Someone Like You Read online

  It made no sense that h e occasionally felt like the fifth wheel—or thirteenth wheel, whatever. None of them ever thought of him as the odd man out, he knew that.

  But it didn’t stop him from feeling that way.

  It didn’t stop the fact that he knew he’d forever be the odd number. Not just among these friends, but always.

  There was no coupled future for him with Katie, and no coupled future for him without her either.

  He was as loyal to her now as the day he’d gone on one knee and slipped the ring on her finger, but it didn’t make him any less alone now.

  Emma managed to pull her face away from Cassidy’s long enough to spot him helping himself to some of Sam’s RUNE whiskey on the sideboard.

  Lincoln started to set the bottle aside and then, seeing the fire in Emma’s eyes, decided to add a bit more to his glass.

  “Lincoln Mathis,” she said, sliding up beside him and wrapping long fingers just above his elbow and squeezing. “Would you mind telling me what part of stay away from my sister I was unclear on? You realize that I’m about five steps away from a vast array of sharp knives, right?”

  “Ahhh—”

  Lincoln glanced over Emma’s head to Cassidy, who merely shrugged and picked up his glass of red wine. “She did warn you, man. Also, am I seeing this right? You drinking something without a sugar rim or fruit garnish?”

  “Sam swears it tastes like maple,” Lincoln said, playing along with the part he’d created for himself, like he always did. The careless, easygoing guy with the sweet tooth. The sweet tooth part, at least, was dead on. “And Ems, nothing happened. Scout’s honor.”

  Her eyes, so like Daisy’s, narrowed. “You were a Boy Scout?”

  “Yes. Although only because I thought it would be like the Girl Scouts and that there’d be cookies.”

  “You sure you didn’t want access to the girls selling the cookies?” Cassidy asked.

  “Both,” Lincoln mouthed to Cassidy.

  Emma punched him. “Seriously, Linc, I adore you, I really do, but there were about a hundred women at that wedding you could have hit on. Why her? And do not start with the flower dick thing again, because I know she didn’t come on to you.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “Yeah, how do you know, sister darling?”

  Both he and Emma whipped around to see Daisy standing behind them with a caught ya smile on her face.

  She’d changed her clothes. It occurred to Lincoln that in the span of one day he’d seen her in four outfits. His shirt and boxers, back into her bridesmaid dress, then the jeans and blue sweater, and now a light pink dress kept casual with knee-high brown boots.

  She looked damn good in all of them, but if he had to choose, he’d go with his boxers and shirt. No bra. Lincoln froze with the whiskey halfway to his mouth. The thought was unwelcome, and 100 percent forbidden.

  “Daisy. Glad you’re here.” Cassidy came over, pecked her cheek. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling up at her new brother-in-law. “White wine?”

  Lincoln lifted an eyebrow along with his glass. “No whiskey? Jack Daniel’s, perhaps?”

  He hummed Britney Spears’s “Oops!…I Did It Again,” and Daisy gave him a ha ha look, as Emma narrowed her eyes, obviously noting that there was an inside joke there and not liking it.

  “Easy, Mama Bear,” Daisy said, running a hand over her sister’s arm.

  Emma sighed. “I’m never going to figure out what happened last night, am I?”

  “Sure you are,” Daisy soothed. “Your friend and twin sister went out for a couple drinks to celebrate delivering killer best man and maid of honor speeches.”

  Emma’s glare transformed into a sentimental smile, and Lincoln nearly rolled his eyes, knowing that Daisy had just purposely and skillfully diverted her sister’s anger toward mushy sentiment.

  “Don’t even start.” The usually unruffled Emma was sniffling. “I’ll start to cry all over again and I hate crying.”

  “Okay, but whose speech was better?” Lincoln said, turning so he could lean against the counter of Cassidy and Emma’s kitchen island.

  “His,” Daisy answered for Emma, but pointing an accusing finger at Lincoln as she said it. “Because he cheated.”

  “Is that possible?” Cassidy asked, rejoining them and handing Daisy a glass of white wine. “Cheating at a best man speech?”

  “Yes,” Daisy said with a prim nod. “He was supposed to tackle funny. I was supposed to be wonderfully emotional and sweet.”

  “Which you were,” Emma was quick to add.

  “I was, but so was he,” Daisy said with a mock glare at Lincoln.

  “Now, now, Wallflower. You were a little bit funny too.”

  “I was not,” she grumbled. “I was too busy trying to get them to cry.”

  “Yeah no, you weren’t that funny,” he admitted. “Don’t stress, not everyone has my raw talent.”

  Emma was back to watching them suspiciously. “Okay, if I’m not going to get any details about last night, where were you two all day today?”

  “Emma,” Cassidy said in a mild tone. “They’re adults.”

  “Yes, but Daisy is…”

  “Daisy is what?” Daisy asked mildly, turning to face her sister with a mixture of irritation and curiosity on her face. It was the identical stubbornness on their faces that signaled their twinness more than their features, Lincoln thought.

  Emma was the first to back down. “I’m sorry. I’ll back off.”

  Daisy’s expression transformed immediately into a happy smile as she linked arms with her sister, resting her head on Emma’s shoulder, her blond hair mingling with Emma’s brown. “If it makes you feel better, we went shopping today.”

  Cassidy snorted into his wine. “Mathis? For real?”

  “Daisy helped me pick out a paisley pocket square to go with my new tie,” Lincoln said, the lie rolling off his tongue.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Daisy watching him. She knew that he’d lied. They’d gone shopping, yes, but not for him. It was a little bit strange, having someone who could actually call him on his bullshit if she felt so inclined.

  Not that he outright lied to his friends very often, but he’d developed a pretty healthy habit of saying whatever needed to be said to keep people from looking too closely or digging too deeply. Lincoln liked to tell himself it wasn’t lying, so much as flippancy.

  And sure, it felt a bit hollow sometimes, but better hollow than aching.

  Still, it was odd that it was the person who’d known him for the least amount of time who could expose him.

  She didn’t, though. Not about the shopping. And not about where they’d gone before the shopping.

  Lincoln met her eyes, nodded once, just barely. She smiled back.

  Cassidy pulled his vibrating cell phone out of his pocket. “Ah. It’s the front desk guys downstairs. Pizza must be here.”

  “Pizza’s here!” This came from Riley, who always had top-notch hearing when it came to food. The loud boom of her voice also proved where her tiny daughter got her pipes.

  A few minutes later, the entire group was crowded around the kitchen, passing paper plates so that Cassidy and Emma didn’t have any dishes to take care of before their early-morning flight the next day. More wine was consumed, the group growing ever louder as they talked over one another, even as the baby grew quiet, lulled to sleep in her dad’s arms with a bottle.

  The kitchen island wasn’t big enough to fit everyone, so they all stood or sat where they found room, helping themselves to slices, bickering over the merits of green peppers on pizza.

  As pizza boxes were emptied and ice cream bars were pulled from the freezer as an easy dessert, Lincoln found himself standing beside Daisy. That’s when he realized…

  He’d been beside Daisy the whole night. He didn’t think it was intentional on either of their parts, just…natural.

  Setting aside
his glass, he hoisted himself onto the granite kitchen counter, and patted the spot beside him. “Come, Wallflower. Let us look down upon our people.”

  “No way am I getting up there without flashing everyone,” she said, taking a tiny sip of wine.

  In response, he hopped down, wrapped both hands around her waist, lifting her easily as she let out a little squeak before putting his hands on either side of her knees, and pushing them together. His palms itched with the urge to linger, and he fisted his hands and struggled mightily for levity.

  “Sit like a lady now, Wallflower.” Shit. Had that come out as raspy as it felt?

  She laughed, letting Lincoln off the hook as he pulled himself up beside her once more. “Do you always get what you want?” she asked.

  He’d been about to take another sip of his drink, but he stilled and put it back down, thinking of Katie. “No. Not always.”

  Her teasing smile disappeared, and he regretted that he’d let them go there.

  “I’m sorry,” she said under her breath. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Don’t,” he said, his voice a little sharp. “Don’t apologize. Don’t ever think you have to watch what you say around me.”

  “But—”

  “Why do you think I haven’t told any of them?” he asked, jerking his chin to where his friends were scattered around the apartment, paying them no attention. “I can’t handle people I care about walking on eggshells around me.”

  Daisy was silent for a long moment. “I understand,” she said finally. “Having people treat you differently because of things in your past can be…hard.”

  He bit his tongue to stop from asking about the painful things in her past.

  She glanced over at him with a teasing smile. “I promise not to be the least bit careful in what I say to you from here on out. Swear.”

  “Easy promise to make,” he said, nudging his elbow against hers. “Seeing as you’re flying home tomorrow.”

  “Too true,” she said, her voice bright. But her smile slipped just the tiniest bit, as though the thought made her melancholy.

  Strangely enough, Lincoln thought he understood. Because the thought of her leaving made him a little melancholy as well.

  Tonight, for the first time in a long time, he hadn’t been the odd man out. Tonight he’d been part of a pair. Part of a something.

  And it had felt far too damn good for comfort.

  Chapter 10

  “True or false—these pigs in a blanket are low-cal because they’re baby-size,” Whitney Silva said as she speared another of the greasy delights with a toothpick.

  “Oh absolutely,” Daisy said, smacking the blender against her palm to see if the margarita needed any more liquid. Deeming it perfect, she poured it into the two presalted hand-blown margarita glasses. “Miniature hot dogs wrapped in pastry dough, then brushed with butter are definitely low-cal. Nonfat too.”

  Her lifelong best friend slumped back in the bar stool in Daisy’s kitchen with a happy sigh, chewing the appetizer as she wiggled her fingers for the margarita. “Gimme.”

  Daisy handed the drink over. They both lifted their glasses, toasting each other, but not actually clinking the glass. An agreement had been made on a long-ago margarita night that clinking the glasses risked dislodging the salt and was thus a no-no.

  “Mmmm,” Whitney said into the glass. “This is low-cal too, right?”

  “Always is,” Daisy said as she picked up a toothpick and stabbed a pig in a blanket for herself.

  Every other Tuesday, Whitney came over for what had started as Taco Tuesday but eventually evolved into an excuse to have margaritas with anything and everything. Truth be told, Daisy would prefer to do something a bit lighter, but despite Whitney’s constant ambitions of dieting, her friend had a weakness for all things fried and processed.

  Daisy didn’t mind. At least she had someone to cook for. Oddly enough, that was one of the things she missed most about being married. She’d long since been cured of the romance of marriage—the idea of true love and two people making each other happy forever and ever.

  But she did miss the companionship. The way that, in the early days, she and Gary would split a bottle of wine over whatever new recipe she’d tried out. Not that he’d ever complimented her effort, but back then, it had been enough that she enjoyed the process.

  She still cooked, but cooking for one wasn’t the same. Thank goodness for Whitney. Sure, pigs in a blanket barely counted as cooking, and her best friend’s all-time favorite food was four-ingredient spinach dip. But putting food in front of her friend let Daisy pretend for a little while that she was taking care of someone.

  That someone wanted her to take care of them.

  “Okay, so,” Whitney said around another huge sip of margarita. “I want to hear all about the wedding. Like everything. How mad was Em that I couldn’t make it?”

  “Not at all,” Daisy said, meaning it. Emma and Whitney had never been close, but they’d always liked each other. Daisy had always appreciated that they’d never seemed to resent the other person. Whitney got the whole twin thing, and Emma had never seemed threatened by Whitney’s ever-increasing presence in Daisy’s life.

  In fact, Daisy was pretty sure Emma was relieved when Daisy had had an outlet for all of her extra-chatty tendencies. Emma had always been happy to spend a Friday afternoon alone with a book, while Daisy and Whitney had hightailed it to the mall.

  Emma and Whitney were close enough that Whitney had warranted an invitation to the wedding, but she hadn’t been able to get time off work. As a real estate agent, weekends were Whitney’s bread and butter for the prime showings.

  Like Daisy, Whitney was a divorcée. Unlike Daisy, Whitney’s divorce hadn’t come with a big old house and massive alimony checks.

  There was no resentment though. In fact, it had been Whitney who insisted Daisy take every penny of what her lawyer had gotten. Justice money, she’d called it—Gary’s conscience at work.

  Daisy knew better. Knew that it was hush money. Gary hadn’t fought Daisy for a single penny, and only the two of them knew why.

  It was the one secret she kept from Whitney. From Emma. From everyone.

  Whitney held out her glass for more margarita, and Daisy dutifully complied, topping off both their glasses with what remained in the pitcher.

  “Wedding,” Whitney said. “Talk. Tell me you banged a groomsman.”

  “Most of them are married or attached,” Daisy said.

  Whitney lifted her perfectly arched dark eyebrows. “Most but not all?”

  She pursed her lips and Whitney bounced a little in her seat. “You got laid!”

  Daisy laughed. “I did not.”

  Whitney pouted. “You didn’t? But you haven’t been with anyone since Gary. Don’t you miss sex?”

  Her friend did a little wiggle that did impressive things for her big boobs. Whitney had the round, voluptuous figure of a woman who loved fried food and was lucky enough to carry most of the extra weight in her upper half. Combined with her perfectly styled brown hair and the ever-present black eyeliner that made her unusually light blue eyes look alluring and mysterious, Whitney had always had more sexy in her little finger than Daisy did in her entire being.

  “I know that gleam,” Daisy said, switching the subject back to Whitney. “You got laid while I was gone.”

  Her friend’s gaze flicked away, just for a moment, as she took a sip of her drink.

  Daisy knew that look and groaned. “Oh Whitney. You didn’t.”

  “What? Jay may be a first-rate prick, but he’s still the best I ever had.”

  Whitney had met Jay Cunningham in a bar one Saturday night when she was twenty-four and had married him three days later at the county courthouse after one too many mimosas.

  The marriage had lasted four years and six months, which was exactly four years and five months longer than Daisy had thought it was going to. Their divorce and their relationship since had been exactly the same as the
marriage itself: tumultuous.

  “He’s your ex-husband. You hate him,” Daisy countered.

  “Hell yeah I do. Which is what makes the sex so damn good.”

  Daisy speared another of the pigs in a blanket, deciding that there was something dangerously addicting about them.

  Whitney gave a happy sigh. “It just doesn’t get better than the anger bang.”

  Daisy choked on her mini hot dog. “The what?”

  “Anger bang. You know, that rough and furious and dirty sex with someone you can’t stand. Tell me you’ve had it?”

  Daisy shook her head. “Nope. I don’t really anger that easily, and when I do get angry, I sure as heck don’t feel like doing it.”

  Whitney gave her an indulgent smile. “Doing it. You’re so cute. So tell me about the guy you did it with in New York?”

  Daisy rolled her eyes, grateful when the buzzing of her phone next to the coffee machine gave her an escape from her friend’s inquisition.

  She couldn’t help the smile when she saw the text. Who it was from.

  Wallflower. Took your advice about keeping The Ladies away. You’re right, nobody likes a guy with a rash, no matter how I swore it wasn’t itchy.

  She’d been back in North Carolina for just over a week, and she’d been pleasantly surprised when she’d gotten a text from Lincoln the moment she landed in Charlotte. A harmless, joking text about Britney Spears going on tour.

  She’d texted back that her and Britney only got along in private venues, clothing optional.

  He’d responded that his apartment was always available—which he didn’t mean, obviously—and that had made it all the safer. Not a day had gone by that she hadn’t heard from him, and somehow texts from this guy she barely knew had become the highlight of every day.

  She texted back. Tell them that there’s nothing to worry about—that the medicated cream you use shouldn’t cause any irritation unless they’re part of the 2% of the population that’s allergic.

  His response was immediate.

  Tried that the first time. Unfortunately for me, she was a dermatologist. Took it as a turn on.