“So we have an announcement,” Josie said as Maggie started to push her chair back at the end of the meal.

Maggie had mentioned cinnamon roll cheesecake and Dax’s mouth had fallen open in amazement.

Maggie paused.

Dax looked from Maggie to Josie to Maggie and then back to Josie. “But… can you make the announcement over dessert?”

Josie shook her head and looked at Grant.

“You can’t wait two more minutes?” Grant asked Dax.

“You heard what she said, right?” Dax asked. “Cinnamon roll cheesecake. There’s not one word in that name that says I can wait two more minutes.”

“What if it’s something that’s really important to two of your best friends?” Josie asked.

Dax gave her a look, one eyebrow up. “Cinnamon. Roll. Cheesecake. You better be getting married or something if I’m waiting on that.”

Josie’s amused smile curved into a wide grin.

It took a second, but Dax’s eyes narrowed. Then he sat forward. Then he looked from Josie to Grant and back. “Are you getting married?”

Josie’s grin grew even wider; she nodded and held up her left hand. A gorgeous diamond ring twinkled under the light that hung over the dining room table.

There was a beat of silence and then all at once, everyone erupted into gasps and squeals and laughter and congratulations.

Except Cam and Whitney.

They looked at one another and grinned. They had a shared secret. Grant and Josie were already married. They’d gotten married when Josie had needed her gall bladder removed and hadn’t had the health insurance to cover it. They’d both thought it was a simple favor, a temporary marriage of convenience. Cam and Whitney had realized early on that it wasn’t simple and it shouldn’t be temporary.

Grant had asked Cam to act as his attorney to make sure the insurance claims went through smoothly. And to draw up the divorce papers.

He’d done both.

But he hadn’t wanted to draw up the divorce papers. He’d seen that Josie was exactly what Grant needed—and vice versa—and so he’d gone to Whitney to ask her what he should do.

It had been an impulse, but he hadn’t regretted it.

She’d been shocked. Then she’d been pleased. And inspired. Together, they’d come up with the idea to make the divorce papers only mostly official.

And it had worked. Once Grant and Josie thought they were officially divorced, they’d immediately realized they didn’t want to be. They’d been relieved, if surprised, to find out that Cam had kept them married.

Things had shifted between him and Whitney then. Things had gotten easier. They’d been a team. One small thing. Not about them. About two people they cared about. But they’d both recognized the love and that Josie and Grant needed each other, and that had felt like a particularly important bond for them to share.

Now, smiling about it across the table made him feel like he’d love a lot more bonding with her.

Yep, across his mother’s dining room table with cheesy potato remnants between them.

“This definitely calls for cinnamon roll cheesecake!” Dax announced.

They all laughed.

“What do you see in me?” Jane asked. “I don’t bake, and with your sweet tooth, I don’t know why you’re with me.”

“Well, honey, there’s sweets and then there are sweets,” Dax told her, sliding his arm over the back of her chair and leaning in to nuzzle her neck.

Grant and Josie were beaming about their engagement, Dax and Jane were nuzzling, Zoe and Aiden were whispering about something and… Cam wanted that. All of that. Looking across the table at Whitney gave him a sense of anticipation and nostalgia at the same time. Nostalgia didn’t completely make sense. They’d never had this. They hadn’t been a couple in public. They’d never sat at his mother’s table together. They’d never hung out with friends together. But he’d wanted to. He’d imagined it. This. He’d wanted and imagined this.

And now he had it.

And he wanted so much more.

Whitney couldn’t believe how nervous she was to step out onto that back patio. She trailed behind the other women as they headed outside with glasses of lemonade. Spiked lemonade. Apparently it was the drink of choice with the girls of the group, and when they’d heard Whitney had brought lemon vodka they’d declared they had to try it.

She swallowed hard and thought about chugging the drink in her hand. She wasn’t sure why Zoe, Jane, and Josie made her nervous. They were nice women. Jane and Josie were in love with two men that Whitney liked a lot. Men who were on their way to being her friends. That felt strange to think about, but it was true. She and Dax and Grant were getting to be friends. And Cam liked and cared about Jane and Josie. That was a big plus. Surely Whitney would like them too.

But that wasn’t the problem. She wanted them to like her.

And then there was Zoe. She was Cam’s sister. She was the sister to the man that Whitney was falling for. If she and Cam were involved, if they really tried to make this happen, it would mean more dinners around that very table in that very dining room in this very house and…

She felt her heart start racing. She was so glad that she’d been caught up in Didi and Henry and watching everyone interact and then the excitement of Josie and Grant announcing their engagement. The shared smile with Cam when they announced they were getting married had made her heart race too, but not in the panicky, I-need-a-lot-more-vodka way she was experiencing at the moment. It had been a very intimate and strangely hot moment between them. Having a shared memory, a shared secret had made her want to have a lot more of those. Secrets like the sound he made when she ran her tongue over the ridges of his abs and down the V on either side that she’d been fantasizing about since seeing him in the hallway in only a towel the other day.

But also secrets like what they’d gotten Maggie for Christmas. They. Not him, but they. As in they were giving her a gift from both of them. As a couple.

Or secrets like that they’d let Henry stay up extra late and have brownies for breakfast when he spent the weekend with them. Secrets like that they were going to sneak out of town for a romantic getaway and were only going to text to say they were fine and they’d see everyone on Monday morning. Secrets like a new idea for Hot Cakes that Cam was in on before any of the other partners because he’d sat up at the kitchen table with her designing the presentation and helping her brainstorm. Secrets like that they were engaged for a few days, or even hours, before telling anyone else. Or that the pregnancy test had been positive.

Her heart squeezed hard. She was getting way ahead of herself here. They weren’t even dating. They were… friends. Good friends. Friends who wanted to get naked together.

“Hey.”

She felt Cam move in behind her, his voice low as he spoke just to her.

“Hey,” she said softly, still looking at the back door that had closed behind Josie a couple of minutes ago.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

He laughed lightly. “Liar.”

He knew her. She loved that. “I don’t know if I’m a hang-out-with-the-girls girl,” she admitted.

“Well, you don’t have to be,” he said. He turned her to face him. “You can do dishes with us guys. You can go play Warriors with Didi and Henry. You can go talk to my mom and dad. You can slip upstairs and hang out in my room and I’ll join you as soon as I can. Or you can head home.”