Made for You (The Best Mistake 2)

She just didn’t know if it was panic…or pain.

* * *

“How many copies of The Shining does one person need?”

Will glanced over to where Sophie was pulling his DVD collection out of a box. “There are multiple releases with different special features. And you’re not putting them in the right order.”

Sophie paused in lining them up messily on the shelf. “There’s an order? For the exact same movie?”

“If you want to help me unpack, they go in order by release date,” he said, returning to his own unpacking duties.

“Nobody wants to help somebody else unpack,” Sophie muttered as she began turning the DVD cases over and checking dates. “It’s just what friends do.”

“Speaking of which, you were supposed to bring Gray with you. I need his help in moving my pool table to where I want it.”

“First of all…there’s no way you two can move the pool table on your own. It’s probably time to extend your male social circle beyond one. And second, I didn’t bring Gray because then you and I couldn’t have our girl talk.”

Will grunted.

Sophie cleared her throat. “Ahem. That was a hint to go fetch wine?”

He rolled his eyes, but headed into the kitchen to comply. Most of the time, having a woman as a best friend was useful. Hell, most of the time he barely even noticed that Sophie was a woman.

But there were times when a man would have been preferable. Times when he didn’t want to talk.

Times like now.

But he hadn’t been able to turn her away. He harbored a fair amount of guilt for ditching Sophie when he’d moved to Boston. Not that she’d ever guilt-tripped him about it…Soph always had his back. But he’d known she’d been hurt that he hadn’t given her any warning about moving across the country.

The thing was, he couldn’t have given her warning even if he’d wanted to. Because Will himself hadn’t even contemplated the move until exactly three days before he’d actually gotten on that plane.

Weighing even heavier on his conscience was the one and only secret he’d ever kept from Sophie. The one that had him moving to Boston in the first place.

“White or red?” he called.

“Surprise me,” she hollered back. He heard a crashing noise and winced. Sophie wasn’t exactly the most careful of souls. Thank God he’d put all of the boxes marked FRAGILE out of her reach.

He poured them both liberal glasses of one of his favorite Cabernet Sauvignons and headed back to his living room. Sophie’s expression was all innocence, and Will pretended he didn’t see that his Aliens anniversary edition case had a new crack in it. He’d always found the movie overrated anyway.

Will smiled as Sophie took a massive gulp of wine. There was no swirling, no sniffing, no savoring on the palate. Just unpretentious good old-fashioned drinking. It was one of the reasons he loved her. There was nothing complicated about Sophie. At least, she’d never been complicated to him. She said what she wanted, did what she wanted, and before you could figure out whether she was brilliant or pure fluff, she’d already moved on, recruiting yet another person to her fan club.

“When are you going to get some furniture?” Sophie grumbled as she stood and stretched.

“Monday,” Will said absently, taking in the unfamiliar setting that was his new backyard. He’d never really thought much about where he lived. Hell, he’d spent the better part of his twenties living in hotel rooms while he tried to secure investors. But he was surprised to find that he sort of liked having the extra space. He would have moved into a shoe box if that’s what the plan required, but this was better. Much better.

“So,” Sophie said, coming up beside him and gazing out at the newly stained deck. “When are you going to fill me in?”

Will didn’t pretend to play dumb. But neither was he ready to come clean.

“I already told you,” he said, keeping his voice light. “I was ready for a change.”

That part, at least, was true. The constant moving, the sterile furniture, the high-rise city views had begun to feel a bit stale.

“Uh-uh,” Sophie said, taking another gulp of wine. “If you’d wanted a change, you would have tried a new city. You wouldn’t have come back to Seattle. There’s nothing new here.”

I don’t want new.

“Does this have anything to do with my sister?” Sophie asked, turning to face him. “Is this like some new level of psychotic in the little war you two kids won’t let go of?”