Chapter 2

“We can’t be best friends, you know that, right?” I said after a few minutes of easy silence.

“Oh, no? Why’s that?” Dylan slid his chopped tomatoes into a bowl, then turned to drain the olives in the sink. I knew he didn’t like them, which meant he’d brought them specifically for me. And that he remembered I liked black olives, but not any other kind, shouldn’t have pleased me.

“I’m too old to be your best friend.”

Dylan’s chuckle echoed in the room and he hip-checked me as he moved closer to grab the skillet hanging over the island. When he didn’t say anything as he set the ground beef to browning, I thought he’d leave it alone or that he’d seen my point, but I should’ve known better.

He stirred the meat, then looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “You know that’s ridiculous. First of all, age does not dictate friendship. And secondly? You’ve got what? Five seconds on me? No big deal.”

“More like fifteen years,” I ground out. But I needed the reminder. One more reason things between us couldn’t go further than friends or neighbors.

Dylan was quick to speak up. “It’s only twelve. I’m twenty-eight, remember?”

As if I could forget.

“That’s still too many,” I insisted, hoping there was a firmness in my voice.

“Pfft.” Dylan added the spices to the browned meat. “Like I said already, you can’t put an age limit on friendships. So just let it go now. We’re friends and that’s all there is to it.”

As long as that wasall there wasto it, then I’d be fine.

I wasn’t na?ve, though. There’d been looks and comments over the past few years that let me know that if I’d shown the smallest hint of being open to it, Dylan would be up for a lot more than mere friendship. And the truth was, Dylan was exactly my type when it came to men, and had circumstances been different, I would have definitely gone for a hookup.

But he was my neighbor, and I knew his parents. And for all that he looked like a disheveled college kid, he was responsible and kind. Big-hearted and generous. He wasn’t someone I could fuck and forget, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. But I knew, deep down, we wouldn’t be compatible in a romantic sense—my experiences had shown me—and I didn’t want to set either of us up for heartbreak. It was better to keep things as they were. Keep him at a little bit of distance. Let him cheer me up when my grump got too much, then send him on my way.

While I was lost in thought, Dylan finished dinner, so when he started pulling plates and glasses out of the cabinets, I jerked back to reality. I shook my head and pushed away all the thoughts before carrying the toppings to the table. He joined me a moment later with the meat and tortillas. We assembled our soft tacos and I was enjoying the companionable silence. But I knew it wouldn’t last.

Dylan waited until I had a mouthful to ask, “Why do invoices piss you off so much?”

I growled around my bite, chewed and swallowed, then took a long drink of water as I scowled at him. He blinked innocently, but it was all for show. He knew what he was doing. And though we shared meals at least twice a week, I never got used to him purposefully waiting until my mouth was full to ask me something I had to respond to. I wasn’t quite sure what that was about, and I wasn’t about to ask.

“I don’t hate invoices exactly.” I sighed, poked a bit of escaping lettuce back inside the taco, then folded it over on itself so it couldn’t fall apart again. “I hate that half my clients don’t pay on time or as they should. I hate that a few of my clients always insist on haggling even though my rates are cut and dried, and I’m up front about them. They know what they’re getting into when they sign the contract, and yet every week, there’s someone who fights, complains, or tries to shirk.”

His scowl was more adorable than anything else. Not nearly as menacing as I was sure he meant it to be. “Then why do you keep them? Cut them loose!”

“It’s not that simple.” I ate another bite, and after I swallowed, I said, “These are really good. Thank you for cooking.”

Dylan waved that away. “You’re welcome, but you don’t have to thank me. You needed it. Now, why’s it not simple? It seems pretty simple to me.”

His grumbling was almost as cute as his scowl had been. There was a part of me that really liked that he was pissed on my behalf. I didn’t have a whole lot of that in my life. In fact, I think the only other person who cared enough was my sister. But I purposefully hadn’t told her about this because she would have gone off, and I didn’t want to get her worked up over something she couldn’t control.