Page 60 of Sugarlips
I took a bite, the smallest bite known to man, and chewed slowly.
Nope. They decidedly didnottaste better than they looked. Impossibly, they were worse than they looked. I couldn’t even fake a smile as Chloe glanced at me, anticipation etched in her raised brows and bright eyes. “Well? I think I’m getting really good. I mean, it’s only been two days, but I never would have tried to make muffins from scratch before!”
I bought myself an extra second to think as I chewed and forced myself to swallow the gritty bite. The texture of the ‘frosting’ felt like sand had been poured into the whipped cream cheese. “They’re… um… did you not use confectioner’s sugar?”
She shook her head, chest puffed, proud of herself. “Nope! I used that erythritol stuff you do. Your mom is on a strict sugar-free, grain-free diet and I wanted her to be able to have one after her surgery.”
“Yeah. The thing about erythritol is that at the bakery, I blend it so that it becomes like a powdered sugar so that its melting point is lower…”
She looked confused. “It doesn’t melt?”
“It incorporates better into the baked goods when it’s powdered.”
She blinked a few times, her confidence deflating. “Are they bad?”
“No,” I answered without thinking and wishing I had just kept my stupid mouth shut. Shebakedfor me, which was so sweet. Especially since we hadn’t finished up at the truck until 11:30 last night. That meant she had spent the last hour of her evening baking when she also woke up before four in the morning.
Yep, Chloe Dyker was a saint. And I was an asshole. “They’re good. Really.”
Her scowl deepened. “I want to try one.” As she reached for the muffin in my hand, the wheel turned a little, swerving her car to the right.
“No!” I shoved the whole thing in my mouth so that she couldn’t take it from me and forced my mouth to curve into a smile as I chewed. And chewed. And chewed some more until I could finally swallow the giant, revolting thing down.
She glared at me, her gaze so sharp it could have cut right through the windshield. “Give me a muffin, Liam.Now.”
I sighed and grabbed one of the other muffins from the Tupperware, handing it to her. Driving with one hand, she took a bite. “Oh my God,” she muttered, her mouth still full. The bite barely stayed in her mouth for one second before she rolled down her window and spat it out, tossing the rest of the muffin with it. “Oh my God,” she repeated. “I don’t even think the birds will eat that! That was the most revolting thing I’ve ever had in my mouth! And that includes Pockmark Peter Wilson when I gave him that blowjob in college!” She wiped her tongue against her sleeve. “Ugh, how could you let me eat that?”
“Letyou!? I tried to stop you! I ate a whole damn muffin trying to save you!”
Her gentle giggle started quietly at first, rippling through the air with only a small trembling of her shoulders. But her infectious laugh quickly grew louder and louder until we were both laughing so hard that tears streamed down our cheeks. “You ate…” she gasped for a breath between words. “You ate the entire thing! It was disgusting, but you shoved it down your gullet like a starving seagull at the beach.”
“The things I do for you, Dyker!”
But really, it was what she did for me that was so amazing—terrible muffins and all—Chloe was the real thing. She was true and good and honest.
And I was damn lucky to have her. Even if it was only as a friend.
Most of my life, my brothers and sister had been my best friends. Maybe some of my only friends. At least the ones that stood the test of time. I leaned on them consistently.
A sobering thought slammed into me as my laughter subsided. I leaned on them—but they didn’t lean on me nearly as much. Neil had made friends out in LA. And Addy was Maple Grove’s social butterfly. She knew everyone. As one of the few late-night bartenders in our small town, she was practically a therapist who knew everyone’s problems. And, of course, Finn could charm the pants off of any woman… and did. Consistently. Not to mention he had his fraternity brothers, and most of them still lived within an hour of here.
Even my mom had her gaggle of friends in town.
So, it was just me. The lone wolf.
Except I wasn’t a wolf. Wolves were alpha and masculine. I was something smaller… sweeter. Like a lone… otter.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have friends. Idid. I just didn’t see them much. With my schedule, it was rare that I had the time or the energy to meet up with people, and through the years, those friendships just… waned.
God, that was pathetic. I guess I needed Chloe more than I realized.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice far quieter than I intended it to be. “For being…” My words faded, but as always, Chloe jumped in to the rescue.
“Your person?”
Her words made my heart kick faster against my breastbone. In fact, I was going to say ‘for being here for me,’ but I decided not to correct her. Instead, I nodded, repeating, “For being my person.” But that statement also made a dull sense of loss spread through my stomach. As much as I wanted to believe that to be true, shewasn’tmine. Not really. Despite the other night. Despite all my efforts. And even despite the fact that I knew she had feelings for me, too.
I studied her for the length of an inhale. The sky outside the window was fading to a light bruised color; the deep blues and purples of the night edging away as a faint hue of yellow split between the wispy clouds. Yellow light streamed in, cascading over her face and golden hair. For a long moment, I was distracted by the glow of her skin beneath the sunbeam.
