Wait for It

by Mariana Zapata

  “Nope.”

  “Really. I can help. I have one good hand, and I’m bored out of my mind. It’s only been a few days, but I don’t know how I’m going to make it being stuck at home.” That was putting it lightly. I’d gone to help my mom at the store she worked at, but only made it three hours before her comments about my intelligence—because who goes into a burning house?—got to be too much and I left.

  Those hazel eyes were on me for a couple of seconds before his mouth twitched. His hands went to his hips and I told myself, Don’t fucking look, Diana. Don’t look down.

  The question was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. “Are you really patriotic or do you just like eagles?”

  His eyebrows went up and with a straight face, he glanced down at his chest before focusing back on me. “My dad had this tattoo on his arm.” Then, like what I’d asked was no big deal, he asked, “You need something to do?”

  I nodded, telling myself to let the tattoo go.

  “You sure? You’ll only use one hand?”

  Why was the first thought that popped into my head a dirty one?

  And why did my face turn red as I thought that over?

  “Cross my heart.”

  Dallas tipped his head to the side. “You didn’t start on Louie’s quarterpipe while I was gone, did you?”

  There it was. Another reminder he’d gone somewhere. Hmm. “Nope.”

  “Then you can help me build it.”

  The “shit” came out of my mouth before I could stop it and he smiled.

  “Or I can do it alone.” He paused for all of a second before saying, “If you tell me you can do it by yourself—”

  I rolled my eyes. “No,” I mumbled. “If you insist on helping, we can do it together, and by together, I mean you’re going to be stuck doing most of it because I only have one hand, but I’ll try my best.” I shrugged. “It would be nice to surprise him tomorrow. He’s spending the night with the Larsens today. You think we can get it done?”

  The small smile that came over Dallas’s mouth was like a roman candle straight to my heart. “We can try our best,” he offered with all that patience and easygoing nature that cried out to me.

  What I wouldn’t do for the best of Dallas Walker. But all I said was, “Okay. I’m ready when you are.”

  “Give me fifteen so I can finish up here and get this thing across the street,” he compromised.

  I nodded. “I’ll meet you in the backyard.”

  It didn’t take him the full fifteen minutes to make his way over. I’d grabbed my gardening gloves from the shed while I waited and slipped one on, and after thinking about it for a moment, got my toolbox out again too. I still didn’t understand what had come over him that other night, but he hadn’t brought it up, and I wasn’t going to either. The only thing I wanted to talk about was where he had gone to, but I made a promise to myself I wasn’t going to ask. I wasn’t.

  Dallas had come prepared too from the looks of it as he opened the gate and closed it behind him, giving Mac—who was outside with me—a rub on the head. Unfortunately, or I guessed fortunately, he’d put on a T-shirt. It was one of his threadbare shirts that he usually worked in from the stains all over random places on it.

  “I know they’re old.”

  I raised my eyes to his and frowned. “What?”

  “My clothes,” he said, giving me his back as he went straight toward one of the crates, his hammer in his hand. He went ahead and pried the lid off with the claw side of the hammer. “I hate shopping.”

  Straightening up, I kept frowning at him, suddenly embarrassed that he’d caught me looking at what he was wearing. “They’re fine,” I told him slowly. “The whole purpose is not to be naked, isn’t it?”

  He “hmmed” as he moved to the corner of the box furthest away from me.

  “I don’t buy new clothes that often either,” I tried to offer him. “If I didn’t have to dress up for work, I wouldn’t, and I’ve had all those for years now. The boys grow so fast and tear up their stuff so easily, they’re the only ones who get new things regularly in our house.”

  “Nana’s always giving me grief over them,” he said, quietly or maybe he was just distracted, I wasn’t sure. “She says the ladies like a well-put-together man.”

  That made me laugh. “Maybe for an idiot. I went on a few dates with this one guy a few years ago who dressed better than I did, and you know what? He lived with his parents and they still paid his car insurance. I know I’m not one to talk because it took me forever to get my shit together—and even now, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing half the time—but everyone should have some priorities in life. Trust me when I tell you, clothing isn’t everything.”

  Dallas briefly glanced up at me as he moved to another corner with his hammer. “One of the only things I remember about my dad is that he never matched unless he was in his uniform. Ever. My mom laughed at how much effort he didn’t put into his clothes.” I could see the corner of his mouth tip into a smile at the memory, and just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared. “When I tried living with my ex for those two months after I got back on land, she wouldn’t let me go anywhere with her unless I changed. She said I made her feel poor.”

  Now I wasn’t just going to have to kill his future wife, I was going to have to kill his ex, too. God. My question came out more gritted than I’d intended. “And did you? Change?”

  “For a few days.”

  “You shouldn’t have had to try in the first place,” I told him, and he glanced up, a small smile on that bristly face.

  “I should have if it really mattered to her that much, but I didn’t care enough. I’ve never been with anyone longer than a year, you know. Long-distance relationships don’t usually work, and I never tried one until her, but every couple I know who did it and survived, always compromised. You have to care about the other person’s feelings enough to not always be right or have your way. I don’t regret not trying to make it work, but if I’d loved her, I should have.”

  Was it rude for me to think I was glad he hadn’t?

  Before I could think about that too long, he threw out, “Now I know for next time.”

  I was not going to sabotage any future relationships of his. I wasn’t.

  Then what the hell was I going to do? I wondered. Move somewhere else? Find a boyfriend to maybe be half the man he was and hopefully he’d keep my mind off the one who lived across the street from me who I had all these… feelings for?

  What the hell had I done? Why had I done this to myself? I knew better. I knew better than to like Dallas. And yet, I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you… had a lot of girlfriends?”

  This man glanced over at me with a funny expression on his face before facing the crate again. “I’ve never been one of those guys with a new girl every week or every month.”

  That still wasn’t an answer, and at the risk of sounding like a crazy person, all I did was mumble, “Hmm.” Either I was dying inside or this was what a serial killer felt like when he or she needed to get another fix. It could have been either or.

  That was enough for him to look at me again with that weird facial expression. “I’m forty-one, Diana. I’ve had girlfriends. Except for my ex, I never lived with any of them. Never proposed to any of them. The only girl I’ve loved was my high school girlfriend, and I haven’t heard anything about her since I broke up with her to join the navy. I’ve never looked any of them up online, talked to them on the phone, and I can’t remember most of their names or what they look like. I was at sea a lot.”

  Of course I knew he’d had other relationships in the past, but him acknowledging them still made my stomach roll in jealousy and maybe a little hatred too. Bitches. Not trusting myself to not call all of his exes sluts, my brilliant fucking response was another “Hmm.” And then, as if I was trying to make myself feel better, I told him, “I’ve only had four real boyfriends in my entire life, my ex not included. If I ever saw any of them again, th
ey would probably run the other way.”

  How did Dallas respond? With a “Hmm” that had me eyeing him.

  Was he using too much force to pry the nail out or was I imagining it?

  “Thanks for going to see Nana,” he commented suddenly, changing the subject and making me keep looking at him. He walked toward the corner right by me before glancing over in my direction, his eyes going to my pink, puppy toolbox for a brief second. He glanced away from it almost immediately.

  I groped for the change in subject. “Yeah, of course. She told me she’s going to be staying with you until her house gets fixed.”

  “Yeah.” He positioned his body directly to my side, his butt inches from me. I looked away. “She wants her own place back, but she’s gonna be stuck with me for a while, no matter what she says.”

  “She doesn’t want to stay with you?”

  “She doesn’t want to stay with anyone. She keeps telling me that she hasn’t lived under somebody else’s roof in over seventy years and she’s not gonna do it for any longer than she needs to. She offered to go stay with her sister who lives in a retirement community to ‘get out of my hair,’ but I’m not gonna let her live with anybody but me until her house gets fixed. She’s my grandma. I’m not about to pawn her off.”

  I did not like this man as more than a friend. A passing acquaintance. He was just a nice guy and it made perfect sense to admire someone with his type of loyalty.

  I did not like him. I didn’t. And I sure as hell wasn’t falling in love with him a little. No way.

  While I was busy repeating to myself that, yes, I thought he was super-hot, and yes, his heart might be made of the finest silver in the land, but there were plenty of men like that in the world.

  I didn’t even believe myself.

  Dallas shoved the lid off the top of the crate and took a step back, eyeing me once before glancing back to the contents inside. “The motorcycle club is having a cook-off at the shop where Trip works to raise money for Nana’s house this weekend.”

  Shit. I really had no business spending money on things while I couldn’t work. The flowers I’d bought for Miss Pearl had to be my one and only splurge for a long time.

  He kept going. “This is the boys’ weekend with their grandparents, isn’t it?” I nodded and he did the same. “Come. I’ll buy you a plate.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  That big hand reached over to tap the back of my hand, his face tipped down and serious. “Are you ever going to accept me trying to be nice without arguing?”

  I pressed my lips together for a second. “Probably not.”

  He smiled. “Come.” He touched the back of my hand again. “Trip will be there.”

  Why was my first thought, As long as you’re there, it’s fine with me? What was wrong with me? I was asking for a mess. For pain. For heartbreak. For having to move one day.

  And even knowing all of that, like an idiot, I didn’t say no, but I did sigh. “If you’re paying, Mr. Clean….”

  * * *

  “DIANA! MY HERO!”

  Even surrounded by what looked like at least 100 people hanging around the lot of the mechanic shop right by the salon, I still managed to pull that one familiar voice yelling out of the air. Smirking, I glanced around from face to face until I found the one I was looking for in the crowd, pushing his way through. The big smile on Trip’s face was obviously the result of being a little drunk.

  “Hey.” I waved at him, trying to see if I recognized anyone else at the cookout Dallas had invited me to.

  Trip tossed an arm over my shoulder as he pulled me into his side, giving me a side hug. “How you holdin’ up?”

  “Better.” I held up my bandaged hand. The blisters had finally started to go away, leaving tight, red skin behind. A couple of days ago, for some reason I was beyond understanding, I’d looked up burns online and almost lost my lunch. Things could have been a lot worse; I wasn’t going to complain about my injury after I’d seen that.

  “Looks like shit to me,” he stated, inspecting my hand but keeping his arm on my shoulder and the other at his side. “What do you wanna eat? I’ll get you a plate. Where the boys at?” He was leading me through the people, and I took in the leather vests of the motorcycle club and the other dozens of people who looked like a mash-up of early twenties women to mid-thirties men, to forty, fifty and sixty-year-old people in jeans, layers, and more leather vests.

  I thought about asking where Dallas was, but I kept it to myself. I needed to quit with the Dallas thing. “They’re with their grandparents. What did you try already?”

  He hummed. “Brisket is pretty good. The ribs are pretty good. Steaks aren’t as good as yours—”

  “Remember arguing with me over making them on the cast iron?”

  Trip squeezed me to his side as he chuckled. “Yeah, I ‘member. I bought a cast iron skillet last time I ran to the store. I was gonna check up on you during practice on Thursday, but we get so busy with all the parents wanting to talk about how their kid needs more play time.” He made a grunting noise.

  I snickered. “Don’t worry. I know we’re friends.”

  “We sure as fuck are, honey,” he confirmed as we came up to three big barbecue pits lined up nearly side by side. “What are you in the mood for?”

  I told him what I wanted: brisket and grilled corn on the cob. When the pretty girl helping the thin, elderly gray-haired man at the barbecue pit scooped some potato salad onto my plate, Trip whistled. “You’re a doll, Iris.”

  “Fuck off, Trip,” a tall man who had been standing off to the side with a toddler strapped to his back and a baby wrapped in a pink blanket in his arms snarled. I looked once at him and then one more time before glancing away. There were tattoos up to the man’s neck and he had the grumpiest frown I’d ever seen on anyone, but that didn’t change the fact that his face alone could have impregnated some woman.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Trip ignored him, winking at the girl helping to serve.

  “Trip,” the tattooed man barked again.

  This blond snorted as his eyes met mine and he whispered, “You ever had someone you just love fuckin’ with?”

  That man didn’t look like someone I’d love to fuck with, but what did I know? Even with two kids in his arms, I didn’t want to look at him for too long. I whispered back, “Yeah.” That had been my brother for me.

  Trip snorted and, with my plate in his hand, led me toward one of the many tables set up along the closed bays of the shop. So many people were standing up, there was more than enough room to sit, and he took the spot across from me, setting the plate down. “I forgot to grab you a drink. What do you want? A beer?”

  “I’m driving. Whatever soda you have is fine.”

  “You got it.” He grinned before disappearing on me.

  With my fork in my left hand, I took in the meat on my plate and cursed. I should have gotten the ribs instead. Since burning myself, I’d been settling for making food I could eat with one hand safely, which was mostly soups, but I hadn’t put two and two together with the meat. There was no way I could use a knife. Hell, I could barely wipe myself with my left hand. So, with my fork on its side, I started trying to break up the meat, but it wasn’t going so well.

  “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” a voice said from behind me a moment before someone dropped onto the chair beside mine.

  I didn’t need to look to know who it was. Only one man had that hoarse, raspy voice. It was Dallas.

  And the smile that took over my face to see him inches away had me dropping my fork to pivot in the chair. “I didn’t know you were here already,” I said, noticing the can of root beer in his hands. In dark jeans and a gray fleece pullover hoodie, he looked great.

  “I was busy talking to my uncle when I spotted you getting food,” he explained, those long fingers moving the can around in his hand until he had it the way he wanted it. He flipped the tab, opening it for me, and setting it beside my plate befo
re scooting his chair over, leaving him so close his body heat was unavoidable. He leaned over, directly in front of me, blocking my view of my plate as he asked, “You want anything else?”

  “No, I’m all right. Are you cutting the meat for me?” I joked, smiling even though he couldn’t see it.

  “Yes,” he said, continuing on with his back inches from my face.

  There was something wrong with my heart. There was something seriously wrong with my heart. I stuttered, “You really—”

  “Let me do it,” was all he said.

  I sighed and leaned back, trying to make it seem like it was some kind of bullshit he had the nerve to cut my meat for me when my hand was messed up. I was going to need to go to a heart specialist. Pronto. First, I needed him to stop doing whatever it was he was doing to make this happen to me. “Dallas,” I whispered. “You really don’t owe me anything. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “None. Stop wasting your breath.”

  Did he stop what he was doing? No. He didn’t.

  “You are so fucking stubborn,” I said.

  “Pot meet your kettle.” He straightened in his chair, propping the knife on the edge of the disposable plate before handing over the fork he’d been using.

  My kettle? It didn’t escape me he’d cut the meat into perfect square shapes. I sighed again and took the utensil from him. Quit your shit, heart. Quit it right now, I tried telling it. I don’t have time or the emotional reserves for this. “Thank you,” I said to Dallas.

  His blink was the second most innocent thing I’d ever seen after Louie’s. The corners of his mouth went up just a little as he said, “Anything for you.”

  Oh my God. Why was he doing this to me? Why? Why? He wasn’t the type of person to string someone else along for the fun of it. I knew that. But why did he have to be so nice? And why did I have to be so fucking dumb?

  Fuck me.

  If I hadn’t been so hungry, I would have taken my time eating, but I was. I’d skipped lunch, expecting to stuff myself this afternoon at the cookout. I’d texted Ginny to find out if she was coming after work, but she’d said she would only get a chance to run by during a break; she had a lot of last minute things to do for her wedding coming up in two weeks. I had honestly completely forgotten about it.