Friends & Fortune Cookies: A Sudden Falls Romance Read Online Free

now.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    As we ate our meal, I explained my meeting the previous Friday with Jack from Rehab-a-rama . “I don’t get the keys until tomorrow. We’re going to have to hit the ground running. I’m a little concerned. From the curb, the house looks like it’s practically falling down.”
    “Which house is it?”
    “It’s the old Queen Anne on the corner of Sycamore and Fountain.”
    “Oh. Yeah. Good luck.” She winced, even as she slid the noodles on the end of her chopsticks in her mouth with a little “Mmmmm” that jump-started my blood pressure and sent all my red blood cells south.
    “Think you can do it?”
    For a second, I had no idea what she was talking about. It took a full second for me to regain my wits. Finally, I managed to pull it together and give her a grin. “Hell, yeah.”
    FiFi came back with the bill and a couple of fortune cookies, homemade and unwrapped, sitting on a black glazed plate.
    Gracie reached for one.
    “Eh eh eh,” I cautioned her. “Close your eyes.”
    She rolled her eyes and then did as I asked. I swirled the cookies around on the plate to “mix” them up.
    “Okay. You can open your eyes.” I held both cookies out to her, one in each hand. She took the one in my left hand, her fingertips scratching their way up my palm as she snagged the cookie. I tried to tell myself I imagined the electric charge I’d gotten from that simple touch.
    She cracked open her cookie and read the fortune before a startled laugh escaped.
    “What does it say?”
    “You first,” she said.
    I broke open the crisp cookie and pulled out the little slip of prescience. “You will be successful in matters of business.” I tacked “Between the sheets” onto the end then shrugged. “Doesn’t really work unless I take up walking the streets of Sudden Falls.”
    I dropped my cookie pieces on a napkin in front of her. She loved to eat them, and I wasn’t much of a fan.
    Nibbling the cookie bits, she gazed around the room. Prolonging the inevitable is what she was really doing, and I knew it.
    “Gracie?” She looked up, chewing on her lip.
    “This is a dumb game.”
    “Must be a good fortune.” I reached out a hand.
    She tucked the piece of paper into her palm and closed her fingers around it. “Isn’t this a little childish?” she asked.
    I wasn’t buying. “Read the fortune cookie, Grace Eleanor.” I wiggled my fingers in a “gimme” gesture.
    “Oh fine.” Her freckles stood out against the florescent pink of her blush. “You have many skills yet to be learned. Choose an experienced mentor,” she said in almost a whisper.
    I snorted out a laugh. “Between the sheets,” I finished.
    A giggle finally got past her anger, and for the first time since I’d hit town, I saw her dimples.
    I admitted to myself, at that moment, the real reason I’d finally come home.

Chapter 5 — Grace
    “When it comes to the opposite sex or staff meetings, don’t let yourself be caught unawares.”
~ Luddite in Love: A Cautionary Tale of Dating in the Modern Age, Grace Mendoza
    The day after dinner with Joe, I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that my anger, which had burned about two degrees cooler than the sun when he’d pulled up Saturday on his motorcycle looking like the sexiest thing since an old Diet Coke commercial, now barely simmered.
    As I sat in our weekly editorial staff meeting—the least favorite part of my job—I knew I had to find a way to hang onto my mad or I was going to do something I’d regret. Like fall for a jerk who only thought of me as more than his best bud when I was in a serious relationship with someone else.
    Joe is like one of those kids who didn’t want to play with his own toys until someone else showed interest. I’d been down this road with him too many times not to see the pattern.
    The problem is, no matter what the state of our relationship, I’d always loved the big lug. Mostly in the platonic sense,