What Happens Between Friends Read Online Free Page A

home.
    “You’re soaked.” Settling his hands on her hips, he pulled back and frowned at the mud on her pants, the wet spot on his light blue dress shirt. “You look like a drowned rat.”
    “Oh, James.” She simpered, batting his chest. “You sure do know how to sweet-talk a girl. I’m shocked, shocked I say, that you’re still single.”
    “And I’m shocked, shocked I say,” he said in a seriously decent imitation of her, “that you manage to get through each day without causing yourself—or others—bodily harm.”
    She lifted her hand to the side of her head. “Who says I didn’t cause any bodily harm?”
    He brushed her hand aside and lightly probed the area above her ears, his touch incredibly gentle. The tips of his fingers trailed across the sensitive goose egg. She bit her lip to keep from hissing out a sharp breath.
    “What did you do?” he asked.
    “I had a little accident—”
    “How bad?”
    “Not bad,” she told him quickly, knowing how he worried about...well...everything. “I was on Case Boulevard and skidded off the road and hit the pillar holding the Welcome to Shady Grove sign.”
    The front door opened, and a couple she didn’t recognize descended the porch steps, lifted their hands in farewell to James before getting into their car.
    James walked to the driver’s side of the Jeep. He crouched to study where the pillar and vehicle had, briefly, become one.
    “You,” he said, straightening, “are a menace. And a threat to brick pillars everywhere.”
    She grinned. How could she not when it was such a James thing to say, his words spoken with so much resignation and fondness? “None stand a chance while I’m behind the wheel.”
    “You sure you’re okay?”
    “I bumped my head. It’s nothing.” And no way would she tell him she’d momentarily blacked out. He’d insist she go to the E.R. when all she wanted was a hot shower, something to eat and a few hours in his company.
    Being with James was always so easy. So relaxed. No matter how long they’d been apart, when they got together again it was as if they’d seen each other the day before. He didn’t lay guilt trips on her if she didn’t call or text him for months on end. He may not understand the choices she made, and he often teased her about her mistakes, but he never judged her. Better yet, he was always the first one to congratulate her on her triumphs.
    He believed in her and accepted her for who she was, no questions asked. He loved her without reservations or expectations.
    Some days she thought he was the only person who did.
    Tears stung the back of her eyes. To hide them from James’s intense gaze, she stretched onto her toes and hugged him again. He stiffened, his fingers digging painfully into her hips as if to push her away.
    As if to set her aside.
    A crazy thought. James would never do that to her. He’d never be done with her. The mere idea of it was absurd. Irrational.
    Inconceivable.
    Still, panic tightened her chest, made it impossible to breathe. She squeezed him harder. He sighed heavily, his breath ruffling the damp hair at her temple, the exhalation seeming to shudder through him. He slowly shifted closer, slid his hands around to settle at the small of her back, his warmth seeping through her wet clothes.
    A pebble of unnamed emotion lodged itself in her throat and she pressed her face into the crook of his neck and simply held on. She inhaled deeply, and his spicy cologne and the underlying scent of sawdust only made the urge to bawl stronger.
    God, she must have hit her head harder than she’d thought. Sure, her life was in the crapper right now, but it was temporary. A rough spot, one she’d eventually get over. “This, too, shall pass” and all of that. Good times and bad times, successes and failures...they all came and went.
    And eventually she’d get back to looking at the bright side—but right now the glare was giving her one hell of a headache.
    “Hey,” James said, his