Grumpy Best Friend: A Second Chance Romance Read online

  “Jude, wait,” he called after me, but fuck him.

  He made his choice ten years ago.

  I caught up with Lady Fluke just as the elevator doors were shutting. She said nothing as I joined her, and I stood with my back against the wall, breathing hard from my brisk sprint out of that office. She looked at me, and didn’t speak for five floors, the silence like an anchor dragging me into the gloomy ocean depths.

  “If you can’t do it, I’ll find someone else,” she said, and I expected her to sound angry—but instead, she sounded exhausted. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her sound so tired before, not a single time since I started working for her, and we spoke on the phone at least once every day.

  “It’s not that I can’t do it,” I said, and stopped myself, because it was that, actually, but so much more.

  “It’s okay, Jude,” she said, and touched her fingers to her temple, like her head hurt. “I’ve perhaps asked too much of you. It’s only that I never wanted to bring my business to America, but the world’s changing. And I’d like to have someone I can truly trust at the top. You’re the only person I have left here.”

  I chewed on my lip and stared down at the polished floor. She used to have friends in America, but something happened and all that changed. Maybe that was why she hadn’t visited in so long. I wanted to ask her why, or what she’d done, but I knew better than to press. She’d only give me an angry look, and I’d get nowhere.

  “Why him?” I asked, raising my gaze.

  She seemed surprised. “Who? Mr. Flowers?”

  I nodded once. “We know each other. We grew up together.”

  She let out a little, startled laugh, and adjusted her bag. “He didn’t tell me that,” she said, and I believed her, because of course he didn’t. Bret wouldn’t tell her something like that. He’d rather be a sneak about it—that was him, fundamentally. Deep down, he was a liar.

  “There’s history,” I said, then stopped myself. Lady Fluke didn’t like drama—she didn’t like history, especially not something so unpleasant. “I want to avoid it.” Maybe she’d understand that, at least.

  She nodded slightly and sighed. “Very well then. I was going to offer you half a million per year, but I suppose I can find an outside hire. Maybe it’s better this way. Someone more qualified.”

  I stared at her and felt my jaw bang up against my knees. I had to physically shove it closed and shake my head. Half a million dollars per year would change my life in so many ways I could barely begin to understand it. I went to Drexel and got a marketing degree, and though I loved college, I had to take out enough student loans to fund a small country. My mother had no money and loved pills more than she loved me, and my father died when I was three of an overdose, which meant I was on my own, all on my own.

  Half a million per year could drag me out of crushing debt, and maybe out of poverty entirely. I could help my mother—maybe save her life. Pay off the house, cover her medical bills, take care of her the way nobody ever took care of her in her whole life. Even if she didn’t deserve it, she was still my mother. I could do something good with that sort of money.

  But Bret was still there, waiting.

  “Maybe,” I said, and the elevator kept sliding down. “I could maybe put aside my problems with Bret.”

  She looked at me, then at the numbers. Ten, nine, eight…

  “You don’t have forever to decide,” she said. “When this elevator reaches the bottom, I want your answer. I want your commitment, one way or the other. No waffling, no quitting on me, none of that. If you do this, you’ll be in it entirely, do you understand me, Jude?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, and thought of Bret on the swings, and walking with him through Cobalt Ridge, riding bikes and laughing. Five, four three…

  “Well?” she asked as the elevator dinged. I closed my eyes and saw Bret, the last time we spoke, back when we were still kids: the anger in his eyes when I screamed that he was going back on our promise, that I never wanted to see him again, and the hurt I felt when he turned his back and walked away. I’d never gotten over that, not in all the years since.

  “I’ll do it,” I said as the doors slid open.

  “Good,” she said, and stepped out. “Take the day to get yourself together. There’s a tour tomorrow.” I followed her into the lobby, then down the steps out front. A car waited for her by the curb. I wondered who the hell called it, and who was running this trip—but figured it was my replacement, the new version of me, some new lucky girl that would spend a few weeks per year scheduling and planning, but otherwise sitting in her living room in her sweats.

  While I went through hell for money.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  And she climbed into the car, and was gone. I watched it pull out into traffic, then half turned back toward the building behind me.

  Bret Flowers, the boy that broke my heart, was a grown-ass man now. A very handsome, and apparently very successful man.

  And I was going to have to get over what happened if I was going to make this work.

  Lady Fluke said I had the day to figure my shit out, and so that was what I’d do. Then tomorrow, I’d go to the tour, and start my new life in a job for which I was completely unprepared and unqualified.

  2

  Bret

  Back when I was a kid, the old Nabisco factory in Northeast Philadelphia used to make the whole surrounding area smelled like baking cookies. For a few miles in all directions, it smelled like sugar and rising dough. I used to roll my windows down and breathe it in—at least until my dad would tell me to put those fucking things back up and stop making so much goddamn noise.

  Now it was abandoned, shut down five years earlier. Neal jiggled the handle of a door that led into the distribution section of the structure, and frowned until the thing popped open. He staggered back and grinned sheepishly at me.

  I’d known him since college. We both went to UC Berkeley, out in California, about as far from home as I could possibly get. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and we kept in touch after he graduated. We opened Flowers Construction together while I was still in school, and grew it from a tiny little regional company that employed two kids with no experience and boatloads of ambition into a multinational corporation with thousands of projects and millions in revenue. Sometimes I looked back on my life before and wondered how I made it through the days without something to lose myself in, something to distract me from the world outside of my head.

  “Should we go inside?” Neal asked, and checked his watch. He looked older than me, mostly because he didn’t take care of himself. He’d always been lazy and prone to drinking too much, and that caught up with him over the years. He took care of the numbers and accounting, and I took care of courting new clients and managing the overall strategy. We made a pretty good team for the most part, and though there’d been arguments over the years, we’d managed to come through stronger each time.

  I joked that it was like a marriage, but frankly, it was like a marriage. Minus the sex and children.

  “She’s going to come,” I said, looking back at the parking lot.

  “I’m not sure about that,” Neal said. “I mean, she ran off.”

  “Fluke said she’d show.” I paced away from him, toward the entrance that overlooked Roosevelt Boulevard. “And Fluke’s not the type to say shit just because.”

  Neal grumbled something, but didn’t argue. He stood near the half-open door and checked his phone, swiping through something, instantly ignoring the outside world. I didn’t know how he managed that—how he could turn himself off to everything and get so absorbed into whatever was happening on that screen.

  I couldn’t do it. I felt like I had to be moving a mile a minute at all times, or else my brain would catch up with me, and all those ugly thoughts, the bad memories, everything I ran away from when I was a kid—it would all come gushing back.

  It felt strange, seeing Jude again. I knew it would, but not to that extent.
When Lady Fluke approached me about going into business together, I accepted right away—and not only because it was a massive opportunity, but because I knew that Fluke’s main American business associate was my old best friend from back before I ran away to college.

  Maybe it wasn’t fair to drop in on her like that, but the look on her face was incredible, like I’d risen from the dead and was shambling toward her, begging to eat her brains. She wanted to run away or maybe beat me over the head until I stopped making noises, or maybe both at the same time if she could manage it. That was my Jude—angry at the world, but most of all, angry at herself.

  She hated me. I knew she did, but I didn’t realize she’d still feel it so deeply. When she left, I thought that was the end—but then Fluke called and said Jude was still involved in the project, but that she needed the day to get herself together.

  I watched a gray Honda sedan pulled into the parking lot. It was old, probably at least ten years, and some tape held the front bumper in place. It parked next to my Lexus and got dangerously close. I forced myself not to flinch as Jude got out, nearly bashing her door against mine, and shaded her eyes, squinting at me through the sunlight.

  God damn, she was beautiful. She always had been, but now even more than back then. When we were kids, she had this short hair she dyed black, and wore heavy black eyeliner, and fingerless gloves sometimes, and had emo music quotes in her AIM profile. She was smart, and funny, and fearless and strong, and I was enamored with her almost as much as I hated my life and myself.

  Now though, she wore a pair of brown slacks, tight enough to show off her thin, fit legs, and a cream button-down blouse with a little navy jacket over it. Her hair was long and slightly curly and her natural light brown. The eyeliner was gone, and the braces were gone, and she looked absolutely incredible.

  “You came,” I said as she approached.

  “Yeah, well, it sounded fun.” She walked up to me and shoved her hand in my direction. “It’s nice to see you again, Bret.”

  I stared at her hand, then up into her face, and at her thick, plump lips, then shook it. I smiled in a way that I hoped was disarming. “It’s nice to see you too, Jude.”

  She released my hand then introduced herself to Neal. “Sorry for yesterday, gentlemen,” she said, smoothing out her blouse. “All that was sprung on me at the last second and I needed some time to get my things in order.”

  “I hope you’re okay now,” Neal said, glancing at me. He knew I grew up with Jude, but he didn’t know the details, and I didn’t want him to.

  “Fine,” she said, nodding once. “Shall we go for this tour? I’m excited to move this project forward.”

  “Lead the way, Neal,” I said, gesturing for him to get going.

  He nodded and shoved the door open, and we stepped into a massive structure with high metal ceilings and tall support poles dotting the space like trees. Jude walked alongside Neal and looked around appreciatively, and asked appropriate questions, all the while studiously ignoring me. Yesterday I’d gotten a glimpse of the old Jude, the passionate, angry Jude, but this woman was different. She was professional—buttoned up and in control.

  I liked the old Jude. I didn’t know this one anymore.

  And maybe that was all I deserved. After how I’d left things, I couldn’t be surprised if she was still angry. Hell, I deserved it, and then some. I knew what I was doing when I went away and left her there to fend for herself—but it still didn’t stop me.

  That was something I carried with me.

  For years, I wanted to bridge the gap between us. I thought about reaching out to her a thousand times, just to see how she was doing, and maybe to apologize for how things went down. Instead, the silent stretched, and the version of myself that was in love with that version of herself slowly died off and disappeared, replaced by this new person—one that the old me would’ve barely recognized.

  So much had changed, and in some ways, so little.

  “And this is where we’ll actually bake the cookies?” she asked, gesturing around at the warehouse space.

  “Ah, no,” Neal said, glancing back toward me.

  I stepped forward. This was my specialty—factory design and layout. I started out not knowing a damn thing about it, but had gotten fairly good over the years. “There’s a bakery section further on,” I said, gesturing ahead. “That big tower you see from the outside, that’s a part of it, actually. It’s one massive oven.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” she said, and although her tone was perfectly polite, it was like she put something biting in there, a little edge to mess with me. I decided not to take the bait.

  “Believe me, it’s there. Would you like to see?”

  She pursed her lips and shrugged. “If you want, but I think I get the idea. One big empty building.”

  “We’ll fill it, don’t you worry,” Neal said, chuckling, and he shot me a look—I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood, but I wasn’t interested in that.

  I felt a hint of anger start to swell. I couldn’t help myself. I had a temper, and she was doing her best to push all my buttons like she used to when we were kids. She hadn’t changed one bit, damn it, and she was going to keep on picking and prodding at me until I finally broke down.

  I wouldn’t give her the chance.

  “Come on,” I said to Jude. “Neal’s got some calls to make to vendors, and we’re finishing this tour.”

  She frowned and looked at Neal, who studiously stared down at his feet and murmured something about needing to make some calls, yes, totally, lots of calls. I gave him a pointed look and he walked off, tossing back one look over his shoulder, a warning glare that practically screamed, don’t fuck this up.

  I didn’t plan on fucking anything, not yet at least. I turned from Jude and started off toward the tall double doors at the far end of the empty space. After a second, I heard her footsteps hurry after me, echoing off the walls.

  “This is where we’ll store our stock,” I said, gesturing around, not really caring if she was listening or not. “The cargo bay doors down there are where the trucks will pull up. We’ll have guys working around the clock loading and unloading materials. Then through these big things—” I reached the double doors and pushed them open, the old, rusty hinges groaning a bit as they gave in to the pressure.

  We stepped into another large, empty room, except there were fewer pillars. The floor was dusty, and the whole place smelled like baked cookies—the scent almost overpowering. I stepped forward and found a light switch, and the whole place brightened under fluorescents.

  “There used to be machines in here,” Jude said, and there was a hint of awe in her voice. I couldn’t blame her—the space was beautiful and more than a little impressive.

  “Bolted down here,” I said, stamping my foot next to a hole in the floor. “Whole lines with machines that had very particular tooling and specs. And over here, this was the oven.” I led her to the center of the room, directly at the bottom of the massive tower. The ceiling disappeared up above, and I tried to picture what the oven would’ve looked like, and how hot it must’ve been in here, especially wearing all the protective equipment.

  Jude stood next to me, craning her head to look up. The tower was about five stories tall, and the windows cast odd, square bright lights along the far wall at even intervals, up to top. It was strangely beautiful, though it had been filled with machines once, and now was oddly quiet.

  “How did it work?” she asked. “I mean, what kind of machine would’ve been in here?”

  “It was a giant tower oven,” I said. “Like an elevator. Cookies baked on their way up, then cooled on their way down.”

  She laughed a little, and I looked away from the ceiling, and stared at her face. I could still see the outlines of the girl I used to know. Her features had softened a bit, her eyes weren’t as hard and haunted, her skin wasn’t stretched over her bones. She was so skinny back then—mostly because she barely spent any time at ho
me and didn’t eat all that much. She looked much healthier now, almost glowed a little bit in a way she never had before, like she’d found something to truly sustain her. I wondered what it was that kept her going, and thought maybe it was the same thing that worked for me.

  Distance from home.

  She looked down and met my gaze, and for a few heavy beats of my heart, we stared at each other. She knew I’d been looking at her, but she didn’t say anything. Our past hovered between us, massive and gaping, and I wished we could fill in the spaces we’d created through space and time, but it felt insurmountable.

  “We should straighten one thing out,” she said, her voice soft, though it echoed upward along the walls and came back down in a strangely, ghostly echo. “I’m in charge of this venture. You’re only consulting.”

  I smiled and tilted my head. “Is that what Fluke told you?” I asked.

  She nodded once sharply, eyes narrowing. “If you have a problem with that—”

  “I do, actually,” I said, interrupting. “Considering I’m buying into the company, I have a big problem.”

  I waited for a bad reaction and, to her credit, it never came. She bristled slightly and cleared her throat, straightening her shirt, and marched away from me, looking down at the old bolt-holes in the floor. She kicked at some debris, a stack of papers, and sent them sliding along the smooth floor. She looked back at me, arms crossed over her chest.

  “You’re not my boss,” she said. “I’ll accept partner. But I won’t accept boss.”

  I smiled a little and spread my hands. “Well, since you’re being so generous—”

  “I’m serious, Bret,” she said, and she sounded exactly like she used to, back when we’d sit on the swings together after dark and I’d tell her about my day, and she’d tell me about hers, and I’d give her shit, and she’d give me shit, and we’d laugh together, both of us trying to make excuses not to go back home. “We’re partners in this. I know how you can be.”