Finding Mr. Write (Business of Love #5) - Ali Parker Page 0,89

The first couple of times she’d done it, she’d been embarrassed, but I told her that was exactly what I wanted, for her to feel like she was home. Not like she was crashing temporarily and not like she was living with a boyfriend but that she was home.

“He’s going to like it,” I said before tipping my head back to polish off the beer.

“I hope so,” Briar mumbled as she padded past me to check on dinner in the Crockpot. On her way, she stopped in front of the fridge and plucked a neon pink sticky note off the door. She held it up. “Do you still need this?”

Written on the note was an address provided to me by Katie, who I’d called the other night to congratulate on her upcoming wedding and confirm that yes, my plus one and I would be there. Katie, delighted, had asked if I could do her a favor and swing by her friend Hailey’s house, a devoted fan of my books, to drop off a signed copy of my newest work. Apparently, Hailey was drowning in the madness of being a new mother to a newborn and Katie thought a little surprise might be just the thing she needed. A good book to curl up with for some alone time couldn’t hurt, either. I’d already signed the inside cover of the book and written a nice note about motherhood with Briar’s help, but I hadn’t gotten around to dropping the book off to Katie’s soon-to-be sister-in-law yet.

“I still need it, yes,” I said.

Briar frowned at it.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Having a neon pink note on the fridge with no other pictures or magnets or anything bugs me.”

I laughed. “Put it in the drawer for now if you want. Just don’t let me forget it’s there. Katie might uninvite me from her wedding if I forget to drop off the book to her brother and his girl.”

Briar opened the junk drawer beside the fridge and stuck the note to the inside of the door. “We’ll bring the book to them tomorrow,” she said decidedly.

I could tell she was flustered and the sticky note was a glaring reminder of something that still needed to be done. She’d insisted on cooking dinner alone tonight despite my numerous attempts to try and help her. She claimed that this was a one-woman recipe and my big hands would mess it up. Secretly, I suspected she just wanted to be the mastermind behind the evening so she could take all the credit for its success.

Or failure.

I slid off my stool so I could peer over her shoulder into the Crockpot. “How’s it looking?”

She closed the lid after giving the contents a stir. “Good. Perhaps the best it’s ever turned out.”

“Look at you knocking recipes out of the park.”

She smiled and ran her hands under the kitchen sink to give them a wash. “You have no idea the difference a good quality Crockpot will make. My mother’s Crockpot that I’ve always used was actually my grandmother’s. It’s almost forty years old.”

“Damn.”

“You can say that again. It still works. It’s just not all that sophisticated and it only has two settings.”

“On and off?” I asked sarcastically.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “High and low.”

I chuckled. “My mistake.”

Walker arrived just after six o’clock. Unlike Briar’s parents, who we’d entertained a few nights before and had caught their flight home the day before yesterday, Walker let himself in. He hollered down the hall that he had arrived and that the house smelled better than ever.

Briar smiled hopefully.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll win him over the minute he sees you. Trust me.”

Briar was putting a lot of pressure on herself. She knew how good a friend Walker was to me and she so badly didn’t want to mess it up. She refused to believe me when I told her that was impossible. Walker was the most easygoing guy I knew. So long as she was good to me, he’d like her.

And damn, was she ever good to me.

Too good, to be honest. I didn’t deserve her.

Walker came around the corner with a bottle of red wine in one hand and a case of beer in the other. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Briar, who stood beside me in a pair of jeans and a rusty-colored sweater. Her makeup was shimmery and gold, her lips deep red, her hair pulled back by a large gold clip at the