Almost Just Friends Read online

  “Don’t tease me,” Emmitt said seriously. “You know breakfast for dinner is my favorite thing on the planet. But you forbid me from having it.”

  “I didn’t forbid you.” She began whipping up the ingredients and heating up pans. “I said you were doing it wrong. Too much fat, too much sugar.”

  Cam pulled out some chocolate milk and poured a glass for everyone before setting the table.

  Emmitt sniffed suspiciously at the turkey bacon and gluten-free, sugar-free pancakes now cooking. “It looks good.”

  There was a knock at the back door, and Gavin walked in. “I smelled bacon.”

  “I tried to reach you,” Piper said. “Go away. People who don’t respond to texts don’t get free food.”

  “Come in,” Emmitt said, overruling her.

  Cam set another place.

  Two minutes later, Winnie showed up too. “Oh my God, I knew it. You’re all eating without me? You suck.” She sat at the table.

  “Seriously?” Piper asked her.

  Without missing a beat, Cam set another place.

  “Sorry for the Manning family invasion,” Piper said to the room.

  “Yeah,” Gavin said. “As a whole, we have boundary issues. I read that in one of Piper’s journals once.”

  Everyone laughed except Piper, who pointed her fork at him.

  “I like this,” Cam said. “A big family dinner. Rowan was always two thousand plus miles away. I felt like an only child.”

  “My fault,” Emmitt said. “Your mom and I really thought it was best to each go our own way, and she couldn’t have handled a baby, and you were already almost grown, so . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know what we were thinking. Honestly, we were only thinking about ourselves. It’s not right how we bungled things. I’ll never quite forgive myself, Cam, but I promise I’m working on being better.”

  Cam eyed him for a long beat and then nodded. Easy acceptance, easy forgiveness.

  Piper wasn’t at all sure she could have done either of those things.

  They all served themselves and then sat as a group to dive in. It took Piper a minute to realize all chatter had died, replaced by silence. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” everyone said in unison, with no eye contact. Gee, not suspicious at all. She took a bite of her gluten-free, sugar-free pancakes and . . . choked.

  “Oh my God. That’s”—she fought against wanting to spit it out—“disgusting.”

  “Thank God,” Emmitt muttered.

  “It’s gross,” Winnie whispered.

  “What’s in the pancakes, sand?” Gavin asked.

  Mortified, Piper started to gather the plates. “Maybe if I tried coconut sugar—”

  “Sis, nothing could’ve saved that breakfast.” Gavin rose. “My turn.” And he headed to the kitchen. “Holy shit,” they heard him say, and he popped his head back out. “You left me a disaster in here.”

  Piper shrugged. “I clean up afterward.”

  “As you go,” Gavin said. “Always as you go.” He vanished again.

  Winnie looked at Cam. “When do you leave?”

  “I’ve still got several weeks off.”

  “I meant the Coast Guard thing. You could get deployed at any time, right?”

  “More likely to get activated. Deployment happens less often.”

  Piper set down her glass. She knew he’d been activated probably more times than it was worth counting, but it was one thing to think it, another to live it. “Where would you have to go?”

  “Could be anywhere.”

  “Where’ve you been?” Winnie asked.

  “Lots of places. Puerto Rico, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Cuba . . . Sometimes we don’t do land at all.”

  “You stay on the water,” Winnie said. “Right? Like when you’re fighting pirates?”

  His brows went up.

  “Come on, I know you fight pirates.”

  He just gave a small smile. “Okay, maybe I’ve had some missions where we boarded and took down foreign freighters for possessing drugs and weapons.”

  “Pirates,” Winnie repeated, looking pleased.

  Piper and her siblings had been to a whole bunch of places too. For Winnie, that had happened from birth until the age of three. That meant she didn’t have real memories of any of that time, just stories she’d been told. Practically fairy tales.

  Not to Piper. Those times were all too real in her mind, which meant the danger of what Cam did out there was not lost on her.

  “It’s not always like that,” he said, speaking to Winnie but looking at Piper, as if he knew where her thoughts had gone. “Sometimes we’re simply the humanitarian aid or law enforcement, and sometimes we’re guarding oil fields and setting up ECPs—entry control points.”

  “I read that the Coast Guard is the only military branch that can carry guns on American soil without martial law being in effect,” Winnie said.

  “Because we’re part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the DOD.”

  “What’s your specialty?”

  “I’m an ME1,” he said. “Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist, First Class.”

  “Is that like the Big Cheese?” Winnie asked.

  “My rank’s E-6. If I went up one more to E-7, I’d be a chief. A chief runs the field, but usually from an office.”

  “Not as exciting,” Winnie said.

  “I’m not an office kind of guy,” he said on an easy shrug.

  Gavin came to the table with egg-and-sausage burritos. He squeezed Piper’s shoulder. “Not trying to steal your thunder, just want to take care of you once in a while.”

  Touched, she smiled at him, and the rest of them stopped talking to eat and give the occasional moan of pleasure.

  The burritos were amazing. Restaurant quality. “Okay,” Piper said. “You win.”

  “It wasn’t a contest,” Gavin said modestly, and paused. “But do make sure to note this down in your journal. I want it on record to offset the next time I screw something up.”

  “Hey, we’re all adults now,” Piper said. “So there’s no screwing anything up. We’re all on the same page. No secrets equals no fights.”

  No one made eye contact.

  “What?” she asked.

  Emmitt lifted his glass of chocolate milk. “To family.”

  Winnie and Gavin quickly grabbed their glasses and lifted them too. “To family.”

  And even though Piper knew she’d once again missed something, the moment was gone.

  Chapter 8

  “If you feed me now, no one dies.”

  A few mornings later, Piper staggered downstairs in search of caffeine, pausing just outside the kitchen at the sound of voices.

  “How did we all get so ridiculously broken?” Winnie asked.

  Gavin laughed roughly. “You really need me to answer that? At least we’re home with our glue stick, Piper.”

  Winnie was quiet at that, her silence seeming to suggest that while Piper might be the glue, she was also a little unglued . . .

  Fair. Piper felt distinctly unglued lately. She’d just started to enter when Gavin spoke again. “When are you going to tell her, Win?”

  “Never.”

  Gavin made a sound of disappointment.

  “Whatever, Gav. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

  Piper would’ve liked to hear more, but Sweet Cheeks chose that very moment to wind around her legs, letting out a very loud series of chirps that said, “If you feed me now, no one dies.”

  Piper winced as both siblings turned toward her, startled. “Hey,” she said casually. “What’s going on?”

  Gavin and Winnie looked at each other. Then Gavin shrugged. “Might as well admit it, since she’s about to find out.”

  Winnie shifted her weight. “Gav—”

  “Winnie burned breakfast.”

  Piper could have called that out for the lie it clearly was, but . . . she could smell it. She eyed the kitchen, stopping short at the