Falling for Your Best Friend (Love Clichés, #4)

by Emma St. Clair

Dancing isn’t my thing. It’s not his either. Clearly.

Harper’s gaze drops to my mouth. SHE IS LOOKING AT MY MOUTH. Don’t lick your lips. Don’t move. Be still. Don’t scare her away. Let her come to you.

Go! Get back in my tear ducts, you stupid tears. I own you. Don’t think you can just come out when you want. You obey ME.

Yep. Christmas is officially the worst holiday.

Zoey and Gavin walk in with their daughter. Zoey does a double take, and I’m blaming the drink Thayden gave me, but I give her a saucy wink.

Here lies Chase Douglas, died of a broken heart. And dysentery.

It’s like waking from having surgery only to have the doctor say, “Oh, just one more thing,” and opening you back up with no pain meds or anesthesia.

Can she read the despair in my face? Is my heartbreak so easy to see? “Yeah?” “I think it’s time you and your toothbrush got reacquainted.”

Things can’t get more painful.

Never mind. Things can get more painful.

I’m fluent in Harper.

Someone else hugs me from behind, and is it weird that I know by the smell of his expensive cologne that it’s Pat?

I mean, I don’t know the typical standards for dates in your early seventies, but I can’t imagine how hiking yourself into an asthma attack and what seems close to heart failure is a good time.

I bolt. Clutching Sergeant Pepper—because in this split second, I’ve named him—to my chest like a baby.

“What are you humming?” Harper asks, sticking her head between the seats. “Hm? Oh. The periodic table.” “You have the periodic table memorized?” “Enough of it.”