn’t often blush, but when he did, he did so all the way to roots of his hair and to the tips of his ears. He felt like he was twelve years old again, seeing his first pair of breasts. When his face was so hot it felt like it was going to melt off, he broke her stare and looked away. “It’s not like that.”
“No, I suppose not,” she sighed.
Uh oh, what does that tone mean? he asked himself as he brought his face back around to study his lifelong friend. She’s not disappointed, is she?
“You’re not … I mean … you didn’t think …” He couldn’t even bring himself to ask the question.
Naomi took his meaning immediately and laughed uproariously. “Oh god, no. You and me? No, absolutely not.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “That’d be an unmitigated disaster. You’re hot, Noah, and I love you, but I don’t love you like that.”
“Then what was all that about?” He waved in her general direction.
“You’re getting old.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m in the prime of my life.”
She shot him fake daggers. “And I don’t look a day over twenty-five.”
Now it was his turn to study Naomi. By any objective measure, she was a beautiful woman. Months ago, he would have freely admitted she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever been with, but since meeting Angelica, no one else compared. But his friend was right. She didn’t look her age. And yet he couldn’t let her get the final word. “Not a day over thirty, at least.”
“Fuck you!” she laughed, and he smirked in response. “You’re just being an asshole because you loooove her.” She dragged the word out like a fifth grader, her hands clenched in front of her chest and her eyebrows batting exaggeratingly.
Their easy ribbing was one of the things he valued most about their friendship. Noah knew she’d never take offense to anything he said, and vice versa. On the flip side, he and Angelica had been sniping at one another since practically the first moment they’d met. While it wasn’t conventional flirting, it certainly kept his blood hot. One thing was for certain, Angelica made him feel alive.
He took another swig of his beer. “I do not love her. I love her ass, and yes, I like her, but you’re getting way ahead of yourself.”
“Rumor has it you and Angelica look good together. Like really good.”
“What’s that even mean?”
“It means she’s Marilyn Monroe and you’re—” she peered at him assessingly. “Well, I don’t know who you are, but whoever it is, he’s one handsome devil.”
“Oh yeah?” Noah knew he was an attractive man, but Angelica was fucking stunning. If people thought they looked good together, it was only because they’d been blinded by her incandescent beauty.
“Yeah,” Naomi confirmed. “And I also heard you couldn’t stop smiling.” She pointed at his face. “Like that.”
He forced his lips to relax. “I wasn’t smiling.”
“You were so smiling
.”
“Alright,” he admitted. “I was smiling.”
Growing serious, he knew he needed to caution his friend not to go getting any ideas about him and Angelica. “It’s not serious. Neither of us is looking for anything permanent.”
“Are you sure?”
Noah paused. Was he sure? If Naomi had asked him the same question a couple of days ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated to answer. He absolutely was not looking for a relationship. And yet, his Friendship Day with Angelica had been perfect. She’d been perfect. If being with her meant days like that—followed by nights like that—he might reconsider his position. But Noah was a practical man. As much as he craved his sexy neighbor’s company now, he didn’t believe those feelings would last. In time, they’d discover each other’s faults, pick at them, and wind up fighting all the damn time. Which was reason enough not to go down that road. He truly liked Angelica; he couldn’t imagine one day hating her too.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Now if only he actually believed that.
Chapter Twelve
Leaning closer to hear the naughty suggestions Noah was making through the steam of their coffees, Angelica almost didn’t hear her name being called.
“Miss Travis! Miss Travis!” An older man, almost impossibly skinny, was pushing through the crowd of people that inevitably thronged River Hill’s favorite coffee shop.
The Hollow Bean had incredible coffee—the best Angelica had ever had—but the little storefront on Main Street had an absolutely terrible layout. It was something to do with the historic nature of the building, she’d heard. Apparently, they couldn’t change it, so they had to figure out how to work with it. And so all the coffee-drinkers of River Hill had learned very quickly how to do a very specific dance-and-shuffle to get their fix. In general, everything moved smoothly. Unless somebody disrupted the flow, like now.
“Mayor Rideout?” Angelica shifted aside to make room for the man, letting the crowd reform around him like Jell-o. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” the mayor said with a genial smile. “Hello, Mr. Blackstone.”
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