Grumpy Best Friend: A Second Chance Romance Read online

“Do you?” I asked, tilting my head as I walked toward her. She backed away, toward the far side of the tower. “I thought we weren’t acknowledging that.”

  She grimaced a little. “We don’t have to pretend we’re strangers, but it’s been a while. I’ve changed.”

  “Then I have too,” I said. “I’m much easier to get along with now. I’m practically egalitarian.”

  “I have a hard time believing that.” She bumped up against the wall and jumped a little, surprised to find it there where it’d always been. I stopped advancing two feet away, and stared into her pretty eyes, and wondered why the hell I hadn’t done this sooner.

  “I won’t fight you on this,” I said, shaking my head. “Partners is fine by me, but don’t think you can push me out.” She opened her mouth to argue, but I held up a hand. “I know you too, Jude. You’ll cut me out the first chance you get if I let you.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but her teeth closed with a click. “Forget about what happened back then,” she said. “We’ll be equal partners in this, and we’ll make it work. Is that a deal?” She thrust her hand toward me, and I stared at it.

  And remembered another deal we made, a long time ago on that playground, lying in the overgrown soccer field one summer, the long grass wild with crickets, the clouds rolling past a half-full moon, her hand close to mine and her voice so quiet under the soft whirring wind that tugged at her hair and made her keep pulling it out of her mouth, and she said, I swear if I ever get out of here, I’ll bring you with me, what do you say, do we have a deal?, and I said, you got yourself a deal, Judey, pinky promise on it. And how two years later, I broke her heart, and left for college, and never once looked back.

  She looked at me expectantly. The tower loomed above us, the ceiling so far away I could barely see it, barely a black speck beyond the mottled light. I took her hand and shook it.

  “Deal,” I said, and gave her my best grin, even though we both knew by now that my deals didn’t mean a goddamn thing, not at all. I held her hand too long and stared into her eyes and tried to imagine everything that had happened to her in the last ten years before letting go and walking away. I left her there in the tower, the smell of old, stale cookies wafting up with each step.

  3

  Jude

  I swear if I ever get out of here, I’ll bring you with me, what do you say, do we have a deal?

  Sometimes I wished I never said those words, but more than that, I wished I never took his pinky in mine and bit my thumb, our lips so close, our noses practically touching, his eyes scrunched up in an amused smile on that moon-washed field, both of us doing our best to ignore the lives we had back home, pretending like there was only each other.

  Which was a lie, of course. One broken pinky promise changed all that.

  Bret picked me up at the corner of Broad and Tasker. I lived on Passyunk, but I didn’t want him to see my actual apartment for some odd reason. He drove an old truck, black with bits of rust around the wheel well, and the whole thing smelled like gasoline. I put on the seatbelt and frowned as he sputtered forward into traffic.

  “Is this thing safe?” I asked.

  “What, the truck?” He patted the dash affectionately. “Old Stallion’s given me a lot of good miles.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course you named your truck. You’re exactly the kind of guy that would name his truck.”

  “If you mean the kind of guy that is sophisticated and awesome, then thank you.”

  “I did not mean that,” I said, leaning back against the seat. I glanced at him as we headed into Center City. He wore comfortable jeans and a decent half-zip sweatshirt with the logo of his construction company on the chest, a blooming rose. It was a little ostentatious, but it stood out among all the other construction crews, with their bulldozers and their hammers. He always did have a clever eye for marketing. “And aren’t you kind of rich?” I asked. “I mean, why even drive this thing?”

  He smiled a little bit and slowed down to stop at a light. “I thought we were pretending like we didn’t know each other,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t ask some new work associate that kind of question.”

  I gave him a pointed look. “And I thought we agreed to put all that behind us.”

  He laughed and waved me off. “All right, fine. I guess I don’t believe in waste. I bought Stallion with my first real paycheck out of college and I never gave her up.”

  “Ah,” I said, looking away. College, of course, that place he left me for—that place that changed both our lives.

  We didn’t talk again for a little while, and I think he intuited my mood shift.

  I wanted to control it and move on. If we were going to be partners, I couldn’t break down every time he mentioned something that reminded me of the past and all the resentment I carried for him over the years. I knew I was being whiny and a little difficult, and I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, before breaking the silence again as he turned down a side street and began heading toward the river.

  “So how did you end up in construction?” I asked, trying to keep my tone as casual as I could.

  He kept his eyes on the road. “Stumbled into it,” he said. “Met Neal and we sort of got involved, you know, building stuff, and we lucked into a few big contracts. Things blew up from there. Neal’s got a knack for accounting, and I’ve got a knack for marketing.”

  “I bet you do,” I said, smiling a little bit. “You’re the face and he’s the brains.”

  “I’m the brains and the face,” he corrected. “And Neal’s also the brains.”

  I laughed and sank down deeper into the seat. He slowed as he reached Columbus Boulevard and turned left, heading north, then pulled into the parking lot of a squat three-story building with lots of windows and a red brick facade. It looked new, likely built in the last few years. The trees and shrubs were perfectly manicured, and the parking lot was half empty. A big sign announced office space for rent.

  I frowned a little bit, looking around. “There’s not much out here,” I said.

  “True,” he said, and pushed his door open. “But the place is nice and we can afford the rent.”

  He got out and I followed. The front lobby was marble and our footsteps echoed as we took the stairs up to the third floor. “No elevators?” I asked, frowning at each step.

  “Ah, come on, Judey, you can handle the climb,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

  I winced at that nickname. He used to call me that all the time—but I hadn’t heard it in a long time. He seemed to realized what he’d done, and turned forward again without another word. We reached the top and walked to the back left corner and through a large door with a frosted glass window to its left.

  The office space was surprisingly nice. The carpets were new and clearly nobody had moved in yet. The place smelled fresh, like cleaning products and a strange whiff of mint. He gestured around the empty main area, with plenty of space for cubes. “We’d keep the main staff here,” he said. “I’m thinking we’ll need maybe forty employees, something around there.”

  “What got you to that number?” I asked, drifting toward the windows. There was a good view of the waterfront and New Jersey on the other side.

  “Rough math,” he said. “Estimates.”

  “So you’re guessing,” I said, turning around, arms crossed. “I’ve actually been building a business plan, and I think we can get away with half that.”

  He laughed and shook his head—then seemed to catch himself, and his smile faded. “If you say so,” he said, and walked away toward the offices that ringed the inner section.

  I glared at his back. I had a feeling I knew how this little supposed partnership was going to go. I’d make suggestions and he’d laugh at them, since he’s the big, successful businessman, and I’m an assistant that’s been given the chance of a lifetime.

  And if he thought that, he was right. It killed me to admit it, but this was more important to me than it was to him. At least if this failed, he could fall back on his already very successful constructive business, while I’d be left with absolutely nothing. Lady Fluke dropped this chance in my lap, and I was desperate to make it succeed, despite not being even remotely qualified, and only chosen because Fluke thought she could push me around from out in London and micromanage me. So far, I’d already gotten ten emails from her since my visit to the factory floor, and that was more email from her than I’d gotten in the past year.

  But screw Fluke and especially screw Bret. I was ready for this, even if I didn’t have the technical qualifications. I spent all night researching company structures and combing through the Fluke Company’s internal data, getting a sense of who I’d need to hire and what the bare minimum to get things running would cost. I put it all into a presentation and planned on showing it to Lady Fluke, and maybe Bret, if he could stop being such an asshole.

  I drifted after him and stood in the doorway of the corner office. It was a beautiful space: enormous windows overlooking the water, lots of room for a desk and filing cabinets. He stood about where I’d put my desk and turned to me, grinning from ear to ear.

  “I think we found our home,” he said, stamping his boot. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s good, if we can afford it,” I said, a little wary. I didn’t want to dive right into this. “I’ll look for alternatives though, of course.”

  “Of course.” He turned toward the window. “I’ll enjoy this office space.”

  I snorted. “I don’t think so. This is going to be mine.”

  He looked at me, eyebrow arched. “You’re already going to give me trouble about who gets what office?”

  I walked over and stood next to him, arms crossed, looking out at the water. I liked the way the light sparkled and
broke into thousands of tiny pieces, like diamonds on the waves. A boat rolled slowly along, pulling a white foamy wake behind it. “I’m not giving you trouble,” I said, not looking at him. “I’m only saying, this is my main job, and this is just some investment for you. I should get the better office.”

  He grunted softly, and I glanced at him out the corner of my eye. “Remember that old moped we bought together?” he asked. “You said it should be mostly yours, since it was mostly your money, even though I was the one that put all that time and energy into fixing the damn thing.”

  “I can’t even believe you’d mention the moped right now,” I said, smiling a little despite myself. We bought it off some older kid Bret knew, a rundown, rusted-up piece of crap that barely started up. Bret spent weeks on it, and I’d sit there out back behind his house, blocked by a tree and a ton of bushes and weeds while he tinkered and I read magazines, Q-102 on the radio playing pop music. We used to ride it around for hours, him up front, and me on the back, clutching his chest as he rode through the woods, along paths that definitely weren’t meant for a moped, but we made it work, despite a couple low-speed crashes and lots of bumps and bruises.

  “Just saying, you have a tendency to take and not give,” he said.

  I ground my teeth and tried to let that comment go, but I couldn’t help myself. “If I remember correctly, the moped was destroyed one afternoon when you decided to take it off those bike jumps and crashed it into a tree.”

  He ran a hand through his hair and messed it up, which somehow made him even more handsome, and of course, that pissed me off. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that. You have no clue how close I came to dying.”

  “You told me it was no big deal,” I said, frowning.

  “Oh, god, it was terrible. I had his huge gash on my head and it was bleeding everywhere.”

  “You told me that was from volleyball practice,” I said, glaring at him.

  “And you believed me?” He chuckled softly and turned away from the windows, heading back toward the door. “All right, Judey, if you want this office, you can have it. I’ll take next door.”

  “How about you don’t take any?” I said, following him into the main room. “What’s your title even going to be, anyway?”

  “Chief consultant,” he said, shrugging. “Does it really matter? Titles are made up.”

  “It matters to me. Corporate hierarchy—”

  He rolled his eyes. “Corporate hierarchy is bullshit.”

  I crossed my arms and tried not to throw my hands up in frustration. “So I guess you let your employees do whatever the fuck they want then?”

  He looked back over his shoulder and shrugged a little, his eyes almost laughing, driving me crazy. “Could be,” he said. “Or maybe I just don’t care enough to pay attention to that.”

  “I guess you let Neal handle it then.”

  He made some vague gesture and went off to check the other offices. I let him go, since following now would only lead to an argument. I walked over to the windows and leaned against the sill, staring down at the parking lot below as I gathered myself. I hated when he called me Judey and when he brought up the past, but it was inevitable. As much as I wanted to ignore what had happened between us, it had happened, and we might as well accept that it was there, lurking beneath every interaction.

  I wished I could erase it all, but that wasn’t how life worked. I’d have those scars, each and every day.

  I walked back out into the main room and tried to picture the space filled with people and desks, and felt a strange sort of stabbing pain in my stomach, a mix between excitement and pure fear. I was in way over my head, and I didn’t fully understand why Lady Fluke chose me for this job—though I didn’t fully understand why Lady Fluke did almost anything she did. For a woman that seemed utterly buttoned-up and formal, she had an extremely strange work style that was more fluid and intuitive than anything else. I tried to imagine myself managing a bunch of people, and felt utterly lost, drowned under the sheer weight of unknowns.

  Bret banged around in one of the offices then poked his head out. “Maybe having one of these won’t be so bad,” he said. “A good view’s really distracting anyway.”

  “Oh, right, you’re so generous, taking one for the team,” I said.

  He nodded sagely. “Exactly. I want you to be happy.”

  I felt a sudden inrush of longing and anger, and I crossed my arms over my chest, hugging myself as I watched him, and he frowned a bit and leaned against the doorframe.

  “I know this is a crazy thing to ask,” I said, avoiding his stare, “but do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Not really,” he said.

  I let out a shocked laugh. I expected him to puff up his chest and give me some macho answer about how he was born to manage big companies and that he bled corporate policy or something insane, but that threw me off.

  “I thought you were supposed to be the expert here,” I said.

  “Honestly, I’m not,” he said, making a little ‘oh, well’ gesture. I gaped at him and didn’t know if I should laugh or scream my head off. “Truthfully, the last company I set up was my own, and that was piecemeal and over a long period. I have no clue what we’re going to do about this place.”

  “Bret,” I said, staring open-mouthed. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “I wish I was. But hey, we’ll figure it out together.”

  “This isn’t the sort of thing you just— you just figure out,” I said, walking toward him, trying to keep my voice calm and totally failing. “Do you have any clue what sort of company structure we’re going to have? How many people we’ll need in HR? That number you threw out earlier, it was totally made up, wasn’t it?”

  He tilted his head. “Pretty much,” he said, “but it sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what we need.”

  “Oh my god,” I said, throwing my hands up. “You’re useless. After all this, you’re actually useless.”

  “I’m not so bad,” he said, eyes narrowing slightly. “I know you think you’re a genius, Judey—”

  “Stop calling me that,” I snapped, which made him smile, and I hated myself for taking his bait.

  “—but you’re not the smartest person in this room,” he finished.

  “Oh, of course,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You went to college so you’re so smart.”

  “You went to college too,” he pointed out. “And no, that’s not why I think I’m smarter than you.”

  “You’re such an asshole,” I said, losing it completely. I felt like I’d just regressed back to my high school self, and I couldn’t help it.

  Bret pulled it out of me, bit by bit. He knew exactly how to push my buttons and how to piss me off. The messed-up thing was, I couldn’t say for sure if he actually didn’t know what he was doing, or if he just said that to drive me insane. Either one could be true, and neither situation made me feel better.

  “You’ve always been like this, you know,” he said, coming toward me, his eyes narrowed, but a little smile on his handsome lips. “Convinced you know what’s right. That’s why you can’t let go of your stupid grudge against me.”

  “It’s not stupid,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m angry with you for a reason.”

  “Yeah? What’s that reason?” He stood there, looking so damn arrogant, and I just exploded.

  I couldn’t handle it anymore. All that pressure came pouring out of me, all those repressed emotions, all the anger and resentment that had been building for years came out of my mouth like molten hot lava, spewing all over him.

  “You abandoned me,” I said. “You left and didn’t bother to call. No, don’t mention those two stupid emails you wrote me, you abandoned me the first chance you got and never looked back. You knew how bad things were at my house. You knew you were, like, the only thing keeping me sane. And you still left.”

  He stared at me quietly and I seethed in his direction, so angry that it came to this already, and even more angry with myself for letting him steer me here.

  “I know,” he said quietly, and I had to lean forward to hear him. “I made a mistake back then. But you know why I did it. We both had it bad, Jude.”

  “Yeah, we did,” I said, shrugging a little, and some small bit of my anger melted away. “But you still ran, and you didn’t even bother to look back.” I stared at him and he said nothing, only looked back at me, and I turned away from him. If I stood there for a second longer, I’d say all the things to him that I’d wanted to say over the years—that I loved him back then, that he was the only good thing in my life, that when he left, my mother got addicted to pills and somehow my already miserable life got even more miserable, and some part of me blamed him for all of it—but I swallowed that and walked toward the entrance.