Page 6 of Sugarlips
“I-I don’t know if that’s such a good idea—”
“Oh, come on. I’m not asking you to sleep with your penis in my vagina. I’m just asking if we can watch another movie in a different area of my house together. Best friends do that, you know. They have sleepovers.”
I narrowed my eyes at her playfully. “I didn’t agree to be your best friend.”
She tossed her toothbrush onto the sink and walked past me into her bedroom. “Not yet, but you will.”
12:57 a.m.
Damn, this is a comfy bed.What the hell are these sheets made out of? Silk? Satin? Heroin?
Chloe was curled on her side in the fetal position. Her breathing was steady and deep, and she made the most adorable sighing sounds every few breaths. Somewhere between Elle Woods moving to Boston and her getting the Callahan internship, she must have fallen asleep.
My arm was draped over her and she was tucked into me. I tried my damnedest not to think about how well we fit. We were big spoon and little spoon personified.
But Chloe Dyker didn’t need a big spoon right now. She needed a friend. A best friend, apparently. She’d said so several times that night.
As quietly as I could manage, I unlatched my fingers from where hers threaded between mine and rolled away, wincing as the bed squeaked with my movement.
She stirred beside me, rolling on her back and rubbing at her puffy eyes. “Liam?”
My spine went stiff. “Shhh,” I whispered. “It’s late. Go back to sleep.”
She was sitting upright now, her eyes wide. “Are you leaving?”
“I…” To be honest, I was thinking about it. What was it about Chloe Dyker that had such mesmerizing power over me? “No. I was just getting some water. Would you like some?”
“If by water, you mean tequila, yes.”
I made a face at her. “I think maybe you’ve had enough tequila for one night.”
“How about a donut instead?”
I nodded, and after a few minutes, I returned with a frosted donut resting on a small plate and two glasses of water, as well as a couple of ibuprofen. “Think you can keep these down?” I asked, placing the two gel caps into her outstretched palm.
She shrugged and popped them into her mouth with no objection, washing them down with water. Then, she dove for the donut, dipping her finger into the frosting and licking it off her finger.
“Hey,” I laughed, moving her hand away. “We’re sharing that. It’s the last one.”
She gave me an exaggerated pout as I dropped an empty waste can beside her on the floor… just in case. “I’ve just been dumped… you’re not going to let me have the last donut?”
I crawled back into bed beside her and pinched off a piece of the donut. “Best friends share…”
Her grin widened. “So, you admit we’re going to be best friends?”
“I don’t know. You going to share that last donut?”
Biting the corner of her bottom lip, she slid the plate toward me on the comforter and I took another piece. “How come you don’t sell donuts at the bakery?”
I shrugged. “They don’t really fit the branding. Donuts are sort of a specialty thing and people don’t think to come to us for it.”
She quirked a brow in my direction. “Doesn’t mean you can’t shift your branding to include it. Because these might be the best donuts I’ve ever had. And that’s saying something.”
I tried to include donuts at the bakery a couple times, but they didn’t take off. People come in for cupcakes, croissants, and cakes. Not for a dozen donuts to feed their houseguests in the morning. “Well, maybe the next business we open will be donuts.” I smiled and brushed my thumb across her lips where some of the glaze was clinging. “Sugarlips Donuts.”
Chloe’s eyes went wide. “Sugarlips Donuts,” she whispered. “I love it. It could be what you sell on your food truck,” she added, studying my face like I was her notes for a final exam. “You wouldn’t even have to bake out of the food truck. You could bake at Beefcakes and then just sell them remotely out of the truck.”
The statement struck a chord in my gut making me sit taller in the bed. But as much as the idea initially excited me, the seed of an idea was still far from germination. “Even drunk, you can’t turn off your marketing brain, huh?”
