Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #3) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,21

want to leave me alone. It wasn’t really that big of a deal.”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“I’m not.”

“So he spent the night and just left this morning and nothing happened?”

You matter, too, Alexis. The sound of his voice came back, and with it, the tingling in her knuckles where his thumb had caressed her.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I think . . . he looked at me, and I—” Alexis groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“And what?” Jessica prompted.

“I think maybe he was looking at me. Like looking looking at me. But what if I was wrong?”

Jessica laughed. “I guarantee that you were not wrong. He’s been looking at you for a long time. You’re the only one who doesn’t seem to notice.”

Alexis lowered her hands and focused on the muffins. “It doesn’t matter. It can’t happen.”

“Why not?”

“It could ruin our friendship forever.”

“Not possible.”

“Noah is one of the best things in my life. I can’t lose that.”

“The best love affairs start as friendships.”

“But that friendship is way too important to risk.”

Jessica rested her hand on Alexis’s arm. “Maybe he wants to take the risk too.” At her silence, Jessica backed up. “You deserve to be happy, you know.”

“I am happy.”

Jessica tilted her head like she didn’t believe it. “Can I ask you something else?”

Alexis managed to nod.

“What if you are a match?”

Alexis didn’t answer and probably didn’t need to.

There was no point in trying to pretend that she hadn’t already made up her mind.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lexa’s house was the physical manifestation of her. The sunny yellow siding and white shutters reminded Noah of a cottage on Cape Cod. She’d decorated the wraparound porch with wicker chairs and bright pillows, and, at one end, a swing that he’d helped her put up at the beginning of the summer. Afterward, they’d sat on it side by side and shared a Summer Shandy until the fireflies began to light up the willow tree that draped lazily in the front yard.

She had recently swapped the summery pillows for deep fall colors and fluffy blankets. Pumpkins, gourds, and pots of mums descended the porch steps in an artfully casual way that was probably unplanned. That was the magic of Alexis. Without even trying, everything she touched was beautiful.

Except for the demon staring out the window beneath a sign that read BEWARE OF CAT.

Beefcake followed with his eyes from the window as Noah walked up the porch steps shortly before six and knocked on the front door. The cat slowly lifted one leg and started licking his nonexistent balls. Noah had never been so summarily dismissed yet threatened in his entire life.

“It’s open,” Alexis called faintly from inside.

Noah walked in slowly, cautiously, eyes darting left and right for an ambush.

“I’m in the kitchen,” she said.

As he passed the living room on the left, Noah glanced at the couch. Beefcake was nowhere to be seen. Noah gulped and did a fast sweep of the room and the hallway with his eyes.

The kitchen was as cheery as the exterior of the house. She’d recently repainted the cabinets a bright turquoise and traded her mother’s old stainless-steel appliances for a retro brand in bright red. In the center sat a 1950s-style café table surrounded by red vinyl chairs.

“Hey,” Lexa said breezily over her shoulder. Too breezily.

“Hey. Something—” His voice and mind stopped working when she turned around. She wore her hair in a long braid over one shoulder, and she’d wrapped a wide flowery scarf thing like a headband around the crown of her head. Several curls had sprung free and hugged the curve of her cheeks. Dangly earrings hung from her earlobes, and as she walked toward him, the sleeve of her long blue dress slipped down to reveal one creamy shoulder. She tugged it up absently, apparently unaware that tiny flash of skin had just taken a year off his life.

She smiled, but there was a brittle quality to it. “Something what?”

“Huh?” He blinked. “Oh. Sorry. Something smells good.”

She shrugged with one shoulder. “I made way more food than I needed to.”

“Per usual.”

Alexis lived in fear of people starving to death. He’d never once left her house without enough leftovers to last him at least three meals. But he sensed that today’s overabundance had more to do with her needing a distraction than anything else. He knew the feeling.

A timer on the stove sent Noah into cardiac arrest.

“The mushrooms your sister likes,” she explained.

Alexis pulled a foil-covered dish from the oven and set it on