Chapter 12
Rachel
WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, it’s almost eleven in the morning, and Kai is nowhere to be found.
I walk toward the kitchen, my eyes roaming the house looking for him.
Disappointment fills me when I reach the kitchen, and instead of him, I see Noah cooking pancakes.
Again. This man and his pancakes. I hate them, but he loves them, so as his best friend, I have to love them too.
“I saw him leaving as I was pulling up your driveway,” he informs me.
I’m not surprised he read my thoughts; Noah has always been like this.
He has always known the right things to say or what crosses my mind before I can voice it.
He might be the asshole who will tease me for an eternity for my mistakes, but he has always been the most supportive friend a girl could have.
“Okay,” I say as I take a seat, and he puts a plate of pancakes in front of me.
I smile and cut a piece of the warm food on my plate.
Bringing the fork to my lips, I taste the bite.
Noah loves pancakes, but pancakes don’t love Noah.
This is terrible. I force myself to swallow and then take a long sip from the coffee mug he has set next to the plate, trying my best to wash the taste away with the dark liquid.
“Don’t go there,” he warns.
“Where?” I pretend that my brain hasn’t already gone into overthinking mode about all the reasons Kai felt the need to leave before I woke up.
Maybe he had hoped for more than a cuddle and a sleepover, or he was embarrassed when he woke up after his alcohol-induced nap.
He was out cold five minutes after pulling me into that bed, but not once did his hold on me loosen.
I tried to move away once, but he pulled me back, and after a while, I fell asleep.
“You know what I mean.” Noah takes a bite of his pancakes.
His expression suggests he is savoring the taste in his mouth, eyes half-closed, his mouth moving slowly, chewing the piece of pancake.
He can’t really like this, can he? “You’re spiraling about the fact that he left without a goodbye.
You always go for the emotionally unavailable ones and then get depressed when they don’t give you what you want.
” Rude. He’s not wrong, but this is plain rude.
“This man is obsessed with you; this is clear enough to me, but he also seems to have the habit of ghosting you. And yes, this time I agree with you—leaving without a goodbye, especially after you picked him up from jail yesterday, is not okay.”
“I’m not attracted to him,” I lie. “Besides, he’s the one chasing me around.”
“You both chase each other around.” He takes another bite of his food.
“You’re not wrong,” I admit. I stand and walk to the counter where the coffee maker is plugged into the wall. I take the empty coffee mug with me and fill it to the brim before I go back to my previous seat.
“So...” Noah lets the silence fill the room for a minute before he continues. “Book club?” He changes the subject because my friend knows me too well. He knows when to back off.
I laugh. “Book club,” I say back with excitement, and Noah has already left his seat and is taking our plates to the sink. This is what we need: our familiar routine, without drunk boys and stupid kidnappings.
ABOUT THREE HOURS LATER and a hundred pages deep in our books, I decide that enough time has passed for me to ask about Leo.
“What happened with Leo when you left?” Straight to the point.
There’s no need to fool around trying to be discreet.
I want the tea, and this book isn’t providing tea-worthy drama so far.
It’s a good book, don’t get me wrong, but slow burns are not my cup of tea either most of the time.
I can appreciate one, and I pick one to read more often than Noah, but I prefer a taste of gasoline with the smut starting from page one more.
Noah, though, who was the one to pick today’s book, heard great things about it and insisted this was the perfect read.
So here we are, reading a slow-burn romantic comedy with a grumpy male main character and a ray of fucking sunshine for a female character.
This book is unrealistic; no woman is that perky and happy all the time.
“I drove him home.” Noah doesn’t bother to look up from his book. He turns the page and keeps reading, unbothered.
I place my half-open book on my lap. “Your home?” I question with a smirk.
“No, Rachel.” Noah sounds annoyed, but I know better.
“Then whose?” I press until Noah puts his book next to him on the couch.
“His apartment, Rachel.” He gives me an annoyed look. “Not all of us take home the criminal we bailed out of jail, Rachel, and cuddle him to sleep.”
“Cruel,” I say, laughing. “But fair. I did cuddle him.”
“You did, didn’t you?” Noah laughs with me, and just like that, the book is a distant memory of our day.
We get into a long conversation about men, jokes, and work gossip, as we usually do on Sundays.
The aroma of coffee fills my house, accompanied by our laughter and voices.
It’s what I like about Sundays—the routine we've had since we were eighteen. We met when we were kids and have always been friends, but it wasn’t until our first year of cosmetology school that we became best friends, and since then, we have never spent a single Sunday apart.
It is the best kind of friendship a girl can ask for—a best friend who loves to read smutty books and gossips with you while he fixes your hair, feeds you terrible pancakes, and gives you good coffee.
While we are deep in our conversation, lost in the latest drama that happened in the salon yesterday right before we closed for the day, a sound interrupts us.
We both turn toward the door where someone is knocking.
I get up and walk there, curious about who it could be, but when I reach the door and open it, I freeze.
There is no one at my door, but there is a brown box with a puppy inside.
It’s a black Labrador puppy that looks identical to my childhood dog.
A blue ribbon is around his neck, and a note is tucked between his fur and the ribbon.
“Is that a puppy?” Noah asks from behind me.
“That’s what it looks like,” I murmur as I read the note.
Good morning, little criminal,
I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I had to visit the few shelters that are open on Sundays to find this little fellow. His name is Ripley. I thought it was time you got a new man in your life that isn’t me. Ripley here is the only one I am willing to share you with.
See you soon,
Kai
“WHAT DOES THE NOTE say?” Noah rips the note from my hand. He turns his back and walks inside, reading it carefully. I pick the puppy up. Ripley starts licking my face and wiggling his little tail, happy to be in my arms.
“Let’s go, little one.” I kick the door shut and walk back to the living room. Noah is still reading the note.
“Did he actually get you a dog?” His eyes find mine.
“Seems like it.” I hug Ripley tighter. His fur is soft against my skin.
“I might be wrong about him after all.” Noah reaches to pet the puppy with me, and I can see a warm smile form on his lips.
It's one I recognize well. As much as he wants to be the protective best friend he is, right now he is falling as hard for the charming man with the blue hair as I am. In his little head, he has already planned our wedding and picked the names of our future children. Can you blame him? Romance readers are wired this way. We like to ship people with each other, fictional or not. When the person in question is as sweet as Kai while also being a little psychotic and unhinged, you can’t do anything but fall for him.