“So funny,” she snapped, as she grabbed her platter of cookies and headed toward the front door. “Just promise me you’re not going to mention our little episode to anyone.”

“They won’t hear it from me,” he said following her into the foyer. “But, Brynn, I’ve gotta tell you…”

“What?” she snapped, yanking open the door and turning to face him. “What do you need to tell me? That my ass looks big? That you can see my roots?”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “Although both are true.”

“Nice,” she muttered.

“But what I wanted to say, was that this is the second time you’ve arrived on my front porch. Once you offered sex. The second time you offered cookies.”

“And?”

“Well, I just wanted you to know…” His eyes went hot as they ran down the front of her body and she shivered at the memory of what they’d been like together.

“Yeah?” she asked, hating that her voice was husky.

Will leaned forward until his mouth was near her ear. “I think I like the cookies better.”

With that, he grabbed the platter from her hand and slammed the door in her face.

Brynn stood there for several moments caught somewhere between anger and arousal.

And maybe something that felt like pain, which was ridiculous. She and Will had been trading barbs since puberty.

But this one had felt…personal.

And she was pretty damn sure that where Will Thatcher was concerned, personal was tantamount to dangerous.

CHAPTER FIVE

Friendships between men and women should be avoided. They rarely end well.

—Brynn Dalton’s Rules for an

Exemplary Life, #48

Brynny, guess what?”

Brynn glanced up to where her sister danced happily in the doorway, grateful for a relief from her honors biology homework.

“What’s up?”

Sophie bounced into her room, flouncing onto Brynn’s carefully made bed with gusto.

“Why are you still in your cheerleading outfit?” Brynn asked, glancing at the clock. “I thought the freshman practice was over a couple hours ago.”

Sophie gave a mischievous grin. “It was.”

Brynn’s eyes narrowed, looking her younger sister up and down for signs of trouble. “Did Mel bring you home?”

“Nope.” Sophie twirled her hair and grinned.

“This guessing game is superfun, but just tell me whatever’s got you so bouncy.”

Actually, Sophie was always bouncy. And normally Brynn didn’t mind in the least. She kind of liked having a sister who was queen of the freshman class. Brynn did her best to be friendly and outgoing, but it had never come naturally. Not like it did to her sister.

“I got asked to prom.”

Brynn’s eyes bugged. out. “Prom? But you’re a freshman!”

“Yup. The only one going, that I know of.” Sophie’s voice wasn’t quite gloating. But it was close.

“With whom? Sophie, Mom and Dad are going to totally flip. Not in the good way.”

“Don’t worry, he’s totally the clean-cut kind of guy they want to see their baby girl with.”

Brynn wrinkled her nose, trying to think of options. It would have to be a junior or senior. Freshmen and sophomores weren’t allowed to prom unless asked by upperclassmen.

“Daniel Saunders?” Brynn asked.

“Nope.”

“Nick McFain?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Brian what’s-his-name with the freckles?”

“Hasn’t he had a girlfriend since like second grade?”

Brynn shrugged. “Who, then?”

Sophie flopped onto Brynn’s pillow and gave a little squeal. “Will Thatcher.”

Something sharp seized at Brynn’s chest.

She just didn’t know if it was panic…or pain.

* * *

“How many copies of The Shining does one person need?”

Will glanced over to where Sophie was pulling his DVD collection out of a box. “There are multiple releases with different special features. And you’re not putting them in the right order.”

Sophie paused in lining them up messily on the shelf. “There’s an order? For the exact same movie?”

“If you want to help me unpack, they go in order by release date,” he said, returning to his own unpacking duties.

“Nobody wants to help somebody else unpack,” Sophie muttered as she began turning the DVD cases over and checking dates. “It’s just what friends do.”

“Speaking of which, you were supposed to bring Gray with you. I need his help in moving my pool table to where I want it.”

“First of all…there’s no way you two can move the pool table on your own. It’s probably time to extend your male social circle beyond one. And second, I didn’t bring Gray because then you and I couldn’t have our girl talk.”

Will grunted.

Sophie cleared her throat. “Ahem. That was a hint to go fetch wine?”

He rolled his eyes, but headed into the kitchen to comply. Most of the time, having a woman as a best friend was useful. Hell, most of the time he barely even noticed that Sophie was a woman.

But there were times when a man would have been preferable. Times when he didn’t want to talk.

Times like now.

But he hadn’t been able to turn her away. He harbored a fair amount of guilt for ditching Sophie when he’d moved to Boston. Not that she’d ever guilt-tripped him about it…Soph always had his back. But he’d known she’d been hurt that he hadn’t given her any warning about moving across the country.

The thing was, he couldn’t have given her warning even if he’d wanted to. Because Will himself hadn’t even contemplated the move until exactly three days before he’d actually gotten on that plane.

Weighing even heavier on his conscience was the one and only secret he’d ever kept from Sophie. The one that had him moving to Boston in the first place.

“White or red?” he called.

“Surprise me,” she hollered back. He heard a crashing noise and winced. Sophie wasn’t exactly the most careful of souls. Thank God he’d put all of the boxes marked FRAGILE out of her reach.

He poured them both liberal glasses of one of his favorite Cabernet Sauvignons and headed back to his living room. Sophie’s expression was all innocence, and Will pretended he didn’t see that his Aliens anniversary edition case had a new crack in it. He’d always found the movie overrated anyway.

Will smiled as Sophie took a massive gulp of wine. There was no swirling, no sniffing, no savoring on the palate. Just unpretentious good old-fashioned drinking. It was one of the reasons he loved her. There was nothing complicated about Sophie. At least, she’d never been complicated to him. She said what she wanted, did what she wanted, and before you could figure out whether she was brilliant or pure fluff, she’d already moved on, recruiting yet another person to her fan club.

“When are you going to get some furniture?” Sophie grumbled as she stood and stretched.

“Monday,” Will said absently, taking in the unfamiliar setting that was his new backyard. He’d never really thought much about where he lived. Hell, he’d spent the better part of his twenties living in hotel rooms while he tried to secure investors. But he was surprised to find that he sort of liked having the extra space. He would have moved into a shoe box if that’s what the plan required, but this was better. Much better.

“So,” Sophie said, coming up beside him and gazing out at the newly stained deck. “When are you going to fill me in?”

Will didn’t pretend to play dumb. But neither was he ready to come clean.

“I already told you,” he said, keeping his voice light. “I was ready for a change.”

That part, at least, was true. The constant moving, the sterile furniture, the high-rise city views had begun to feel a bit stale.

“Uh-uh,” Sophie said, taking another gulp of wine. “If you’d wanted a change, you would have tried a new city. You wouldn’t have come back to Seattle. There’s nothing new here.”