Needing Happily Ever After - Elena Aitken Page 0,8

the right thing, depending on your perspective.

As it turned out, Katie was a tough little girl, and she could put up with a lot. But the one thing she would not tolerate was the theft of her homemade, chocolate chip oatmeal cookie. She’d socked him squarely in the face. Damon had dropped the cookie, but not before crying out in pain. There’d been blood, tears, and ultimately a trip to the principal’s office. Damon had the very distinct memory of Katie sitting across from him in Mrs. Gervais’s office, slowly eating her homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookie while he held a scratchy paper towel to his bloody nose and never once taking her eyes off him, the slightest victory smile on her face.

It was in that moment that they had become friends. Because as far as Damon had been concerned, anyone who would fight for a cookie was probably going to be a better friend than one who only wanted to hang out with him if he was mean.

After that, they’d been inseparable and their friendship only grew deeper as the years went on. When they were teenagers, they used to get teased about spending so much time together, and more than once they were mistaken for boyfriend and girlfriend. But they’d never so much as kissed. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed Damon’s mind more than once. After all, Katie was so pretty, and she made him laugh and…but it had never been worth the risk. Teenage relationships hardly ever lasted, and their friendship was way more important to him than a few months of making out.

Even so, it had killed him when his buddy Jeremy Davis asked her out, and she’d said yes. Katie was his and everyone knew it. Still, he had no claim on her, so he hadn’t said a word and had instead gone and found his own girlfriend—or six. He never did have the best track record of keeping a girlfriend for very long, a fact that hadn’t changed even when he got older, moved away, and went to school. It was a situation that only got worse once he sold his microchip designs, because it suddenly became that much harder to know whether a woman was interested in him because of him, or his money.

Maybe he was destined to be alone.

Damon opened his eyes to stare at the hotel room ceiling.

It was a depressing thought. But not a new one.

Not that there was any point in dwelling on it. Especially now, when he was back in Glacier Falls and supposed to be happily engaged. He checked the clock on the nightstand. There were still a few hours until he was supposed to meet up with Katie. With a sigh, he heaved himself off the bed. His laptop sat on the desk, but the last thing he wanted to do was look at his email. It wasn’t that he worked so much these days—he had more money than he’d ever need—but he liked to keep himself busy with a few little projects here and there. Maybe one day he’d find something he enjoyed as much as he’d enjoyed working on the microchip when he was in school.

Damon knew he’d gotten lucky with his design—that he still couldn’t talk about—and when all the top tech companies took notice and got into a bidding war over his design, it had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. At least that’s what he’d thought at the time. As it turned out, money didn’t fix everything and as much as he enjoyed traveling and having fun, more and more lately, he’d been thinking of trying something new. Maybe settling down and having a family one day…

Damon laughed at himself. First things first.

He needed to get ElkView.

But first, he needed to get out into the fresh air before he drove himself crazy. There was one thing that never failed to clear his head: a good, hard run.

“Mom! Seriously, I’m supposed to be studying.” Katie groaned and slapped her pen down in front of her. For the last fifteen minutes, her mother had been loudly slamming around the kitchen. Opening more drawers than necessary, slamming them with way more force than was required, and openly sighing and staring at her daughter. To say it was distracting would be a gross understatement. “Do I need to go to the library to get some peace? Because I will.”

Debbie Langdon placed a freshly baked muffin directly in front of Katie