Irresistibly Us (Steel City Legacy #2)

Prologue

SOPHIE

Nine Years Ago

“I’m not late!” I yell, the various bags hanging from my arms bouncing against my legs and my bracelet stack jingling as I jog across my best friend Tyler’s expansive backyard.

“Cutting it a little close there, Sally.” Tyler makes a show of looking down at his watch and then smirking at me from where he sits on top of a blanket spread over the grass and piled with pillows.

With his tall, broad frame, golden-brown hair, and clear, ocean-blue eyes, he looks every inch the all-American high school quarterback.

I make a face even as everything inside me lights up.

I may secretly love the nicknames Tyler gave us when we were twelve and watched When Harry Met Sally together for what would be the first of many, many times, but I would rather poke my own eyes out with a rusty fork than give him the satisfaction of telling him.

“It’s ten fifty-seven, Harry!” I practically gasp, dropping all my bags onto the blanket and collapsing next to him, laying down and staring up at the inky, star-studded sky as I catch my breath.

“I still have three minutes. It’s tech week for the play.

It took me a hundred years to scrape off the makeup from dress rehearsal, and then I forgot about my AP Calc homework because the play has eaten all my brain cells. You’re lucky I made it at all.”

“Two minutes now.” Tyler leans down and kisses my cheek, flicking my bracelets with his index finger in an old habit. “Happy birthday, Soph.”

In an almost unconscious gesture, I link my finger with his, squeezing once then letting go. “Happy almost birthday, Ty.”

The face I know almost better than my own splits with a wide grin, his eyes twinkling under the dim glow of the light shining from the back deck.

My chest floods with warmth at another year of this longstanding birthday tradition of ours.

Our moms have been best friends since their law school days, so Tyler and I grew up together down the street from each other.

We’ve been best friends since the day Tyler was born, one day after me.

The year we turned eight, we conjured a plan to sneak out of our houses and spend the last hour of my birthday and the first hour of Tyler’s together in his backyard.

We ate cupcakes we brought for each other, exchanged presents, made birthday wishes, and talked about everything our newly minted eight-year-old brains could think of.

We probably would have stayed out there all night, but eventually Tyler’s mom caught us and broke up the party.

That didn’t stop us from repeating our late-night rendezvous the next year, though, and now our little birthday tradition is in its eleventh year.

“Did you bring the goods?”

“Of course I did.” I sit up and reach for my many bags, fumbling through them and trying to remember which one holds the bakery box.

“I think this might be a bag record,” Tyler says, voice full of fondness that makes me smile. “How many do you have there? Five?”

“Six. My purse, my school bag, my bag from rehearsal, a bag of blankets in case you forgot to bring them, the snacks, and then the alternate snacks in case we were in a salty mood. Here it is!” I crow, grabbing the small white bakery box out of, for some weird reason, my school bag.

I’ve never claimed to be an organized sort of person—barely controlled chaos is my brand.

When I turn back around, Tyler already has his own bakery box open, showing off the cupcake inside.

“Wow, you really upped your game this year.” The chocolate cupcake is almost twice the size of a regular cupcake, the frosting expertly piped and covered with rainbow sprinkles, pink candle stuck in the top.

In addition to being a hotshot quarterback who was the number one college recruit in the country this year and basically a shoo-in for the NFL, Tyler is also an expert baker.

To some it might seem like an incongruous mix of hobbies, but to me, it’s just Tyler, my lifelong best friend and most important person who bakes me a chocolate peanut butter cupcake for my birthday every year because he knows it’s my favorite.

He grins at me. “Thank you for noticing. I added extra peanut butter to the frosting. Gotta keep my best girl happy.”

I snort. “Better not tell Alyssa I’m your best girl. She may have a thing or two to say about that.” Tyler’s girlfriend is definitely not a Sophie Sullivan fan, and the feeling is entirely mutual.

Tyler just shrugs. “She might, but it doesn’t make it any less true. You’re my best friend in the whole world. My favorite person. Nothing could ever change that.”

This isn’t new. Tyler has told me this exact thing a million times in the last eighteen years, so I have no clue why this time his words make my eyes burn, a strange flood of emotion tightening my throat.

I don’t understand it and I don’t want him to see it, so I clench the hand not holding the bakery box into a fist, nails biting into my skin until the feeling passes.

“Well, I wish I could say I upped my game this year, but unfortunately for you, I definitely did not.” I flip open the box I brought to reveal the vanilla Funfetti cupcake that has been Tyler’s favorite since we were kids.

A blue candle is stuck haphazardly into frosting that is the opposite of expertly piped.

I suck at cooking and baking. Like, total expert levels of suckage.

Tyler’s annual birthday cupcake I make with a boxed mix and pre-made frosting is the single exception to my complete avoidance of the kitchen.

Tyler smiles. “Soph, you have the final performance of your high school career in six days and you’re the lead.

You’re also taking a truly insane number of AP classes, you’re president of the senior class responsible for planning all the senior week activities, and you’re the freaking valedictorian.

I don’t care what the cupcake looks like. I’m just happy you’re here.”

I take a deep breath and exhale, letting go of the chaos of my day and the marathon that is spring semester of senior year, instead focusing on being right here.

On the cool night air that smells perfectly like spring and Tyler’s cozy backyard and the warm familiarity of this annual tradition with my best friend.

I smile back at him, taking in the face that has been home to me for as long as I can remember, handing him my bakery box at the same time as he hands me his. “I’m happy I’m here too. Okay, no more school or life talk. Only birthday things.”

“On three?” Tyler asks with a grin.

I nod, matching his grin with one of my own. “On three.”

“One.” At Tyler’s count, we each take out our cupcake and toss the box to the side before removing the candle and licking off the frosting.

“Two.” Then it’s my turn to count, and we both peel down the wrapper on one side.

“Three.” We say the last number together, and then, in a move perfected over eleven years of birthday nights, we link arms and each take a bite of our cupcake like we’re newlyweds taking our first bite of wedding cake.

“Oh my god,” I mumble through a mouthful of chocolate cake and peanut butter frosting. I unlink our arms and close my eyes. “I think I’m having a religious experience. This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.” I swallow and immediately go for another bite. “One hundred percent your best one yet.”

“Oh, I know,” Tyler says, beaming at me.

“Only the best for you, Sophie baby. You have frosting on your nose.” He reaches out and rubs the pad of his thumb over my nose before sticking his thumb in his own mouth and sucking off the frosting.

He winks at me, and weirdly, the entire move has my stomach swooping, my body flashing with heat.

Jesus, I must be more exhausted than I thought if I’m reacting to Tyler this way.

Tyler Hansley. Best friend Tyler, who I once watched fart into a Tupperware container and freeze it to see how long the smell would last. Tyler, who is now shoving his entire Funfetti cupcake into his mouth and chewing with his mouth open because it’s too full to close.

I roll my eyes, but he just grins again and swallows the cake. “Your best one yet too.”

I make an incredulous noise. “I overcooked the cupcake because I got distracted by calculus and then I frosted it when the cupcake was still a little hot so the frosting kind of melted.”

Laughing, he reaches over and flicks my bracelets again. “Okay fine, it’s barely edible but I love you anyway. Presents?”

Relieved my momentary bout of insanity seems to be over, I reach back into my pile of bags for the wrapped present I brought. “This one actually is my best one yet, so I’m going second.”

“You got it.” He hands me a box wrapped in pink wrapping paper covered in cupcakes.

“Oh my god, I love the wrapping paper,” I squeal.

“I can tell,” he says wryly, watching me tear it to shreds like a toddler on Christmas morning. It’s my usual move, having very little patience for wrapping paper when it just serves to hide the present inside.

I wave that away, lifting the lid on the box and immediately lapsing into uncontrollable giggles. The picture is from our trip to Kennywood last summer. Tyler convinced me to go on the Steel Curtain with him, despite the fact that I have a long-standing hatred of rollercoasters.