Chance of a Lifetime (Anderson Brothers) Read Online Free

could never be topped. Her body thrummed with energy as her mind replayed the feel of his hands and mouth on her. “Next is a roller coaster.” Which didn’t seem nearly as daring or exciting as kissing Chance. But when she’d made the list at fifteen, it had held appeal.
    Maybe because she’d envisioned herself doing it with her big brother’s best friend, who would have certainly wrapped a protective arm around her in her vivid teen imagination.
    She dug her spoon into her ice cream and pushed the image from her mind.
    “Soooooooo, you gonna tell me about it?”
    “Do I have a choice?”
    “Not if you value your shins, because I’m going to move all your furniture around so you whack into stuff if you don’t give me the scoop on the doc and why you dislike him so much.”
    She didn’t dislike him. That was the problem. Even after all this time, part of her still longed for him, while another part wanted to let him know how much he’d hurt her. She swallowed hard and took a breath. He probably hadn’t even thought of her after that horrible night. “I told you. Because he’s a jerk.”
    “You can’t get off that easily. Not this time. There’s more to this. Spill.”
    She took a bite of her ice cream and thought about how to sum it up concisely. A protracted discussion of her teen crush would only make matters worse. “We used to hang out a lot, Walter, Chance, and me. Our parents were friends—still are.”
    She hadn’t realized she’d drifted off into her memories until her friend cleared her throat theatrically.
    “Walter had a lot of after-school commitments starting in middle school because of lacrosse practice, so often, it was just Chance and me hanging out. We were very close…or at least I thought we were.” She took another bite, not even appreciating the smooth chocolate taste. “Walter treated me like a helpless blind sister. Chance…didn’t. Ever. He treated me like…”
    “A girlfriend?”
    She sighed. “No. Like a regular person.”
    “Ah,” her friend said, paper napkin rustling as she likely wiped her lips. “So why the slap instead of relocating that hot make-out session to your apartment where it belongs?”
    Excitement and horror in equal parts flashed down her spine in prickly heat at the thought of Chance being in her apartment. “Because he…” How could she finish that sentence without sounding melodramatic? Betrayed me seemed too much, but was the truth. “Let me down.”
    “Still listening.”
    Shit. “We went to the harbor for New Year’s Eve—Walter, Chance, me, and a neighbor of ours named Phoebe who Walter was hot for.” She took another bite of ice cream. “I never really liked Phoebe. She was always talking the boys into doing stupid stuff.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like breaking into my parents’ liquor cabinet. Anyway, the four of us went to the harbor. It wasn’t a date between Chance and me, but being only fifteen, it was as close as I’d come, and, well…I had a good imagination.”
    “So, you came on to him. That’s understandable.”
    “No. I would never have done that. I…he…” She smoothed the top of her ice cream with the back of her spoon. “Well, I was intimidated and clueless. At that time, the three years he had on me seemed like decades. I had some romantic notion that if I had him alone at midnight without Walter and Phoebe, he’d kiss me to ring in the new year. I thought that was a rule—you had to kiss whomever you were with when the new year came in.”
    “Well, I’m glad that’s not a rule, because you’ve spent the last three New Years’ with me. I like you, hon, but not that way.”
    She laughed.
    “Sorry,” Sherry said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Then what happened?”
    She’d never forget that night. Everything changed because of it. She changed. She pushed her ice cream away and sighed. “We were playing Skee-Ball and I was desperate to get Chance alone. I convinced him to take me to the edge of a