Dustin’s mouth edged up in a small smile. “What do you know about offshore drilling companies?”
“Not a single thing,” she said, returning his grin. “But I’m willing to listen if that’s what you need.”
“There is something you can do for me,” Dustin said. He pushed back a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail. “You can tell me why this has to end once Jacob gets back.”
She dropped her hand and turned her gaze to the river, but she wasn’t getting off that easy. If she was so adamant that their time together be limited to just two more weeks, then she would have to tell him why.
“I’m serious, Stefanie. I want to know why you won’t give this a chance. We’re just getting started, and we have so much damn fun together. Why end it?”
“Because life isn’t all fun and games, Dustin.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I’ve got enough pressure on me to sink a submarine, but I also know that it’s important to enjoy myself. Too much of either can be catastrophic. You need to learn how to have a healthy balance.”
He waited until she looked at him before he continued with his plea.
“I like you, Stefanie. It scares me how much I like you, but I can’t deny what’s happening here.” He rubbed his flattened palm over his chest. “From that very first night, I liked you enough to risk fighting my best friend if he decided to be an asshole over the two of us seeing each other.”
A subtle smile drifted across her lips. “Stefan wouldn’t have fought you.”
“Only because being with Callie has mellowed him out. But even if he was still that hothead he’d been back when I first met him—and make no mistake, that Stefan would have tried to kick my ass—it didn’t matter. What mattered is that I met someone who makes me smile when she smiles. And who likes eating just the white stuff from Oreos, even though it’s the most fattening part. And who drives around looking for mud puddles to splash in on a dune buggy ride instead of trying to avoid them.
“We click, Stef. In a way that I’ve never clicked with someone before. Please don’t make me give you up.”
“Goodness, Dustin. Stop making this so difficult for me. Please, just stop.”
His head fell back as he let out a frustrated sigh. When she pushed up from the bench and walked a couple of yards along the levee, he hesitated then followed her. Taking her shoulders in his hands, he gave them a light squeeze.
“I just want a reason,” he said quietly. “Don’t I at least deserve a reason? Is it that you’re just not feeling me the way I’m feeling you, or what?”
She looked over her shoulder, and the sadness he saw in her eyes crushed him.
“I have my reasons,” she said. “But I can’t handle talking about them today. Of all days, just not…not today.”
She disengaged from his hold and started left along the levee’s paved pathway, toward the parking lot. Dustin rubbed the center of his chest again, trying to get rid of the hollow feeling inside.
Chapter Five
Dustin walked around the rear of the Sikorsky S76 C, inspecting the rear rotor and then running his hand along the tail boom. It was one of more than a dozen in Hawk Transpo’s fleet. It still amazed him to think that just a few years ago he’d popped open a bottle of champagne after buying his very first one. Now, he was barreling quickly toward the moment when he would need to make a decision about whether he would sell them all, along with everything else he’d built from the ground up, to Global Offshore Drilling.
“Hawk?”
He turned and spotted Stefan walking toward him, his footsteps echoing on the floor of the vast warehouse.
“What are you doing in here?” his buddy asked.
“You’ve got a training run scheduled today, don’t you?” Dustin asked him. “I’m just checking out everything, making sure it’s ready to fly.”
“Why are you wasting your time running an inspection? You pay people to do that for you.”
“I can look at my own damn helicopter if I want to.”
Shit. Way to ensure that Stefan climbed all up in his business.
His friend did not disappoint. Stefan crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to the side. “You may want to loosen the elastic in your pantyhose if they’re irritating your ass this much.”
“Dammit.” Dustin ran a hand down his face.
“What’s going on?” Stefan asked. When Dustin didn’t answer right away, Stefan pressed on. “Hawk?”
“I miss this part, okay.” He shook his head, huffing out a humorless laugh. “I miss it. When I started this company, I had one helo and one pilot. Me. Now, just look at this.” He flung his arms out to encompass the warehouse. There were nearly two dozen helicopters with the capability of flying out over two hundred oilrig workers at one time.
“Do you realize what you have here?” Stefan asked him. “Do you understand what you’ve built in this short amount of time, and how fucking amazing it is?”
“Yeah, but amazing for who. I don’t get to actually do any of it anymore. Hell, I don’t have enough hours behind the controls of a dual-engine to fly it if I wanted to.”
“Then go and get your hours. What in the hell is stopping you?”
“You don’t get it.”
“Yes, I do,” Stefan said. “If anyone knows what it means to miss flying, I’m your guy.”
Dammit. Now he felt like an asshole.
At least he could fly if he wanted to. With Stefan’s eye injury, he would never wrap his hands around the controls of a helicopter and take flight again.
“You miss being in the air?” Stefan continued, his voice taking on that taunting quality that used to irritate the hell out of Dustin when they were in the navy. “You want to take the new guy up in the helo today? Go for it,” Stefan said. “I’ll go in your office, put my feet up on your desk and take a nice, long nap.”
“You gonna negotiate the contracts that are on the desk, as well?” Dustin asked. “How about the new safety regulations that just came down from the FAA? The stack is about an inch thick. You want to read through those? Because if you’re going to sit at my desk, you’ll need to do all the shit that I have to do.”
“Spare me this whiny crap,” Stefan said. “You don’t have to do it all. You can hire someone to take over all of that in the same way you hired me to teach because you were tired of doing it.” Stefan folded his arms over his chest. “Now tell me what’s really going on here, Hawk?”
Tell him.
The voice in his head was both loud and forceful, but Dustin managed to tamp it down. He knew Stefan had a point. His company had grown so quickly that he had yet to adjust to the idea that he didn’t have to do it all.
If he sold to Global, he wouldn’t have to do any of it. That carefree life was within his reach. Why was it so damn hard to make a decision?
“Don’t pay me any attention,” Dustin said. “I’m just in a bad mood.”
Stefan’s eyes narrowed further. “Did you get in a fight with my sister?”
“No,” Dustin said. “Your sister…” He shook his head.
“What about my sister?”
“Your sister confuses the hell out of me.” Once he started going, Dustin couldn’t stop. “Everything has been great. Better than great. It’s been amazing. I’ve gone to Maplesville every evening for the past week and a half and every day has been more amazing than the last. We’ve worked on Jacob’s diorama together; we’ve gone looking for lightening bugs. I even hired Kiera Coleman to cater this romantic dinner for us with candles and wine—the whole nine yards.”
Even though there was no one else around to hear them, Dustin lowered his voice when he said, “Last night, when we played Scrabble, I could have made quartz on a triple word score, but I made art instead. I’ve never liked a woman enough to pass on a seventy-two-point word for her.” He ran his hands down his face. “I haven’t felt this way about anyone in so long—if ever. But it hasn’t been enough. She’s still holding back
from me and insisting that we end this. I don’t understand why she doesn’t open up to me.”
Stefan put both hands up. “Are we really having this conversation? No, really?” He looked around. “There are hidden cameras, right? You’re putting this up on YouTube.”
“Can you be serious?”
“Not when you’re talking to me like we’re starring in a movie on the Lifetime Network.”
“Dammit, Stefan, help me out.”
“Why would I help you get closer to my sister when I’m not even sure I want you to get closer to her?”
Dustin looked him dead in the eye. “You know I’m good for her.”
“Shit.” Stefan blew out a breath. “I guess if Stef is going to get involved with anyone I’d rather it be someone I trust. Someone who knows that I would kick his ass if he hurt her.”
“She’s not letting me get close enough to hurt her, not as if I ever would,” Dustin said. “She’s insisting that we have to stop seeing each other when Jacob gets back from his grandparents this coming Friday, and I don’t understand why.”
“I seriously cannot believe we’re having this conversation.”
“Stefan—” Dustin took a step toward him, his hands clenching into fists.
“Calm down.” Stefan put both hands up again. “Look, Stef has been through a lot. It hasn’t been all that long since Brandon died. Maybe she’s not ready for Jacob to see her dating another man.”
“She told me herself that she’s at peace with his death.”
Stefan hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You’re twins. You don’t have any kind of weird, psychic twin shit going on between you two?”
Stefan’s blank stare only irritated Dustin further.
“Are we finished here?” he asked.
“I guess so,” Dustin said. “Seeing as you’re not going to help me.”
“Actually, I am going to help you. I have the perfect thing to get your mind off both your woman troubles and your helo envy.” Stefan clamped a hand over his shoulder and guided him toward the warehouse’s double exit doors. “You can go into that cushy ass office and finish planning the fabulous party you’re throwing for my beautiful wife and I. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
Dustin cut his eyes at him. “Have you always been this much of an asshole?”
“It takes one to know one, my brother. I think it’s why we get along so well.”
~ ~ ~ ~
“Damn, you look hot. You’re too far from the camera. Come in closer and turn around so I can see your butt.”
“What’s the big deal?” Stef said as she twisted her rear end toward the computer screen. “They’re just blue jeans.”
Tania’s loud whistle came through the speakers. “No they are not. Those are peel-off-my-legs-and-do-me jeans.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“Is too.”
Stef rolled her eyes. “You may want to tone it down before you have everyone in that coffee shop sneaking peeks at my ass.”
“Who cares if they want to see your ass? We should be more concerned with making sure Dustin wants to see it.”
“This is not a big deal,” Stef reiterated. “I’m only going over there to help him lay out the floor plan for Callie and Stefan’s party. I’ve already told him that this…this thing we have going on has to end once Jacob gets back tomorrow.”
“I don’t understand your reasoning behind that decision either,” Tania remarked. “But then again, I’m not a parent. I’ll defer to your judgment on this one.”
“Believe me, it’s for the best.”
“So, what’s the plan tonight? Are you going to sleep with him? You know farewell sex is the best sex ever.”
“Sleeping with him is not on the agenda,” Stef said. “Things will be awkward enough when we run into each other from now on. You think knowing that he’s seen me naked will help the situation?”
“No, but at least you’ll have seen him naked too. I think you should go for it,” her friend said. “There’s no way he’s resisting you tonight. I mean, look at you!”
Stef looked down at the light-blue wrap shirt and fitted blue jeans and had to admit that they were not her typical Thursday evening attire. After her shift at the hospital, she’d come home, showered, and tried on four different outfits before finally settling on this one.
“You know how I can tell this is a big deal?” Tania persisted. “You wouldn’t have gotten that haircut if it wasn’t.”
Stef ran her fingers through the thick, chin-length strands. “I got the haircut because I wanted a new look,” she said. “It has nothing to do with Dustin.”
At least, she hadn’t thought it had anything to do with Dustin at the time.
“I call bullshit,” Tania said. “The new clothes and new hair has ‘come and do me’ written all over it, and for you, that’s a big deal. I’m starting to believe that you meeting this guy wasn’t just a random coincidence. He seems too perfect for you.”
“You don’t even know him. How can you tell that he’s perfect for me?”
“Because even though the camera on this computer isn’t worth shit, I can still see how happy you look. I haven’t seen you this excited since college.”
Stef instantly sobered.
“Dammit, Stefanie.” She jumped at the sternness in her friend’s voice. “Wipe that frown from your face right this instant,” Tania said. “What is it going to take to make you see that I’m happy to see you have fun?”
“I know that,” she said.
“Like hell, you do. You can’t even allow yourself to smile in front of me. Do you know how that makes me feel?”
Stef’s head popped up. She stared at the computer screen, confused. “Why should you feel bad? The blame belongs right here.” Stef pointed to her chest.
“You’ve carried it long enough,” Tania said. “Don’t you think it’s past time you forgave yourself for that night?”
She could only stare at her friend’s face for a moment before focusing on the framed photo of roasted coffee beans hanging on the wall of whatever coffee shop Tania had dipped into for free wifi.
“I’m working on it,” Stef said.
“Work harder. You try to hide it when I’m around, but I can see the guilt you’re still carrying. I’ve missed my old friend who wasn’t ashamed to feel happy around me. It’s been nice seeing that little glimpse of her lately.”
“I promise I’ll smile more,” Stef said.
“You know what will really make you smile? If you get some Flyer Boy nookie tonight.”
Stef burst out laughing.
“Oh, crap. I have to go,” Tania said. “This place only allows an hour of wifi access at a time and my hour is almost up.”
“Take care of yourself out there,” Stef said.
“I will. You need to get going. You’ve got a man who’s waiting to ogle your hot ass. Don’t keep him waiting.”
Stef laughed despite herself. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said before signing off the web chat. She remained in front of the camera, turning from left to right, studying the snug fit of the form-fitting jeans.
She was looking damn good. If she were a guy, she would do herself.
But despite what Tania suggested, Stef knew farewell sex was not in the cards tonight.
After the way things ended last night during their impromptu Scrabble game, Stef wasn’t sure Dustin would even want her coming over to his place to help plan the party. Their night had ended in the same way their dates usually ended, with Dustin upset that she wouldn’t budge on her stance that all things must come to an end tomorrow. But he had been more upset than usual, which, she guessed, was understandable. The ticking of the clock was getting louder and louder as Jacob’s return from Florida drew nearer.
But Stef had started to rethink her all or nothing position. She wanted to end their time together on a more positive note. Tonight, she planned to propose that they remain friends
, or at least friendly toward each other. Stef was confident that the man she’d come to know over the past few weeks would go along with that.
She walked over to the mirror and surveyed her new do. Stef still wasn’t sure what made her turn into the salon on her way home from work yesterday and demand that the hairdresser cut off eight inches. She figured she would curse the spur-of-the-moment decision the first time she was running late and couldn’t put her hair up in a quick ponytail, but for now, she was in love with her new look. She felt sexy. Alive.
So maybe it did have something to do with Dustin. But it was more than just him. She felt like the old Stef.
The thought still terrified her, but not as much as it had just a short time ago. Over the past two weeks she’d discovered that she could let her hair down for a tiny bit without going completely over the edge. She didn’t have to go cliff diving, or on month-long motorcycle trips, or any of those other wild and crazy things she used to do. Just a little fun was enough to give her life the spark she needed.
The key element, of course, was Dustin.
He’d helped her to find that part of herself again. His kindness, his carefree spirit, his endearing sense of humor—they all called to that part of her that had been hiding for so long.
So why are you so quick to end it?
“Yes, Stef. Why?” she said aloud.
The more time she spent with him, the flimsier her excuses for why this had to end seemed. There was no good reason for her to stop seeing Dustin. How could she justify it, when the one person who had every right to begrudge Stefanie’s happiness encouraged—no, demanded—she see this thing through?
Having Tania’s blessing only confirmed the instinct Stef had been fighting since the trip to Turks and Caicos. It was all too easy to imagine what a real relationship with Dustin would look like. When she closed her eyes at night, she dreamed of how the upcoming days, months, even years would play out if she just gave him a chance.
Having that effortless smile greet her on a daily basis would be like heaven on earth. Having another man in Jacob’s life would be the answer to her prayers.
I Dare You! Page 9