Page 44 of Off-Limits Love
“You got it,” she said, willing to let the man have a few off-limit drinks, given they would be his last, short of a miracle. “Next time I’m out, I’ll stop. What do you want?”
“Mm. Good Kentucky bourbon sounds nice. Maybe a cigar too.”
She waggled her finger at him. “Don’t press your luck.” The cigar would not help his lungs and breathing issues due to the mass.
“Just the bourbon then,” he countered quickly, as though he was afraid she’d deny him the treat after trying to sneak in the smoke.
Mak walked over to the couch and picked up the sketchbook she’d set aside that morning, settling in to keep Sam company. As much as she longed for bed, she sensed the man’s need for a companion tonight. Like she wasn’t the only one sorting through heavy thoughts.
“What are you working on?”
She turned the now open sketchbook around and showed him. “A few design ideas since the holidays are coming up.”
“You need to open that bakery of yours, girlie.”
“One day,” she said, coloring in the miniature gingerbread man atop the cupcake. “Until then, I’ll dream about it and fix you all the cakes you want.”
She felt Sam’s stare on her as she continued to draw the designs she hoped to one day make, Zoey’s words in her head.
Choose.
Right now? She chose this. A quiet night at home with her uncle and a sleeping girl tucked safely in her bed as she sketched to her heart’s content.
After a while, she glanced up at Sam and saw him look away from her quickly before staring down at his phone, a deep frown lining his face. “Is something wrong?”
“No, honey. Just thinking.”
“You’re frowning awfully hard,” she teased. “An old girlfriend giving you a hard time?”
Sam huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “Naw. Come over here and show me those pictures of yours.”
Finn swallowed hard and called himself all kinds of a fool as he drove slowly down Sam’s driveway the following evening.
He’d told himself to forget Hudson’s threat and leave Makayla alone. To give her time to decide if she wanted to go riding with no pressure from him. If she didn’t, that was his hint to leave her be.
But then Sam had texted last night and invited him over for dinner, and he couldn’t make himself say no.
Mak had said they were friends, so why wouldn’t he go? He and Sam were friends too, and he needed to be neighborly.
As to Mak… It wasn’t like he expected more from her. Not when he had a good idea of how things would end even if they did somehow make it across the friend zone.
Maybe he was as pessimistic as his brothers claimed, but he’d been down the dating road before. Mak intrigued him more than any woman had, but experience had taught him better than to get his hopes up.
Still, something pulled him to that old house like a moth to a flame, and it had nothing to do with his intention to stay friendly.
So many women played games. They liked the idea of him because he was a decent looking guy who owned a solid, lucrative business and was a partner in the many businesses Blackwell Enterprises owned.
He looked good on paper. Plenty of money in the bank. Appealed to them physically—so long as he didn’t open his mouth and try to speak.
A couple of the women he’d dated had made it clear they liked the package, but they had no interest in what was inside. In who he really was. When he was younger, he’d been fine with the arrangement at first—much like Hud—but it hadn’t taken long for him to discover he hated being treated like a mute object.
The women of his past had always ended up making an excuse to end things, or cheated on him or flat-out ghosted him when it came to dealing with his stutter in a public setting.
He embarrassed them, and their feminine ego couldn’t handle having their man be a weak link in their public persona.
After a while, he’d just stopped trying to date because it wasn’t worth it—and he couldn’t help but believe with time, Mak would feel the same way toward him, which was why she’d set the boundary right from the start. At least she’d been honest and upfront about it. Even though she was curious enough to engage in that kiss.
She’d apologized for the way her ex had treated him, but that was the tip of the iceberg in the scheme of things. He believed people grew pickier as they grew older, less likely to tolerate things that bothered them, and as such, they chose their friend group and dates more carefully.
