Sweet Girl (29 page)

“Jennings, I didn’t get to introduce you. I want you to meet Casidee Taylor,” he says carefully. “My little sister.”

Oh holy mother of pearl!

“I . . . I . . .” I don’t have any words. “I’m so sorry.”

She sticks out her hand with a grin that I now see is exactly like her brother’s.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you, Max.”

I mumble something inarticulate, and she laughs and turns with a wink. “I’ll see you back inside,” she calls as she walks away.

I can’t do anything but stare at the ground. I thought I was prepared to feel like an idiot for a chance at Taylor, but I didn’t have any idea just how far I was going to push that. His fingers reach for my face, turning it up until I meet his eyes. I swallow.

“I’m sorry—” I start to tell him.

“Please, God, stop saying you’re sorry. That was . . .” He searches for words.

“Embarrassing?” I supply.

“Oh, definitely embarrassing on some kind of epic level, Jennings!” he tells me happily.

I try to think of something to say in response to that.

“I know it was idiotic, but I guess I thought . . .” I trail off.

It is probably better to just leave it. I’ll only make it worse, and his fingers on my face make me want to say something stupid again.

“You thought what?” Dark chocolate-brown eyes search mine. “That it’s a special kind of torture to be in love with your best friend?”

I suck in a breath.

“That being around them but not being able to tell them how you feel actually makes you ache? That you had to say something or you thought the words might suffocate you?” He reaches down for my hand. “I know how that feels.”

“Really?” I ask, not even fighting my tears anymore.

He chuckles a little and wipes my tears away with his thumb. “That was a crazy way to go about it, but also sweet and brave and . . .”

“Effective?” I whisper.

He smiles, and it is big and bright and just for me. Not for any one of a hundred other girls who might have deserved it more. This smile is for me, the girl who is still messy and broken. I have a long way to go before I know how to be in a healthy relationship. But I so badly want to try.

“Very effective,” he says.

Between one breath and the next I am in Taylor’s arms, kissing him with months’ worth of emotion. The longing I’ve felt over the last several weeks comes crashing through the space between us. I feel that kiss all the way down my whole body—feel the absolute precious weight of hope for what this person means to me.

His arms wrap around me tightly, pulling me closer, and I feel safe for the first time since the night he took my bracelet. In that moment, I am positive that he is the only thing holding me in place so I don’t float away with the breeze.

“I don’t think I’ll be very good at this,” I tell him when the kiss breaks. “I don’t know how to—”

“What if you don’t think?” He asks me the familiar question.

“Really, Taylor, I’ll probably screw this up,” I say. “Even though I . . .”

I feel stupidly shy all of a sudden.

“Please say it again,” he asks me earnestly.

“Even though . . . I love you,” I whisper back.

He reaches up carefully to slide his fingers to the back of my neck.

“I love you. I am
in love
with you,” he tells me, “and that’s all that matters, OK? We’ll figure the rest out.”

He says it like a statement of fact. Like it is the most obvious thing in the world to admit that aloud. No one has ever said those words to me before. Maybe that’s why it is so hard for me to believe them. It don’t want to argue or ruin this moment, but that little voice in the back of my head, the one that had urged me to wear the bracelet forever, makes me worry.

“It can’t be that simple,” I say nervously.

Taylor throws back his head and laughs at whatever look is on my face. He kisses one of my hands and then the other. He kisses my fingers and my left shoulder and the corner of my mouth.

“Oh, Jennings,” he says with a grin. “Wanna bet?”

Landon told me once recently that she finally felt grown up when she had the courage to try for the things she wanted. Over the last several months I know I have grown up in ways I didn’t think were possible before, but I also understand that the willingness to chase after childhood dreams isn’t going to be the turning point in my life. I know, with every single part of my being, that I will always trace everything in my life back to this moment. I will forever identify everything as either before or after it.

I will always remember this dirty street in Hollywood and the fact that he is wearing that faded blue T-shirt. I will remember this stupid purple dress Miko made me wear and the feel of his thumb tracing little circles on my hip. I will remember the sound of his laughter and the joy in his eyes. I will always remember this as the moment I felt truly grown up. The exact moment that I decided to let Taylor love me back.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, a big gigantic thank you to Jodi Warshaw. Your interest in
Party Girl
was massively flattering, but it meant absolutely everything to me that you took a chance on Max’s story after reading only twenty pages. Thank you for trusting me to finish it. Thanks too for the title;
Sweet Girl
is so good that I’m only disappointed I didn’t come up with it myself!

Immense gratitude to Eryn Kalavsky, who I’m still convinced is a gift sent directly from God. Thank you for talking me through a thousand possible plot points and for reading all eighty-three drafts of this book. Thank you for Saturday morning runs and follow-up motivational text messages encouraging me to keep at it. I am truly grateful for your friendship.

Shout out to Susanna Kearsley for betting/daring me to finish this manuscript by Labor Day, mostly because you knew I needed a deadline. Thanks again. Your next vodka rocks sans garnish is on me.

Thank you to Lisa Olin and the amazing team at Cake Monkey (literally the greatest bakery in Los Angeles!) for letting me hang out in your kitchen, be inspired by your flavor combinations, and ask you weird questions about pastries. Massive appreciation to chef Elizabeth Belkind. I didn’t even know Joey was a character until you walked in and inspired her! Any pastry/kitchen/chef/food mistakes are mine alone.

Thank you to Josh Jackson at Arbor Exchange for showing me your workshop and sharing your massive knowledge of furniture design. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about the whole “it would be unsafe to build furniture while shirtless” thing. Taylor’s abs didn’t give me a choice.

Thank you to Cynthia Lavers, who once again answered all my medical questions with the patience of Job. Any mistakes are mine alone.

Last but never least, thank you to my Lamb, Dave Hollis, for your grace and understanding while I finished this book. Thank you for listening to me work out the story over many sushi dates and for allowing me to read you my favorite lines. You always laugh in the right places. This story is about two friends falling in love, and I’m writing from experience because I’ve fallen in love with my best friend again and again.

About the Author

Rachel Hollis founded the LA-based event-planning firm Chic Events at only twenty-one. Six years later
Inc.
magazine named her one of the Top 30 Entrepreneurs under 30. She went on to turn Chic into the extremely popular lifestyle website
TheChicSite.com
, where readers log in daily for the tips and tricks she’s acquired after years of planning fancy parties for celebrities. She has designed and produced fabulous events for many of Hollywood’s elite, including Bradley Cooper, Al Gore, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ivanka Trump, Rashida Jones, Jaime King, Sara Rue, and Cuba Gooding, Jr., just to name a few.

Rachel moved to Los Angeles to go to college and promptly met a boy named David, who was as handsome as he was funny. First she made that boy her best friend, and then she made him her husband. Eleven years later they have three equally handsome and hilarious little boys named Jackson, Sawyer, and Ford. They live in LA, where they spend their time doing super-cool and sexy things, such as going to soccer practice and hitting up any restaurant where kids eat free with the purchase of an adult entrée.

Take this friendship to the next level by hitting up Rachel on any of the websites below. She’s so excited to be an author that she’d probably pee her pants if you actually brought it up on social media!

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@msrachelhollis

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