“Hi.”
“Hey. I didn’t know you had company again, sorry,” I explained quickly.
“Don’t apologize,” he said crisply. “He just got here.”
Did that mean the woman had already been there?
It’s none of my business. None.
“Well, we just came by to see if you wanted to come by for dinner as a thank-you for helping us clean up this morning,” I explained.
I tried not to let the way he barely scrunched up his nose hurt my feelings, but it did, just a little.
“I was going to invite Miss Pearl, too. We’re making spaghetti and meatballs.”
Lou whispered, “We?”
“But if your brother and your friend are over, obviously, stay with them,” I said to the older man.
Dallas’s head tipped to the side and his hand went up to pull at the collar of his T-shirt for a second, the tips of his fingers brushing against the bottom of the eagle head that I was pretty sure started right at the sensitive notch at his throat. “Uh….” He trailed off.
She was here with him. This lying, cheating, douchebag who had given me a hard time when he was…. It’s none of my business. None.
“Don’t worry about it,” I rushed out. “You can get leftovers another day if you want. I figured you wouldn’t take my money if I offered it.” My voice sounded a little tight and weird but not too horrible. “Unless you do.”
Dropping his hand to his pockets, Dallas took a step forward, closing the door behind him. His foot propped the screen door open as he locked his gaze on me. He wasn’t wearing any shoes, and I noticed how big his feet were. “It’s not that. I’d like dinner, and I’m sure Nana Pearl would too, it’s just… Jackson and his girl of the week just got here. I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks.”
Why it felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest, I had no idea. But I could feel the difference. What were the chances he wouldn’t see it?
“I get it,” I croaked out before clearing my throat. Get it together. Was he trying to get me to invite Jackson and his friend over too? I couldn’t tell. That didn’t seem like Dallas behavior, but… I was such an idiot. Why would I think he’d actually have a woman over?
Because I was an idiot. That was why. Shit.
Like with most decisions in my life, I thought of my mom and what she would tell me to do and sighed. “Come over. It should be ready in an hour. You can bring him and his friend if you want. I mean, I’m not Italian and my spaghetti isn’t amazing, but this little squirrel thinks it’s all right.”
“It’s good,” my mini partner in crime chimed in.
Dallas’s mouth twitched as he glanced at the boy. “You think so, bud?”
Lou nodded, totally exaggerating. “Almost as good as chicken nuggets,” he confirmed.
“Better than chili?”
There was no hesitation. “No.”
I slanted him a look.
Raising his gaze back to me, my neighbor let out a sigh. “You sure about inviting them? He’s….” That hand went back to his collar to tug, exposing more of that brown ink over surprisingly tan skin. He swallowed a lot harder than I would expect he needed to do. “There’s a lot of sh—tuff you don’t know.”
I raised my hand, understanding his hesitation and knowing it was completely because Louie was with me. Whatever he wanted to say, he didn’t want to say in front of him. So I did what any adult would do—I put my hands over Louie’s ears. “He’s not going to kill us or anything, right?” I asked.
Dallas blew out a breath as the corners of his mouth bunched into a frown. “I’d never let that happen,” he stated so evenly, so matter-of-fact, this ripple of who-the-hell-knows-what shot up the nerves of my spine.
He’s just a nice guy. He’s married. He has a soft spot for single moms.
You are no one special, Diana, I reminded myself. You are no one special.
I cleared my throat and gave him a smile that was really fucking tight, my hands dropping from their spot on Louie’s ears. “Okay. Then, it’s fine. All three of you can come. We’re going to drop by Miss Pearl’s after this to invite her.”
“Sure?” Both of his eyebrows went up.
“Sure.”
* * *
“You smell like garlic.”
“You smell like fart.”
Louie choked like he couldn’t believe what I’d said before bursting out laughing, his hands busy holding several forks. “You’re mean!”
That had me grinning from across the table. “Okay, you smell like a cute fart. Like a little baby fart.”
“Babies smell.”
“When have you smelled a baby?”
“With Grandma and Grandpa.”
In the middle of setting the table, I stopped. “Are you lying to me?”
“No!”
I really doubted he’d smelled a baby—and really, babies smelled great most of the time, at least until you had to clean their diapers. I’d done my fair share of diaper duty, especially with Josh, but I was positive I’d done it with either a smile on my face or a grimace just because it smelled so awful. Formula poop was the worst.
“Speaking of your grandma and grandpa, don’t forget you’re staying with them for a week when I go visit Vanny, okay?” This was probably the third time I’d brought my trip up since buying my round-trip ticket to San Diego. I wanted him mentally prepared so he wouldn’t assume I was never coming back.
“Can I go with you?” he asked.
“Not this time.”
“Why?”
“Because you have school?” I grinned, eyeing him.
He pouted, his upper body deflating.
“We can all try to go visit her another time.”
A knock on the door had me raising my eyebrows at Lou and had Mac barking. I grabbed him by the collar and led him toward the back door, so he could hang out in the yard while Miss Pearl was over here. He was great with strangers, but I didn’t trust his crazy tail around a ninety-something-year-old. “Make sure it’s the neighbors and then let them in, please. Leave the forks so I can set them really quick.” I could already picture him running through the house with those tines aimed at his face.
“Okay,” he answered, dropping the silverware damn near instantly and running toward the front of the house.
A moment later, the sounds of familiar voices came from the doorway in the living room, and I peeked around to see Dallas, Miss Pearl, and the man whose ass I’d saved, in the living room. The woman was nowhere in sight. Louie was standing right by Miss Pearl, shaking her hand. It almost made me cry.
Setting the rest of the silverware as quickly as I could, I headed toward them, suddenly a little nervous. What if they hated my cooking?
“Hi, Miss Pearl,” I greeted the older woman first, taking her cool hands as she extended them in my direction.
“Thank you for inviting us over, Diana.”
I nodded and pulled back, my gaze going immediately to Dallas. The first thing that caught my eye was that he was wearing a button-down plaid shirt. It was the most clothes I’d seen on him. The brown and black pattern made his eyes pop. Hell, they might have made my heart pop if that was a possibility. But it wasn’t. It absolutely wasn’t.
“Hi again,” I said to him.
It was right then that I noticed how tight the skin around his eyes was despite the muscles of his cheeks shaping his mouth into a smile. “Thanks for having us….” He trailed off and glanced at the man standing next to him, forcing me to do the same.
Without the screen door between us and now that I’d spent more time with Dallas, the brothers’ resemblance was kind of amazing.
Except… despite knowing Dallas was the older one, he didn’t look like he was. Not at all. Jackson had more gray in his hair, his forehead more lined… but it was his eyes that aged him the most. There was something fundamentally different about the man who stood an inch shorter than my neighbor. There was just something radiating from him that seemed off.
The way his presence made me feel reminded me of when Josh wanted something and I told him he couldn’t have it and he pouted over it.
“Jack, you’ve met Diana.”
Oh, we’d definitely met.
To give him credit, he extended his hand toward me even though he looked like he wanted to do everything other than that. I took his hand in mine and shook it, ignoring the way Jackson damn near rolled his eyes. I trusted Dallas, enough at least to let this man into my house.
“Nice to see you again,” I lied, taking my hand back.
“You too,” the man kind of grumbled, lying too, his eyes going to his hand briefly before he tucked it into his pocket.
At least we both felt the same way about each other.
I glanced at Dallas’s face as he stared hard at his brother. Huh. “Ready to eat?”
Silently, we headed over to the dining room, nestled in between the living room and kitchen. I wasn’t going to deny it. It was awkward. From Miss Pearl taking a seat as she scowled at something on the table—maybe I should have put names in front of the plates, I didn’t know—to the expression the two brothers shared, the weirdness was there. It was definitely alive and well.
“Need help?” Dallas asked as he stood behind Miss Pearl’s seat after pushing her chair in.
“I’ve got it. There’re only two more things I need to grab,” I explained, watching as Lou slipped out of his chair and darted into the kitchen ahead of me. “I have help already. Thanks.”
I’d barely taken a step into the kitchen when Louie said, “I can help, Tia.” Grabbing the bread I’d left warming in the oven, I slipped the sticks onto a plate and handed them over to him with a wink before nabbing the meatballs from the oven too.
The head of the table had been left empty and somehow Louie ended up sitting next to Miss Pearl while Dallas took the seat closest to mine with his brother on his right. I had to fight the urge to rub my hands over my pants. Fuck it. “We don’t usually pray, but if you want to…”
Miss Pearl guffawed. “Us neither. Amen.”
And with that, I started scooping pasta onto her plate first, following it up with sauce and meatballs. Dallas asked Louie for his plate and added pasta, and then taking the ladle from me, he put meatballs with a little marinara drizzled. “Is that good, Louie?” he asked my boy first, and then, “How many breadsticks do you want?”
“Parmesan?” I asked my neighbor, still watching the other two out of my peripheral vision.
“Load me up, if you will,” the older woman confirmed.
I was in the middle of sprinkling cheese when Dallas slipped my plate out from in front of me and started adding food onto it. “You want more?” he asked me just as I set the plate in front of his grandmother.
“Yes, please,” I said before telling him when to stop. No one, besides my mom, had ever served me food before. No one.
His wife was an idiot. His wife was a giant, fucking idiot with a little crazy sprinkled in.
Dallas finished serving me, then himself, and finally handed the serving utensils over to his brother. None of us talked much as we ate, but Dallas met my gaze more than a few times while we did, and we shared a smirk or two.
“I like my meatballs with more thyme and my sauce with more garlic, but I would come over for dinner again if you invited me,” Miss Pearl noted in that brutally honest way of hers as she was finishing up the food on her plate.
All I could do was hold back and smile and nod, biting the inside of my cheek the entire time. “Thanks.”
“I’m full,” Lou moaned from his spot.
I eyed his plate. “Two more bites, please.”
He sighed, blinked at his plate a couple of times, and nodded, shoveling the smallest forkful I’d ever seen into his mouth. Smart-ass.
“Any dessert?” Miss Pearl piped up.
Dessert? Shit. “I have vanilla ice cream.”
She was dabbing at the corners of her mouth when she answered, “That sounds lovely.”
“Okay.”
“Dallas, Jackson, would you like some?”
“I’d love some,” Dallas replied quickly, not so subtly eyeing his brother.
Jackson…
“No.” Silence. “Thank you.”
I nodded and headed into the kitchen. What the hell was wrong with that guy? Was he just embarrassed about what happened months ago? Someone needed to grow up.
I was in the middle of pulling the package of cones out of a cabinet when I heard, “Need help?” In what I now thought of as his usual spot, Dallas had a hip against the counter closest to the dining room, looking even bigger than ever before in his dark shirt.
“Sure. The ice cream is in the freezer, if you can grab it.”
Dallas dipped his head before going for the container as I found the scooper in a drawer. He handed it over while I pulled out a cone. I only managed to put one scoop into the first cone before I broke down. “Is your brother still mad about the thing outside your place or does he hate everyone?” I whispered.
There was no hesitation in his response, but he did lower his voice. “He hates everyone.”
I couldn’t help but snicker as I snuck him a quick glance. “I guess that makes me feel better.”
His chuckle was so low I could barely hear it, but it made me grin as I dug the metal spoon into the container. Dallas took the cone from me and handed me a new one. “He was a kid when our dad died. He handled it really bad,” he explained quietly, his voice a gentle rumble. “I left for the navy and he didn’t take that well either. Things went downhill from there.”
Something about that didn’t sound right. “Downhill how?”
His little hum didn’t sit well with me. “He’s been in jail.”
My hand only paused for a second halfway inside the container. “For what?”
“Mostly drugs.”
Mostly drugs. What the hell did that mean? How many times had that fucker been in jail?
“He hasn’t messed around with that in a while,” Dallas quickly explained as he must have noticed me not moving. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”
Was this the reason Ginny had been all “Jackson is there” in a gaspy voice? Why wouldn’t she bring it up again? Why hadn’t Trip said something?
Had he even been at the house when Trip had come by?
“You said people can change,” Dallas whispered, taking a step closer to me, forcing me to tuck my elbow into my side as I looked up at his face.
I had, hadn’t I?
“He isn’t doing illegal shit anymore. All he does is have a bad attitude, but I’m trying to help him get his life together. I know you don’t have any reason to trust me, but I promise, you have nothing to worry about with him and the team, much less with him staying at my house.”
He was right, I didn’t have a reason to trust him, but for some reason, a soon as I thought that, I accepted that I did. Every single thing that had ever come out of his mouth, and every action I’d ever seen him commit, had been one based on loyalty or what was right.
And that acknowledgment was a little terrifying. I trusted Dallas. When the hell had that happened?
To make matters worse, I told him. “Okay. I trust you.”
No sooner had the words come out of my mouth than I realized why they felt so strange. Trust felt a whole lot like love. You were giving someone a part of you, if you really thought about it. Which I wasn’t.
But when Dallas’s brown-green eyes met mine, slightly widened, I’d swear he stood a little taller. And he nodded, saying only one word, “Okay.”
Chapter Fifteen
I looked at my shorts, and then I looked at the weather app on my phone.
According to the screen, it was ninety-four degrees out today. In October. Fucking global warming.
I looked at my shorts again, held them in my hands, taking in the ragged hem for a minute and said, “Fuck it.” I’d worn things a lot shorter when I was eighteen. This pair had been with me for the last fiv
e years, and I still wore them on a regular basis. The thing was, I usually tried to avoid anything higher than my knees at Josh’s games or practices because, while the boys didn’t blink twice at me running around the house with only a big T-shirt on or sleep shorts, some boys weren’t used to that.
God knew my mom had never worn shorts while I was growing up. She made faces any time I put on anything that wasn’t a respectable skirt or loose pants. I could still remember what her face had resembled when skinny jeans and leggings had gotten popular. You would have figured I’d been naked.
It was going to be hot as hell today, and I wasn’t going to be showing anybody anything they hadn’t seen a hundred times before simply going to the mall. And Josh and Lou had never told me anything about the clothes I wore—except for this one red dress I’d put on to go out with some friends from my going-out days that pretty much made me look like a prostitute. “No” was the one and only thing Josh had told me that night a year and a half ago before pointing in the direction of my room. “No, no, no,” he’d repeated again, shaking his head. “No, Aunt Di.”
Adjusting the straps of my bra so that they were hidden under my brand new Tornado T-shirt with CASILLAS screen-printed on the back, I slipped on my flip-flops just as Josh yelled, “Are you ready?” from down the hall.
Luckily, I’d already packed the cooler for our day at the park, collected a couple of magazines to look through for new hairstyling ideas, and charged up my tablet so I could catch a couple of episodes of The Office when there was nothing else to do but sit around. I had this competitive baseball thing all figured out.
I rushed out of my room, finding Josh in the living room already standing by the door. He was pumped and ready for his first game in months. “You got everything?” I asked as I grabbed the handle of the blue cooler with one hand and the strap of my oversized tote with the other; it was also filled with sunblock, an extra battery pack for my cell, nuts, a hand towel, bug spray, and two ponchos in their small plastic containers.
“Yeah,” he answered in that same easy, confident tone he always used… even when he was lying out of his teeth.
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