Chapter One
Ledger
“These aren’t cookies. They’re ginger dicks,” I complain to Peyton. She’s my best friend and she texted me earlier today to let me know she was baking. Of course, I had to show up to support her. That’s what friends are for after all. I peer down at the cookies that have killed any desire I have for baked treats.
“You’re right!” She smiles triumphantly and goes back to cutting out her obscene cookies at the kitchen table. Her apartment is too damn tiny. I’ve tried to get her to move into my place. I’d give her a great deal on rent, but she won’t take it. “They’re going to sell like crazy.”
Peyton works as a bartender at Liquid Courage, the only bar in Courage County. She wants to buy it from Harry the owner and she’s doing everything she can to earn a little bit of money including selling baked goods to the patrons. Harry is cool and doesn’t care. He says her munchies encourage the customers to order even more drinks.
“Most of your male customers aren’t going to buy these.” I hold one up that’s especially tiny and peer at it. It looks like it fell off one of those three-inch action figures I had as a kid.
She snorts. “We call that the ex-boyfriend size.”
“You have too much time on your hands,” I insist even though secretly I’m proud of her.
I’ve tried to tell her we’ll go in half on the bar. I make more than enough at the Christmas tree ranch I run with my adoptive family. Most of my earnings go right back into my adventure account. It’s for that day when she finally agrees to go on an adventure with me. Like skiing in Colorado or on a safari in Africa. Not that she’ll let me spoil her. She’s too independent and sassy.
She shakes her head. “Too bad you think that. Otherwise, I might have made you a regular gingerbread man somewhere.”
“Gimme.”
She takes her cookie pan to the stove and bends over. Fuck, I have to look away the moment she does. I always do.
Ten years I’ve been friends with Peyton and there hasn’t been a day I haven’t wanted her. She’s always my fantasy. The only fantasy I have. If she knew the things I think about her when I have my cock in my hand, she’d never talk to me again.
She straightens and sets her kitchen timer before turning to me. She narrows her gaze. “Did you just come over for free cookies?”
I do my best to feign innocence. “No. I’m here for quality assurance. You wouldn’t want to sell a terrible batch of cookies.”
She laughs. It’s a rich throaty sound that makes my balls tighten. “I’m lucky I have you then.”
“Oh, you have me,” I murmur under my breath while she reaches for the plate that she’s carefully hidden away containing two regular gingerbread men. I’ve spent over three thousand days acting normal around her, never letting on that she’s the one woman I want.
I take the gingerbread cookie and nibble on the edges. I won’t eat it all. I never do. But just the fact that I can bring myself to enjoy a couple of bites without guilt means something. It’s progress after years of battling my mind.
She bites into her own cookie and groans. “Best batch yet.”
I clear my throat and set my own food down. Watching her eat is one of my favorite things. She enjoys every morsel, regardless of who’s watching. She never seems to worry that they think she’s eating more than she should or enjoying every bite too much.
“Actually, I did come by for something. I need to know what you want for Christmas this year.”
It’s only a few weeks away and I made her a promise the Christmas we met. I promised I’d give her a special gift every year.
Like me, Peyton is a former foster child. She bounced around the system for a long time. But unlike me, she never landed with people who took her in and loved her.
Christmas gifts were few and far between for her as a kid and teenager. Of course, my parents will dote on her, and she’ll have more than a few things under the tree from them. But I like to spoil her. I like to find the one thing that will thrill her and get it for her.
Normally, this is the part where Peyton’s eyes light up and she enthusiastically begins asking me for something. She’ll make big gestures with her hands and animatedly tell me why this is the thing she simply must have.
Last year, it was the bread maker. It took her a few months to perfect her recipe, but she makes a mean sourdough now.
Her tongue darts out and she runs it across her bottom lip. The nervous gesture lets me catch a flash of the silver ball that’s sitting on her tongue. I love that piercing. It’s something else about her that’s always in my spank bank.
Yeah, maybe some people think I’m an asshole for constantly fantasizing about my best friend. But it’s not like there’s anyone else. There never has been. Never will be. Peyton is it. She’s my soulmate…and she doesn’t feel the same way about me.
“Come on, you can tell me,” I insist as the knot in my stomach grows. The truth is I’m not here for free cookies or even to figure out what she wants for Christmas. I’m here because she’s been acting strange.
Last night was Courage’s annual Christmas dance and we went together same as always. But she seemed different, and I can’t put my finger on why she’d be upset.
We did the same things we always do there. We ate the stale cheese puffs and danced together during the fast songs and made a bet on which teenager would be the first to spike the punch. Just normal every year stuff.
“I don’t want anything,” she finally mumbles. She’s staring at the kitchen counter, not looking me in the eye.
Fuck, we don’t lie to each other. OK, if you don’t count the fact that I’m in love with her. Or that she’s the only woman I want. Or my obsession with knowing where she is at all times and putting a tracker on her phone. A guy has to watch out for his best friend.
The timer dings, and she reaches to pull the cookies from the oven. Her long shirt sleeve rides up, revealing the colorful ink that decorates her skin.
No one knows the tattoos are mine. They’re my drawings. Every year for Christmas, she puts a different piece of my art on her body. It’s her gift to me.
It started years ago when she asked me what I wanted, and I told her I’d like to see my art somewhere. To know that it meant something to somebody. She tried to submit it to contests and magazines and stuff. But she quickly figured out what I already knew. My art wasn’t good.
So, she did the one thing I couldn’t believe. She got one of my designs as a tattoo. Visual proof to a teenage artist that his work mattered.
Now my art is featured in galleries, and I’ve won awards. I substitute for the art class at the high school, encouraging teenagers not to give up on their dreams. But none of it means as much to me as knowing that my drawings adorn her curvy body.
“Then I’ll use my brilliant powers of deduction to learn what you want,” I answer, giving her a teasing smile. It’s not just that she’s been acting strange. She seems sad lately and I don’t ever want my Peyton to be sad. I’ll do anything to make this woman smile. “Is it something you can use to make food?”
“Maybe we’re a little old for the gift exchange,” she says.
“Answer the question, Peyton.” I don’t normally tell her what to do. After all, I do have some sense of self-preservation. But I live for this time of year. It’s not just the festivities or the decorations.
It’s getting to be her hero. For one minute, she looks at me with such delight and joy. I want to earn that look from her every day for the rest of our lives. That would tip my hand though, so I settle for this. Delighting her at Christmas.
She transfers the cookies to a cooling rack and blows out a frustrated breath. “No.”
The last few years she’s asked for a kitchen gadget. She loves the bar, but food is a major passion. I think she’ll probably turn Liquid Courage into a bar and restaurant if she can get the capital together. Dammit, why won’t this stubborn woman let me help her? We could do it together, spend our days and nights building her business and creating something she’d love.
I pause to think. “Does it need electricity?”
“Let it go, Ledger.”
I bristle at the harsh note in her voice. It’s the one that she uses when she’s shutting me out and even though I tell myself that it doesn’t matter, it stings. She can push everyone else away. Hell, she has pushed everyone else away. But not me. I get to be different. I get to see behind the walls she normally puts up. “Why? Why should I let it go?”
She steps close, so close I can feel the heat coming from her body. Something flashes across her face. I can’t tell if it’s annoyance or lust but then she’s on her tip toes.
I drop my head close to hers. If she makes a move—the slightest indication that she feels even an ounce of what I feel for her—then I’ll kiss her. I’ll set fire to our friendship in a heartbeat and never look back again. I’ll finally have Peyton as more than just my friend. She’ll be my woman and the whole world will know. I’ll never have to hide anything from her again.
But Peyton doesn’t go in to kiss me. Instead, she leans close to my ear. Her breath is hot against my skin and everything in me is silently begging for her to press those plump lips to my neck. “If I told you what I really want, it’d blow your mind.”