Once Upon a Snow Day (Meet Cute Romance 1)

“Seriously. You owe me.”

“You’ve been sitting on that for seven years. I thought we’d agreed never to talk about it, ever again.” The mere suggestion of those events had a headache brewing somewhere behind her eyes. Or maybe that was the fact that she’d been chained to her laptop since 6:30 this morning.

“I’m not talking about it. I’m just calling in the IOU.”

“You really want to waste it on this?” asked Isabelle. “I mean, what if you need to murder your boss and hide the body?”

“I’ll risk it,” said Leah. “Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at seven. You’ll come with me to the slopes, meet Grant. Once we’re both assured that he’s not an axe murderer, you can take my car and go home to your meetings and manuscripts. You’ll probably only lose out on a couple of hours of work, tops.”

Isabelle sighed. “I’ll see you at seven.”

~*~

War was serious business. This particular war had been waged for more than fifteen years, on battlegrounds ranging from football fields to

baseball diamonds to basketball courts. Today it was racquetball and Brandon Burgan was caught in a tie, which was, to his mind, every bit as bad as losing. He wiped impatiently at the sweat dripping into his eyes as he waited for the next incoming projectile.

Thwack! The ball bounced off the wall of the court and came hurtling toward his head. With a twist and a mighty backhand, Brandon sent it winging back toward Travis with all the ferocity of a Viking berserker.

“Point!” he shouted as it sailed past his friend’s racquet with inches to spare. The spurt of momentary victory was sweet and merited a little trash talk. “Getting sloppy, pal. You too busy being moony-eyed over Alicia to keep your head in the game?”

“Oh, it is on, pretty boy.” Travis retrieved the ball and served.

Brandon returned his volley. “Whipped. That’s what you are.”

“No such,” Travis slapped the ball for emphasis, “thing. You’re just jealous I’m getting regular, adult female company.”

Brandon snorted at that and, for a couple of minutes, the only sounds were battle cries, the squeak of shoes, and the slap of racquet against ball. The music of friendship and competition.

Travis edged ahead by two points. “Take that,” he said, with a little victory strut and point of his racquet.

“A temporary state of affairs,” Brandon assured him with a cheerful flash of his middle finger. He tossed the ball to serve.

The jaunty strum of a banjo echoed off the court walls.

“Time out,” called Travis, striding across to their pile of gear in the corner.

“Seriously? Haven’t you heard of the Do Not Disturb function? It’s 6:45. Who the hell is calling you this early?”

Travis didn’t dignify that with a response as he reached simultaneously for a towel and his phone. “Abernathy.”

That meant it was work. It was always work with Travis. Well, work or Alicia these days. She was a nice girl and a good match for Travis. Brandon just wished Travis had a little more free time to split between them. Knowing he was likely to be a while, Brandon passed the one-sided conversation by seeing how long he could bounce the ball on his racquet without dropping it.

Couldn’t pay me enough to put up with that crap, he thought. And, in fact, they hadn’t. No amount of money or corner office had been enough to make him endure the suits, the endless hours, and the stress. Which was why his buddy was the lawyer and Brandon had tossed his law degree only a year after passing the bar. These days he contented himself with being a freelancer, working quite blissfully on his own doing graphic design.

He’d made it to twenty-seven bounces without dropping the ball by the time Travis hung up. “You’re surgically attached to that thing, man. It’s not healthy to be that connected.”

“If I wasn’t connected, I wouldn’t have just found out that court is canceled for the day. Judge Haygert has the stomach flu. This is awesome.”

Brandon lifted a brow. “Probably not to Judge Haygert.”

Travis waved him off. “Better him than me. I can get a jump start on that brief for the Wilson case.”

Shaking his head, Brandon crossed the court and plucked the phone out of Travis’s hand. “You’re wasting a golden opportunity.”

“Hey, give me that.” Travis tried to nab the phone but Brandon just danced back and held it out of reach. “A golden opportunity for what?”

“To take a snow day. There’s six inches of fresh powder out there. Let’s hit the slopes.”