Chapter 21
DREW
This was what walking on air felt like. I’d heard people describe it. I’d rolled my eyes at Callum when it became clear he was crazy about Victoria. I didn’t understand it then, but damn, I had seen the light now. It turned out the feeling was real and it was annoying how good it felt.
I didn’t know what to call what was happening between us.
Boyfriend and girlfriend felt like words for teenagers, too small for a decade of history.
I knew her better than a lot of young married couples knew their spouses.
Kensey was my best friend, which made me privy to all those little details a woman might not share with her boyfriend.
I didn’t want it to stop, so I decided to do something I basically never did. I planned an actual date.
Not the kind I used to throw together for women I was trying to sleep with. I didn’t make a reservation at the best restaurant in the city that required me pulling strings. That was all flash and no substance. Kensey deserved better.
I thought about what she actually loved. Not what impressed people. What made her smile. It had nothing to do with steak dinners and expensive bottles of wine.
The following day, I closed my laptop just after two. I stood up and walked out of my office like a man who had somewhere to be. Because I did.
Kensey looked up from her desk, eyebrows raised. “That’s it? You’re done?”
“We’re done.”
“We are?”
“Yep. Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
I grinned. “I planned a date for us.”
“You did?”
“Let’s go.”
She looked at her laptop and then shrugged. “If the boss says so.”
We headed downstairs and were stopped by Edith. She looked at me, then Kensey.
“Already done for the day?” she asked, in that tone that wasn’t really a question.
“Yep.”
“It’s barely two.”
“I’m aware of the time.”
“We’ve got the event details.”
“It’s done. Kensey has it under control”
“What about—”
“Edith.” I held up a hand. “Everything is handled. The calendar’s clean. The event is on track. The store’s going to run just fine without me hovering over it for the rest of the afternoon.”
She looked genuinely thrown by this. It was probably the first time in six months I’d left before six.
“Amazing what a difference it makes having good help. I should have hired an assistant earlier.”
Edith rolled her eyes. “I could run this place a lot better than you.”
“Great.” I grinned at her. “It’s all yours for the rest of the day. Don’t forget to lock up.”
She opened her mouth like she wanted to argue the point, then apparently decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
I put my arm around Kensey’s shoulders and headed out the front doors.
The store was fine. The event was on track.
Nothing was going to fall apart because I wasn’t standing over it.
I wasn’t going to feel guilty about spending the day with a woman who’d come home for a vacation and I’d put her to work.
“Where are we going?” she asked once we hit the sidewalk, the afternoon heat rolling off the pavement.
“You’ll see.”
She squinted at me like she was trying to read the answer off my face, then gave up and let me steer her toward the car.
I didn’t tell her where we were headed until we were parked outside it. Syke’s Used & Rare Books. Her whole face changed.
“Oh my God.” She actually grabbed my arm. “Is this still here?”
“Still here. Same guy behind the counter, probably. I checked yesterday to make sure it hadn’t closed on us.”
“You checked?”
“I did. I’ve planned a whole afternoon for us.”
We walked in and the smell hit us both at the same time. Old paper, dust, and the faint mustiness of books. Kensey closed her eyes and breathed it in like it was perfume.
“We spent so many afternoons in here,” she said.
“Some of the best days of my life,” I said.
She was already drifting toward the fiction section, trailing her fingers along the spines the way she used to. “This place hasn’t changed even a little.”
It hadn’t. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been back in years. When had I stopped coming? I pulled a book off the shelf, studied the cover, and put it back.
“Okay,” she said, pulling one off the shelf in the romance section. “This one looks good.”
She held it up. The cover featured a man with hair that could only be described as majestic, shirt open to his belly button, cradling a woman who was mid swoon against his forearm like her spine had simply given up.
Her knee was dangerously close to his manhood but I had a feeling it was posed like that to bring attention to where her knee was pointing.
“That’s not real.”
“That’s Fabio, Drew.”
“I don’t care what his name is, that’s weird. Who likes that? Don’t tell me you’re into the long hair.”
“This is a masterpiece.”
I scoffed. “Gross.”
“That’s called passion.” She hugged the book to her chest. “This is not for you. You wouldn’t get it.”
I pulled another paperback and flinched. “What the hell?”
She leaned over and looked at the cover. “I’ve read that.”
“You read this? No fireman dresses like that. What’s the point of the coat if he’s naked underneath?”
“He’s got pants on.”
“Pretty sure those abs are airbrushed.”
“Yours are better,” she said.
I looked at the image of the shirtless firefighter, and while I’d love to believe her, she was full of shit.
“What’s this shit about?” I asked.
I flipped the book open to a random page, scanning it with an expression of pure delight before snapping it shut again. “Nope. Not reading that out loud. I don’t think that is anatomically possible.”
She laughed.
And then I remembered she said she read it. “Wait, did you actually read that?”
“I did.” She pulled another book and showed me the cover. “This one, too. Hot.”
“You naughty, naughty girl.”
Her eyes flashed with that flirty glint that had me growing hard in the middle of the musty bookstore. She moved down the row. I followed her, watching as she pulled one title, read the back cover, and put it back on the shelf.
I watched her, and while she was the same person I’d always known, it was like seeing her through a new lens. My best friend is a woman. Duh. I’ve always known that, but there’s always been a veil over my eyes. I always viewed her as a pal, not a lover.
And now I know both sides of the whole person. I know her. The more I know, the more I fall for her.
“Oh, I didn’t know this one was out yet,” she said.
“Let’s get it. You can read it to me.”
She giggled. “Oh no. This is not the book I’m reading with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because when I read it, I’m going to blush. I’m not reading it with you. This is the kind of book best enjoyed alone.”
“You make it sound like porn.”
She gave me a look that made my eyes go wide. “Kensey!”
“Don’t judge me. I spend a lot of time alone.”
And I was a horrible friend because that made me happy. If she was alone, she was not with another man.
I snatched the book she was reading. “No,” I said. “Vampire?”
“Stop.” She shooed me away. “Go read your little detective novels. I’m sure Harlen Coben has something new.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Your reading choices are that of an old man that smokes cigars,” she said.
I looked at the three books in her arm. “Really? You’re going to judge my reading habits.”
I insisted on paying for her books with the understanding I got to be the beneficiary of anything she learned in her little smut books.
We walked out of Syke’s with a bag of books and her arm looped through mine. She was still talking about the vampire novel. I was letting her because I liked the way she talked when she was passionate about something. Her hands moved. Her eyes lit up.
I started the car and drove down to the burger place we used to go to back in high school.
“I can’t believe it’s still open,” she said.
“A walk down Memory Lane,” I said.
The inside was exactly the same. The old mom and pop places that were away from the touristy parts of the city didn’t make big bucks, but they had the best food.
They didn’t update. They didn’t rebrand.
The menu was still handwritten on a chalkboard behind the counter.
I liked that they weren’t trying to be anything they weren’t.
We seated ourselves. There were paper menus already on the table.
“I already know what I want,” she said. “Double with cheese.”
“Obviously.”
“Chocolate shake.”
“Is there another option?” I asked.
I ordered for both of us. She looked around the small dining room that only had ten booths. A couple of tables in the middle.
“Do you remember the first time you brought me here?” she asked.
“Of course I do.”
“You drove about forty miles an hour the entire way.”
“I’d only had my license for three minutes.”
“You were extremely cautious.”
“I was responsible,” I said. “My parents threatened to take away my car if I got in a wreck. And I knew they would do it. They did it to Callum. I loved that Beamer.”
“Me too,” she said. “It was very nice and actually really comfortable. Remember when we drove down to San Diego?”
“The zoo,” I said.
“Yes!”
The shakes arrived first. She sucked hard, cheeks hollowing out, and my dick was responding. How could it not?
“Those were some of the best times,” she said, rubbing her temple. “Ouch.”
“Brain freeze?”
“Yes. I haven’t had a legit ice cream shake in forever.”
“Me either.”
“Once you got the car, we were never home.”
“Never,” I agreed. “We’d just drive.”
“Nowhere specific.”
“Nowhere at all,” I said. “Just out. Anywhere that wasn’t where we started. We never did make it up north. I still want to see the redwoods.”
She nodded slowly. “I think about that a lot, actually. How free it felt. Like the whole city was just sitting there waiting for us.”
“It was.”
“We thought we knew everything,” she said.
“We knew enough,” I said. “We knew where to get a good burger.”
She smiled at the table. “We did know that.”
The burgers arrived and we ate the way we always had, which was without a lot of ceremony. She stole two of my fries before her own were halfway gone. I ate mine and watched her talk between bites.
She told me about a road trip she’d taken in New Jersey with a colleague from school.
“Same energy,” she said. “Just going.”
“I used to think about those drives when things got hard,” I said. “I’d think about being sixteen and not knowing any of what was coming and just driving.”
She sighed. “And we used to think being seventeen, dealing with our parents, and failing a test were hard times.”
“Yep. I think the years make us realize how good we had it.”
“Now we sound old.”
“Making me feel old.”
We ate and talked about some of the good times. I realized most of the best times of my life included her. How had I never seen that before?
She sat back when she finished her burger and pressed both hands to her stomach. “I forgot how big those were.”
“You ate the whole thing.”
“I was hungry and it was so good.” She grinned and pulled her shake back toward her, working on the last of it. “You really haven’t been back here?”
I shook my head. “Felt like cheating.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t come here without you. It would be like cheating on you.”
“You’re very sentimental.”
“Who knew?” I said with a shrug.
She let out a long, contented sigh. “I’m going to need a nap.”
“One more stop.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep.”
“Hint,” she said.
“Nope.