What Happens Between Friends by Beth Andrews Page B

him and put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re taking your lives in your hands doing that.”
    “Desperate times, my friend,” Maddie said. “You know how she gets after a party.”
    “Crazy,” Bree said solemnly.
    He squeezed her. “That’s my girl.”
    “When I told her I’d come back in the morning to run the vacuum, I thought her head was going to explode. And that I would have to clean that up, too.” Maddie shook her head. “I think this school thing really has her freaked out.”
    “She’ll work through it.”
    “I know. But it’s tough when she’s the one we can always trust to be practical and responsible. Well, other than you, that is.”
    “You make practicality and responsibility sound like negative traits.”
    “Did I?” she asked sweetly. “So sorry.”
    She wasn’t. She was rarely sorry, even when she knew damn well she was to blame. And there wasn’t much sweet about her, either. Growing up with three older brothers had made her tough as nails. Her stubbornness, competiveness and bordering-on-obsessive need to prove she was equal to the men in her family in every way was due to the prickly, pugnacious personality she’d been born with.
    Was it any wonder they all adored her?
    Maddie tugged Bree to her feet. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get out of here before Nonna realizes we’ve escaped.” When James stood as well, Maddie hugged him. “Happy birthday.”
    “Thanks.”
    She stepped back and Bree moved into his arms. “Happy birthday, Uncle James.”
    He held her close. She was a shorter, rounder version of her mother with her tanned skin, dark hair and heavy eyebrows. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, surprised to realize she now reached the middle of his chest.
    When the hell did that happen? How did it happen?
    It seemed like just yesterday she’d had pigtails and a wide, empty space in her smile where her two front teeth used to be. Those teeth had long ago come in, and she’d traded in the pigtails for a supershort pixie cut that accentuated the fullness of her face. But that would change soon, too. She’d get taller. Thin out. Grow up.
    But she still smelled like a little girl, like clean sweat and baby powder. She still hugged him fiercely as if she never wanted to let go.
    Love for her swamped him and he hoped she never did let go.
    “Hey,” he said, leaning away so he could look down into her pretty face. “How about on Tuesday we go to that new bakery that opened up downtown?”
    She stepped back, sent her mom a worried look. “Tuesday?”
    “That’s the first day of school, right?” He pulled out his phone. He could have sworn he’d made a note that school started on the twenty-fourth.
    “Yes,” she said slowly, sidling closer to Maddie, “that’s the first day, but—”
    “Or we can stick with Rix’s Diner if that’s what you’d prefer. What?” he asked when he realized they were both staring at him, Bree rubbing her eyebrow, a sure sign she was upset or nervous.
    Standing behind her daughter, Maddie placed both hands on Bree’s shoulders. “Actually, Neil is coming into town Monday night so he can be here for Bree’s first day of seventh grade.”
    Neil Pettit, NHL star and original Hometown Boy Done Good, was also Bree’s father.
    “Okay,” he said. “What does that—”
    “He wants to take her out,” Maddie said softly. “He wants to take us both out. You know, start a new tradition.”
    A new tradition.
    Ever since Bree was a precocious, chubby three-year-old preschooler, James had taken her out to breakfast on the first day of school. Every year. It was their tradition, one he’d thought meant as much to her as it did to him.
    “We could do something else, Uncle James,” Bree blurted. “The two of us. Like, start a new tradition.”
    She looked so worried, he couldn’t even get angry she was throwing him a bone. Besides, she was just a kid. A sweet, quiet kid who’d had his heart from the moment he’d first laid eyes