Page 8 of My Not So Wicked Stepbrother (My Not So Wicked 1)

“Y’all are having a baby?” Shelby beamed at the pair. “I love babies.” She turned her sights back on Sawyer with her unnatural lashes flapping again as if she were asking him to father a few for her.

Sawyer gave her an uneasy smile and clapped his hands together. “Is everyone ready to order? I’m starved.”

Goddess Divine’s smile faded with confusion as if this sort of thing had never happened to her before. I was confused on her behalf. She was like cotton candy perfection in her baby blue off-the-shoulder sundress. Why Sawyer didn’t want to devour her and let her melt in his mouth I had no idea.

I felt so bad for her, I swallowed my pride—not that I had much left after my soda incident—and decided I should help her to feel included. I didn’t want her to think us Westerners lacked hospitality.

“Where are you from, Shelby?”

She sat up straighter, which I didn’t think was possible. I had already noted her impeccable posture. My guess was she had been to finishing school and was probably a debutante. Which made me wonder why she was an office manager for an eye clinic. Whatever she was, she made me feel like a slouch. I tried pulling my shoulders back like hers, but that expended way too much energy.

Some of Shelby’s enthusiasm returned. “I’m from Roswell, Georgia,” she said in her refined Southern drawl.

“What brings you to Colorado?”

She swallowed hard and smoothed her dress out while avoiding any eye contact. “I . . . needed . . . I wanted a change of scenery.”

Right. I tilted my head and studied the Georgia Peach who was now sipping her strawberry lemonade as if she was filming a commercial. How did she do that so daintily? The better question was what was she hiding, and did it have anything to do with my man, I meant my friend? You know, the one I was sort of related to. I downed some more Dr. Pepper. This time I remembered to breathe between swallows.

Miss Perfection set down her drink and found her dazzling smile again. “So, Sawyer, about that tour?”

Dang Dr. Pepper went down the wrong way again.

“Arms up, Em.”Chapter Two“Em, wait up.”

I had almost made it to my Jeep parked down the street from the café when my favorite voice called my name. I turned around to find Sawyer jogging toward me with a takeout bag in his hand. My grin came out.

Sawyer landed in front of me and held out the bag. “You forgot your leftovers . . . again.”

I swiped the bag from him. “Thank you.”

“What would you do without me?”

He probably didn’t realize it, but that was a deeply complex question. Ever since he entered my life, much of it had changed—and not all for the better, except he had become the best of my best friends. Of course, I would never tell that to Jenna, Brad or even Aspen, who was one of my closest friends from junior high and the mom of one of the girls on my soccer team. But Sawyer got me like no one else ever had. Did you see anyone else running after me bringing my take-out box? He knew I would be severely disappointed tomorrow morning when I left for work and had to pack a lunch instead of being able to grab the scrumptious leftovers from the meal we’d shared. And no one had ever shared their meals with me before. They never quite got how I loved options with each meal. Why settle for one dish when you could have a taste of two? Sawyer totally understood that. But as wonderful of a friend as he was, his presence had not only introduced the crap fest that was unrequited love, but he brought along a person who had fundamentally changed my life and still had me reeling. I couldn’t tell him that, though.

“I would eat PB and J tomorrow. Who knows, I may forget this,” I held up the bag, “in my fridge tomorrow.”

“I’ll text you in the morning to remind you to take it.”

See? Best friend ever. I would have preferred best boyfriend of all time, but that dang last name of mine was a killjoy.

“I have to be at the plant at six, so I’ll be leaving my house before you’re even up.”

He pressed his lips together and thought for a second. “Hand me your phone.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to set a reminder for you.”

“I can do that.”

He held out his hand. “But you might forget, so hand it over.”

I reached into my pocket to comply. While I wasn’t making direct eye contact I decided to rub some salt in my wounds. “Did you ask Shelby out?”

“No, no,” he spluttered.

I dared a peek into his eyes when I handed him my phone to see what those gorgeous amber jewels had to tell me. They were darting all over the place, so I couldn’t read them. “Why not? She seems . . . nice.” And determined. She’d made sure to get him alone after we paid and had said our goodbyes.

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