As he made his way back, I pulled my phone out of my purse and checked the screen, thankful that the Larsens had taken the boys to their lake house and I hadn’t missed Louie’s nightly phone call. I was just in the middle of putting my phone back into my purse when the door opened and my neighbor slid into the driver seat of the still-running truck. His hand went to the gear shift just as I reached to release the latch on the seat belt…
He covered my hand with his, stopping me.
“Are you okay?” I asked, keeping my hand where it was even as he reversed out of the short driveway, his chin over his shoulder as he looked out the back window.
His answer was cool and calm. “You’re asking me if I’m okay?”
I blinked. “Yeah.”
Moving his hand off mine and making me forget that I’d been about to move over, he put his truck into drive, his attention now focused outside the windshield. “You”—he still sounded normal, collected—“had too much to drink and spent the last three hours talking to men you don’t know.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the drinks or just that small part of me that hadn’t been able to come to terms with what I felt for him that led me to voice just about the stupidest thing I could have said. At least in hindsight, I realized how dumb it was. “So?”
That wasn’t something I hadn’t done a hundred times before. I knew the difference between being friendly and being a flirt, and I hadn’t been flirting with any of those guys at the bar.
But I learned pretty quickly that “So?” was obviously not the kind of answer that Dallas was looking for. I accepted that a moment later when he slammed his brakes, sending me rocking forward—his arm shooting out across my chest to keep me from smashing my face against the dashboard.
“What the hell!” I cried at the same time he shouted, “So?”
My heart was beating in my damn throat from thinking I was about to have to get reconstructive surgery to my face, but somehow I managed to pant out, “What is wrong with you?” I was awake then, the tipsiness disappearing as I tried to catch my breath.
“You don’t know those fucking guys, Diana!” he yelled. “One of them got accused of rape a couple of years ago, and you were sitting there becoming BFFs with him.”
I was that angry and upset that I let him using “BFF” go.
“The only reason I was there was because I was meeting up with my friend I told you about. I sat there watching you the entire time. Waiting for you to turn around and come sit with me so I could introduce you to him, but you’re so fucking unobservant—”
“I am not unobservant,” I argued.
“Then how the fuck did you not see me ten feet away from you for hours?”
“I…” Well, what the hell was I supposed to say? There wasn’t a good excuse or explanation for that. He had a point. I just wasn’t going to admit it. Ever. “Well, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t have gone home with them. Are you crazy?”
The way he glared at me almost had me checking my eyebrows to make sure they hadn’t been burned off. He bared his teeth in an expression that was nowhere near a smile. “You’re damn right you wouldn’t have gone home with them.”
He was breathing hard and it had taken me too long to notice that he was just as riled up as me. This normally calm, patient man was resembling a dragon hell-bent on destroying a town. That town being me.
“I would have dragged you out by the ear if you had tried, just like my mom used to do to me. And God help me, if you’d taken a fucking cab—”
“What’s wrong with a cab?”
I would swear on my life this sweet, passive man snarled at me, so I sat back in the seat. “Don’t ask me stupid questions right now, Diana. I’m not in the mood for it.”
I blinked at him, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. “Why are you being so mean to me?”
He blinked. “You think I’m being mean to you?”
“Yes! I had too much to drink. I didn’t do anything wrong. That wasn’t my first time going out, you know. I wasn’t going to do anything wrong, but you’re here, yelling at me—”
The hand he had closest to the window went up to scrub at his short hair. “Because you worried me! You think I want something to happen to you? I can’t read your mind. I don’t know what the hell you’re planning on doing,” he explained, at least it seemed like he was trying to explain, but there was still so much anger in his voice, it didn’t totally seem that way.
For the second time in such a short amount of time, I said something else stupid that I didn’t realize until hours later. “Look, I appreciate you looking out for me, but I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe you can take care of yourself, but have you thought for one single fucking second that maybe somebody else might want to take care of you too?” he growled.
And in that split second, every thought, every emotion, left my body. Just poof. Disappeared.
“You… what?” Was I drunk enough to not understand what was coming out of his mouth? It wouldn’t be the first time, but I didn’t think I was on that level yet.
He reared back, his expression all “are you fucking kidding me?” “Being your friend has been the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Wait. “It has?” I asked, torn between his comment a moment before and the one that had just come out of his mouth. I’d thought he was trying to say he wanted to take care of me, but now…
“You are the most ridiculous fucking woman I have ever met in my entire life, Diana. Half the time I want to shake you and the other half of the time….” He trailed off, glaring right into my eyes.
In the second that followed that fraction of time, that muscular arm that had slashed across my chest to keep me in place moved. His hand, that long-fingered, callused hand, slid behind my neck, and Dallas kissed me. His lips touched mine, gentle, barely a brush, a whisper of a warm mouth and breath over my own.
And then he went for it. There was no hesitation, no warning peck. That fuller upper lip went over the top of mine, those blunt, white teeth caught my bottom one… and then he was kissing me.
Over and over again. Softer, then softly, then just soft.
Then I didn’t hesitate. I opened my mouth and caught his top lip the instant my brain caught up with what was happening. His mouth slanted over mine, his tongue sliding into the slight opening I’d given him. One tongue against the other, one hand covering the back of my neck while the other clutched at my hip. My hands? They might have been on his ribs, or they might have been on his thighs, I had no idea. All I could think about was Dallas. Dallas, Dallas, Dallas. How much I wanted this. How much I wanted this more than I’d ever wanted just about anything.
My hands kneaded. His hands kneaded.
His lips drifted away from mine, skirting my jaw, sucking an earlobe briefly before he trailed his damp, warm mouth down my neck like he was hungry, like the world was going to end if he didn’t kiss me everywhere with everything in him. His tongue grazed the skin on my throat, his lips skimming before his teeth made contact. And God help me, all I could do was move closer to him, almost climbing on to his lap. I started leaning forward when it hit me.
What the fuck was I doing? He was married. Separated. Same shit.
“Oh my God,” I hissed, rearing back so fast, he was still where I’d left him when his hooded eyes opened. I pointed at him, the blood I usually had in my head going down. “You’re married.”
Dallas blinked slowly. His Adam’s apple bobbed and the hand he had on my thigh stayed exactly where it was as he focused those amazing eyes on me, looking only slightly dazed. “Diana,” he said my name like he’d never said it before as his thumb slipped over my knee. “My divorce was finalized.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“He’s finally divorced?” Vanessa’s voice was as close to excited as her normally pretty even-temperament allowed her to be. “Since when?”
“Yes!” I, on the other hand, was not so even tempered. I’d been d
ying to tell her what the hell I’d found out two days ago, but the instant I was up the next morning, I went straight to making breakfast, feeling more than a little like shit from how much I’d drank the night before, and headed right to the salon. By the time I got off work, all I wanted to do was pass out on the couch. I’d fallen asleep two hours after getting home. “A few weeks.”
A few weeks. I still couldn’t wrap my head around that. Weeks. Since right after the fire. When he’d left for a few days.
“What did he say after that?” Van asked.
How could I explain the look he’d given me after he said he wasn’t married anymore? Or how his hand had slid further up my thigh and squeezed my leg like he owned it? There wasn’t a way to. All I had managed to do was sit there looking at him while my heart ran a marathon inside my chest.
“Nothing, I just sat there and stared at him and he stared back at me, and then he drove us home. He parked his truck at his house, walked me home, and all he said was ‘Goodnight, Diana,’” I relayed the information back to her.
“Did you say something to him?”
“I told him thank you for the ride and goodnight?” It hadn’t been my finest moment. I hadn’t even looked him in the eye, but I didn’t tell Van that.
Either way, she still went with “What a chicken.”
“Chicken? Coming from you? Really?”
Vanessa scoffed. “What are you talking about?”
Did I really need to remind her about her non-relationship with her now-husband years ago? “I like him. I don’t know what to do, wah, boohoo,” I recapped.
Her response was a grunt. “Shut up.”
“It’s all right, Chicken Little. Don’t give shit if you can’t take it. At least I told him I sort of liked him before.”
“Now that you mention it, I seem to remember you telling me to quit being a pussy.”
“That was a completely different situation, you idiot.”
“How?”
“You were married!”
She thought about it for a second before huffing. “Whatever. Eat shit. What I want to know is what are you going to do about it?”
Wasn’t that the question of the century? What was I going to do? Dallas had kissed me. Really kissed me. Not this peck on the side of the mouth that you gave someone you were fond of… unless I’d gotten him totally wrong and maybe now that he was divorced, he was planning on making up for not dating for years.
That single thought left a huge lump of rotting crap in my belly.
Was that what was happening? He was taking his brand-new freedom card and using it on me?
He had to know it wouldn’t work. He had to. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that he wouldn’t do that to me. I’d made it clear to him time and time again that I was a crazy person. Plus, I had the boys. I couldn’t be doing that “getting around” crap. Plus-plus, we were neighbors. If he wanted to hit it and quit it, I was the worst option in the world, and he had to know that.
He had to.
I wasn’t going to believe otherwise. But that was the problem, what was I supposed to believe?
“Di?” Van’s voice came over the line, worried.
“Sorry, I spaced,” I apologized, shoving the thought of his reasoning aside. “I don’t know. He just got divorced. Does he want to date around? Does he want to date me? Did he only want to kiss me? I don’t know. We never talked about it. It always just seemed like this far-off thing that was never going to happen.” This felt like high school all over again. “We see each other too much for this to be something that will end badly. I like him too much for that to happen, too, I guess.”
“Okay, Negative Nancy. Ask him, or give it some time. I don’t know. You’re the one with all the boyfriend experience.”
All the boyfriend experience? This bitch. “I was almost nineteen when I lost my virginity, asshole, and I’ve had four boyfriends. I’m not exactly an expert here. I don’t know what the hell is happening. I don’t know what his plan is.”
The silence on the other end of the line said exactly what I knew was true. I was a serial monogamist. I’d been in four relationships my entire life and, with the exception of Jeremy, they had all been long-term. Jeremy would have been if he hadn’t been a piece of shit who needed to get stabbed in the kidneys repeatedly. I’d liked plenty of boys and men in my life, but I wasn’t big on dating around and playing the field.
And considering how much I liked Dallas—and felt even more than that toward him—my heart couldn’t handle disappointment, and at this point in my life, it wasn’t just me I was looking after. It was the boys too. They liked him and he was Josh’s coach. I wasn’t about to ruin a positive male influence for them by dating Dallas who had just gotten divorced after so many years.
He was going to date around.
And his neighbor across the street with two boys, who was always all up in his business and stuff, couldn’t be his first choice.
I lived across the street from him.
If Jeremy moved in across the street from me now, I would key his car and throw eggs at his house until he got a clue and moved.
There was no way I could be a revolving door. I wanted to be settled. I needed it. I knew he cared about me, but what were the chances he wasn’t thinking straight?
Shit. I wasn’t going to risk it. We could be friends and that was all he had ever given me the impression he wanted, with the exception of him rubbing his mouth all over my neck…
And the notes I’d found in his pocket that might not have anything to do with me.
I couldn’t think about that, or ever again, if I was supposed to survive this.
“Well, you can look but not touch if you want to do that, D.”
“That’s real useful advice,” I grumbled.
“What do you want me to tell you? You’re the one who’s never had a problem saying whatever is on your mind. You always do what you want to do, and everyone else can go to hell. The Di I know—the Diana I know now—doesn’t chicken out on things. So do whatever you want to do.”
I let out another grumble. How the hell was that supposed to help me?
“We’ll change the subject, chicken,” Vanessa went with when I didn’t say a word. “Did I tell you how Aiden makes Trevor call me when he’s gone, once every hour to make sure I’m fine? Can you believe that?”
“Nope.” Because I couldn’t. I knew how much Van hated her husband’s manager, and for him to have to call her all the time because Aiden was practicing was pretty damn hilarious. So I laughed because I was sure it must have been killing her inside a little too. “Sucker.”
My best friend snickered. “He’s the suck-up. I know for sure I never told you about how he bought us this baby stroller, and I looked it up. It costs four thousand dollars. For a baby stroller! I tried to return it, but he won’t tell me where he got it from. He should have used that money to buy things for someone who can’t afford the basics. I want to find a charity for pregnant women and donate money or items to them in exchange. It makes me feel guilty to get all this stuff.”
“Rich girl problems,” I teased her.
“Screw you.”
“Donate the money, or you can donate the money to me—”
That made her laugh. She knew there was no way I would ever ask her for money.
“You’re making me hurt, and I need to get back to work while Sammy is still napping,” the workaholic announced in a watery voice. “Text me later.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too. Be my Diana and take what you want!” she shouted before the call ended.
Hanging up, I gripped my phone, took another swallow of the coffee I’d been drinking all morning, and headed back out onto the floor.
Take what I want.
I didn’t have to figure out what it was that I wanted. I knew what it was. Exactly what it was.
And that was Dallas.
But what the hell was I going to do about it? I won
dered as I left the break room and headed into the main section of the salon for my next appointment.
Sean had his client in his chair doing what looked like a keratin treatment, and Ginny was sitting at her station, texting on her phone. She looked like as much shit as I did. There were bags under her eyes and she looked pale. She’d come in to work after I did, and all we’d done was wave at each other. I wanted to tell her about what happened with her cousin two nights ago, but…
Well, they were family. Distant family, but family nonetheless. You didn’t talk about matters of the heart with people who were related.
But I could ask her what had been bugging me on and off for months.
Making my way to her station, I leaned over and took a peek at her roots as she finished typing whatever it was she was sending.
Self-consciously, she lifted a hand to her ruby red hair. “I know. It’s about time you did my roots.”
Continuing on to the counter of her station, I leaned my butt against it and took in her clear, stressed but happy face. “Tell me when and I’ll do it for you.”
My boss nodded and raised her eyebrows, eyeing me closely. “How you feeling?’
“Like shit. You?”
“Like shit.”
I laughed and Ginny grinned. “How’d you get your car yesterday?”
“I made the kids drop me off. You?”
“The Larsens drove me.”
We both looked at each other for a moment before I finally blurted out, “Hey, is there something I should know about you and Dallas?”
She tipped her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you like him?”
Her mouth formed an O shape before she closed it and sighed. “It isn’t that I don’t like him. We’ve never… hit it off. You know what I mean? When we were kids, he was serious and uptight. When we were older, like teens, it was always like he thought he was better than the rest of us. There’s nothing wrong with him. I guess I just never really gave him a chance. I didn’t know I was still doing that, but he can’t be that much of a stuck-up if he hangs out with Trip, I guess.”
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