Almost Just Friends Read online

“And then—”

  She sank her teeth into his lower lip and gave a playful tug. “Let me save you some time, soldier,” she whispered, and slid her fingers into his hair. “Anywhere. Anytime. For the rest of my life. I’m all yours.”

  He let out a breath and pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes soft and warm and full of more emotion than he usually showed. “And I’m yours, Piper. For the rest of our lives.”

  Sounded like the perfect plan.

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  * * *

  Meet Jill Shalvis

  About the Book

  * * *

  Reading Group Guide

  You’re My Honey Bun Muffins Recipe

  Read On

  * * *

  Coming Soon . . . An Excerpt from The Summer Deal

  About the Author

  Meet Jill Shalvis

  New York Times bestselling author JILL SHALVIS lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is . . . mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold, and visit her website for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  About the Book

  Reading Group Guide

  Piper has a very hard time asking for help. Is this something you have in common with her? Do you think men or women are more prone to not asking for help?

  Piper loves keeping lists, even if she doesn’t always cross everything off them. Do you find to-do lists and journals helpful or harmful? What are the benefits? What are the downsides?

  Gavin struggles with drug addiction. Is there someone in your life who has dealt with this? How did it affect you?

  What did you think of the way Piper and her family handled Gavin’s situation? Would you have done anything differently?

  Do you think Winnie was justified in lying to Piper about her pregnancy and dropping out of college? If not, how do you think she should have handled it?

  Are there situations where you think lying is the right thing to do? How do you decide what those are?

  Was Piper correct when she made the decision to sell the property without talking about it with her siblings?

  How much of Cam’s decision to help Winnie and Gavin was influenced by the death of his brother?

  Was Cam right to keep Winnie’s secrets? If you were Piper, would you have understood?

  You’re My Honey Bun Muffins Recipe

  In Almost Just Friends there’s a lot of talk about comfort food. That’s probably because comfort food has gotten my family through a lot over the years. It solves problems, eases the tension after family arguments, and brings people together in the kitchen, where good things always seem to happen even on a bad day.

  You should know that for me and my family, comfort does not necessarily equal healthy. ☺ It means things like mac and cheese, cinnamon and sugar toast, and anything warm from the oven that includes butter.

  In the story, our main character Piper doesn’t really cook. She’s actually downright bad at it. She leaves that for her brother, Gavin, who’s aces at it. But she can pull it together when she needs to. For instance, she’s really good at boiling hotdogs to chop up and put in Gavin’s homemade mac and cheese.

  But I like to think that she could bake the heck out of a good muffin. And I’d like to think that if she could, she’d bake these You’re My Honey Bun Muffins (honey banana). It’s a recipe I got from an old friend a long time ago and have made a gazillion times for those trying days when you just need something warm and comforting. Give them a try. And think of Piper when you do . . . ☺

  Things You’ll Need:

  12-cup muffin pan

  Nonstick cooking spray

  ½ cup (1 stick) butter

  ½ cup brown sugar

  ¼ cup honey

  1 egg

  3 or 4 ripe bananas

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  ½ teaspoon almond extract or black walnut extract

  1½ cups self-rising flour

  Preheat the oven to 400°F. Prepare a 12-cup muffin pan by coating the cups with nonstick spray or lining them with cupcake holders.

  Heat the butter in the microwave until softened. Combine the butter, brown sugar, honey, and egg in a mixing bowl. Peel the bananas and mash them on a plate with a fork. Add them to the bowl and stir until smooth. Add the vanilla and almond or walnut extract. Add the flour and stir until it forms a thick, smooth batter.

  Spoon the batter into the muffin pan.

  Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes. Remove the muffins from the pan immediately to cool.

  Serve the muffins warm with milk and try not to eat all of them in one sitting.

  Read On

  Coming Soon . . . An Excerpt from The Summer Deal

  Chapter 1

  Brynn Turner had always wanted to be the girl who had her life together, but so far her talents hadn’t gone in that direction—although not for lack of trying.

  She mentally recapped the week she’d just endured and let out a stuttered breath. Okay, so her life skills needed some serious work, but as far as she was concerned, that was Future Brynn’s problem. Present Brynn had other things on her mind.

  Like surviving the rest of the day.

  With that goal in mind, she kept her eyes on the road, and three point five long hours and two 7-Eleven hotdogs after leaving Long Beach in her rearview mirror, she pulled into Wildstone, a place that had reinvented itself many times over since it’d been a late 1800s wild, wild west town complete with wooden sidewalks, saloons, and haunted silver mines. It sat smack dab in the middle of California, sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the green rolling hills filled with wineries and ranches.

  Parking in the driveway of her childhood home, Brynn took a minute. Once upon a time, Wildstone had been her favorite place on earth, but it’d been a decade since she’d lived here. She’d gone off to college and to conquer the world. Only one of those things had happened. She’d been back for visits, though even that had been a while. Six months, in fact. She’d stood in this very spot and had asked both of her well-meaning moms to butt out of her life, that she knew what she was doing.

  Note to self: she’d had no idea what she was doing.

  Clearly she still didn’t.

  With a sigh, she pulled down her visor and glanced into the mirror, hoping that a miracle had occurred and she’d see someone who had their shit together. Her hair was knotted on top of her head with the string tie from her hoodie because she’d lost her scrunchie. She was wearing her old glasses because she’d run out of contacts. Her face was pale and her eyes were puffy and red from a bad combo of not sleeping and crying. She wore yoga pants that hadn’t seen a yoga class since . . . well, ever, and in spite of being nearly thirty, she had a big, fat zit on her chin.

  In short, she looked about as far away from knowing what she was doing with her life as she was from solving world hunger.

  Knowing her moms—sweet and loving and nosy as hell—were going to see right through her, she pawed through her purse for a miracle. She found some lip gloss that she applied, and then on second thought also dabbed on each cheek for some badly needed color. She also found two peanut M&Ms, and since she didn’t believe in wasting food, she ate them. Hoping for more, she shook her purse, but nope, she was out of luck.

  The theme of her life.

  With a sigh, she once again met her own gaze in the mirror. “Okay, here’s the drill. You’re okay. You’re good. You’re happy to be home. You’re absolutely not crawling back with your tail between your legs to admit to your moms that they were right about Dickhead.”

  Swallowing hard, she got out of her hunk-o-junk and grabbed her duffle bag and purse. She’d barely made it to the porch before the front door was flung open and there stood her moms in the d
oorway, some deep maternal instinct having let them know their sole offspring was within smothering distance.

  Both in their mid-fifties, their similarities stopped there. Olive was pragmatic, stoic, and God help the person who tried to get anything by her. She was perfectly coifed as always, hair up, her pants and blazer fitted, giving her a look of someone who’d just walked out of a Wall Street meeting. In sharp comparison, Raina’s sundress was loose and flowery and flowing, and she wore beads around her neck and wrists that made her jingle pleasantly whenever she moved. She was soft and loving, and quite possibly the kindest soul on earth. And while Olive was economical with her movements, Raina was in constant motion.

  Opposites attract . . .

  But actually, her moms did have something in common beyond their age—their warm, loving smiles, both directed at Brynn. It was her own personal miracle, that they loved her madly no matter how many times she’d driven them crazy.

  And there’d been a lot of times. Too many to count.

  “Sweetheart,” Raina said, jewelry indeed jingling, bringing forth welcome memories; growing vegetables in their garden, taking long walks on the beach to chase seagulls, and late night snuggles. Raina opened her arms and Brynn walked right into them, smiling when Olive wrapped her up from behind.

  The three of them stood there for a long beat, wrapped up in each other. Catherine The Great Cat wandered in close, her appearance forewarned by the bell around her neck. She might be twelve and seemingly frail and delicate, but as with her moms, looks were deceiving because just beneath Cat’s skin lived a mountain lion. Hence the bell, because she hunted like one. No one blamed her instinctual drive to do this, though Raina greatly objected to Cat dropping “presents” at her feet in the form of cricket heads and various other pieces of dead insects.

  Yep, Cat was the most adorable murderer who ever lived, and she rubbed her furry face against Brynn’s ankles exactly twice.

  And then bit.

  “Ouch!”

  “You know her rules,” Olive said. “A little love, a little hate. It’s how she is. Now tell us why you’re home unannounced, looking like something not even Catherine would’ve dragged inside.”

  “I think she looks wonderful,” Raina said.

  “She hasn’t been sleeping or eating.” Olive’s worried eyes never left Brynn.

  “I’ve been eating plenty!”

  “Okay, then you aren’t sleeping enough or eating the right food. You’re as pale as . . . well me.”

  Olive indeed had the pale skin of her English ancestry. In contrast, Raina was Puerto Rican, and an envious golden brown. Since Brynn had been conceived from Raina’s egg, not Olive’s, along with a sperm donor, her own skin was a few shades lighter than Raina’s. Unless she was trying to not hyperventilate, of course. Like now. In which case she probably was whiter than Olive.

  “Okay, we can fix the eating right and sleeping, for a start,” Raina said with determination. She slipped her hand into Brynn’s, and as she’d been doing for as long as Brynn could remember, she took over. She settled Brynn onto the couch with one of her handmade throws, and in less than five minutes had a tray on Brynn’s lap with her famous vegan chickpea noodle soup and steaming ginger root tea.

  “Truth serum?” Brynn asked, only half joking. Raina was magic in the kitchen—and at getting people to spill their guts.

  “I don’t need truth serum.” Raina sat next to her. “You’re going to tell me everything.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I made peanut butter cups for dessert and you love peanut butter cups.”

  “You’d withhold dessert from your only child?”

  “She wouldn’t, she’s far too kind,” Olive said. “But I would. In a heartbeat.” She sat on the coffee table facing Brynn. “Talk.”

  “How do you know I’ve got anything to talk about?”

  “A mom knows.”

  This was . . . mostly true. Her moms loved and adored her, they’d never made any secret of that. They’d had her back whenever she’d needed them, except for the times that she’d managed to keep her need a secret. Such as her younger years when she’d been mercilessly bullied for having two moms . . .

  She loved them madly but it was a lot of pressure to be their only child, especially given how long and hard they’d fought for the right to have a baby at all. They were both truly amazing, but she could admit it was sometimes hard to live up to their expectations. She could also admit that she often didn’t. She tended to skate through life. If she didn’t dig too deep into anything, if she kept her life surface-only it was safe there. Her glass house couldn’t fall down.

  Cat jumped onto her lap and Brynn gave her a long look. “You going to play nice?”

  Cat gave her a gentle head butt to the belly, and then tried to put her face in Brynn’s soup. The bowl amplified the raspy, old lady purr so that it sounded like a misfiring engine.

  “Welcome home,” Olive said dryly, scooping up Catherine before she got any soup, gently depositing her onto the floor. “Now let’s hear it. Not that we’re not thrilled to see you, but what’s going on? You’ve brought a pretty big duffle bag for a weekend’s visit. Thought Long Beach was working out for you. You were substitute teaching and living with Darren—”

  “Dirk,” Brynn said and managed a casual shrug while ignoring the tightness in her chest, the tightness that had been there the whole drive. The whole past week. Maybe months. She was hoping it was a warning sign of an incoming zombie apocalypse and not a panic attack. When she’d been younger, she’d had them a lot. Like every day at summer camp over the course of the twelve years she’d gone, something else she’d managed to keep from her moms. The attacks were infrequent now, but at the thought of the conversation she was going to have to have with her moms, she could feel it building. She’d rather face zombies than worry them. They’d been through enough in their lives. “Just thought I’d come home for a bit,” she finally said.

  “And you know we love having you,” Raina said, putting her hand over Olive’s when her wife opened her mouth again. “But we also know that you’re a fierce protector of those you love. You’d keel over before worrying us. Something’s wrong.” She softened her voice. “Did . . . something happen?”

  Brynn started shoveling in the soup, even though she hated vegan chickpea noodle soup. “Yum.”

  Olive hadn’t taken her eyes off Brynn. “It was Dustin, wasn’t it. Somehow this is all connected to that asshole.”

  Brynn pushed her glasses farther up her nose. “Dirk.”

  “Hmm. And you only push your glasses up like that when you’re upset.”

  “Olive,” Raina said softly. “Back up, give her a little breathing space.” She turned to Brynn. “Honey, you need to inhale.”

  Right. She was holding her breath. She let it out and gasped in some air. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not.” Raina sounded and looked deeply worried. “You’re breathing too heavily and your pulse is racing.”

  Yep, she was in the throes of a good old-fashioned panic attack, her first since last month when she’d realized she’d lost her great grandma’s necklace, the one Olive had told her to take the utmost care of as it was not just sentimental, but worth a small fortune. But that hadn’t been what had caused the attack. It’d been the unrelenting suspicion that Dirk had taken it.

  He’d sworn he hadn’t, and had been so hurt and devastated at the accusation that Brynn had started to doubt herself. Maybe she had really lost it.

  Now she tried to suck in some more air and failed. “It’s just allergies. I’m fine.”

  “See? She says she’s fine,” Raina said.

  “I am,” Brynn said, rubbing her chest and the impending freight train in it. “Totally fine.”

  Olive looked at Raina. “She’s not fine. She’s not working, her promise ring is no longer on her finger, so I’m assuming David was a huge ass-plant and that she’s moving back in here.”

  “Dirk,�
�� Brynn whispered.

  “None of those things came out of her mouth,” Raina said, sounding distressed.

  “Well, maybe they would if you’d give her a minute to talk.” Olive frowned. “Except she’s clutching her chest and looking like she’s going to hyperventilate. Honey, are you in pain?”

  If by pain she meant the feeling that her ribs were being cracked open by a sledge hammer, then yeah. She was in pain.

  Raina crouched in front of her. “On a pain scale of one to ten, where are you at?”

  Fifteen sounded about right.

  Raina whirled to Olive. “Oh my God, I think she’s having a heart attack!”

  “No, I’m not.” Brynn pulled off her glasses and dropped her face into her hands. “But everything else is all true. The not working thing. The coming home to stay for a bit thing. The asshole boyfriend thing.”

  “I’m going to kill Dirk,” Olive murmured beneath her breath.

  Brynn managed a mirthless laugh at her finally getting his name right.

  “Oh honey,” Raina whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “The school I was working at closed its doors. And the Dirk thing, it’s for the best.” Understatement . . . Brynn shook her head. “But I’m okay. Really. I’m just . . .” Bonkers. Completely unhinged. Homeless . . . “A-okay.”

  “She’s whiter than you,” Raina told Olive. “And clammy but chilled.”

  “I see it. Sweetheart, breathe,” Olive said calmly to Brynn. To Raina, she said, “Call 9-1-1.”

  “No!” Brynn said. Or tried to. But of course now she really was hyperventilating.

  Raina was on the phone with 9-1-1. “Hi, yes, my daughter’s having a heart attack.”

  “I’m not!” Brynn wheezed as little black dots danced behind her eyelids.

  Olive held both of Brynn’s hands. “Breathe,” she said again. “Breathe with me.”

  She was trying. But she couldn’t seem to draw air into her lungs, which was now intensifying the sharp throbbing in her chest. Ripping her hands from Olive’s, she pressed them against her ribcage, trying to ease the pain.