Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance #1)(19)

“Hey,” Faith spoke up, “I resent that.”

Sofie lifted a tortilla chip. “Sorry. I knew you back when we waitressed and you used to do keg stands.”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“You weren’t as sweet then as you pretend to be now, my friend,” Faith said to Sofie.

“I was so.”

“Don’t make me say his name.” Faith dipped a chip and munched.

When they quietly chewed for a few more moments, Charlie swiveled her head between the two of them. “Okay, now I have to know.”

Sofie drank, then drank a little more. Faith fell silent, craning an eyebrow in challenge.

“Seriously?” Charlie looked from one to the other. “No one’s going to tell me?”

“Sofe?” Faith asked, her face showing mild concern. “Should I not have brought it up?”

Sofie waved a hand. “Don’t be silly. Donny was forever ago, like, years ago.”

“Donny?” What were the odds? “As in Donny Pate?”

Sofie’s brow crinkled. “Yeah.”

“I knew him. Er, knew of him. He was one of the bad boys who hung out with Evan and Asher Knight years ago when we used to visit the Cove.”

“Bad boys?” Faith asked in an amused lilt.

“Yeah, or so Rae called them.” Donny was taller than Evan and Asher, had long, black hair, and was the quieter, more intense one of the three. She turned to Sofie. “He was cute. When he was seventeen, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, he was cute when he was twenty-four, too.” She drained her glass, then held it out for a refill. “Gar?on?”

Faith tipped the bottle and emptied it into Sofie’s glass, her engagement ring glinting in the candlelight. “I have a surprise for you both.”

“You’ve set a date?” Sofie guessed.

Charlie sputtered into her glass. Faith had been procrastinating everything about her upcoming nuptials. Setting a date, picking a venue, anything and everything having to do with the planning.

Sofie had shared she thought this was a bad sign and Charlie agreed. Maybe because a version of Rae’s warning about Russell still rang in her ears. In Faith’s case, Charlie wondered if a man who didn’t push for marriage two years after he’d popped the question was also a man who’d walk away. For her friend’s sake, she hoped not.

“You wish,” Faith said with a smile.

Sofie held up a palm. “I don’t do weddings.”

It was true. Sofe handled corporate events, charity dinners, even anniversary parties, but never weddings. She said they were too big and complicated, but Charlie sometimes wondered if her reasoning ran deeper.

“I know, I know. No weddings. Now for my surprise.” Faith reached under the table and came up with a white bakery box.

Sugar Hi’s logo was the cutest. Confection-pink, swirly lettering designed around a frosting-laden cupcake with a cherry on top made up the word “Sugar” and “hi!” was in a little comic-strip-style speech balloon off to the right. Beneath the whimsical logo, in type almost serious by comparison, was the claim “Evergreen Cove’s Finest.” The claim was true. Hoity-toity Abundance Market and homegrown-style Cup of Joe’s could not compare to the epic sweets served up at Sugar Hi.

“It’s not.” Charlie leaned closer, drawn by the smell of sugar as Faith lifted the lid.

“It is.” Faith tilted the box, displaying the desserts as if she would rare and precious gems. “Soon-to-be-world-famous Devil Dogs.”

“Oh, no, you got one for each of us,” Sofie said, shoulders dropping in defeat. “Evil.”

“Yes. And you’re going to eat every bite. Calories don’t count on girls’ night.”

“Besides, when you cut the cake in half, the fat grams fall out,” Charlie joked.

Sofie acquiesced with an eye roll. “Fine.”

They lifted their chocolate-dipped cakes out of the box and Faith raised hers in a cheers. “To the bad boys of Evergreen Cove.” She smiled. “And the good girls smart enough to stay away from them.”

Rather than chime in on that proclamation, Charlie took a bite of the most amazing, moist, crème-filled, chocolate-dipped cake she’d ever tasted in her life, and tried desperately not to think of bad boys.

Like the sinful, rich chocolate and bad-for-her sugar causing her entire body to buzz and her taste buds to tingle, thoughts of Evan crashed into her brain front and center. Thoughts about his body, his tempting mouth, and the way those long, long eyelashes swept over eyes that’d seen more darkness than light.





CHAPTER SEVEN




Three a.m.

Three. Fucking. a.m.

Evan glared down at the black, gray, and navy-blue paint covering the canvas in front of him, hating it. Hating the proof of the darkness that covered him during sleepless hours. Hating that this lived inside him while on the outside he struggled to be the best father possible. A father like his own.

He wanted to turn over the easel, smash the painting, knock everything off his desk. But he didn’t want to wake his son; have him come down here and find Evan in the throes of… whatever he was going through.

He’d moved here to find the light. Not get darker.