He takes a half step back then reaches beside me, turning off the water. All the soap has rinsed off our bodies. When the water stops, Dallas steps out of the shower. I’m still standing under the shower head, wondering how we went from washing each other with soap to whatever this is now.
“We should order some food,” he says over his shoulder.
With that, he grabs a towel from my shelf in the corner of the bathroom and steps out into my bedroom, leaving me standing by myself.
Chapter Eighteen
By the time I dry myself off and get dressed, Dallas is already downstairs waiting for me.
He’s sitting in my living room on my large couch, scrolling through Netflix. His eyes shift to me the second I step into the room. After getting out of the shower, I decided to switch into my favorite pajamas, a silk tank top paired with matching lace-trimmed silk shorts. Sure, I haven’t worn them in months, but a feeling tugged in my gut, telling me to put them on. Maybe it’s my form of sweet punishment to Dallas for the way he acted about me performing with Gareth.
His gaze catches me walking toward him, and he clears his throat and adjusts himself on the couch. I sit beside him. The collar of my tank dips, and my shorts ride up my thighs as I cross my legs.
“Um, I ordered a pizza,” he says. “It should be here in a little bit.”
“Oh,” I tell him, unsure of what’s happening. This morning Dallas clarified the rule on sleeping over, but he never said anything about hanging out. Seeing him this way is strange. This is the first time I’m seeing him inside my house, sitting on my furniture.
“Do you like pizza?” he asks.
I want to laugh, though not because I think it’s a silly question. There are plenty of people in the world who hate pizza. I want to laugh because compared to our typical conversations, this one seems trivial. Conversations with Dallas are always intense to the point where I feel like my heart might explode out of my chest.
“Yes, I like pizza.”
“Good.” He looks down at the remote in his hands, picking at the power button. He’s changed back into his clothes, aside from his boots. They’re placed neatly near the front door. His feet are flat on the floor as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
I look up at the TV to see what show he’s picked, but he hasn’t chosen one yet. The white box is still set over my profile name.
“What’s in the box?”
I look away from the TV to see Dallas pointing to the box still sitting on top of my coffee table.
I tilt my head to the side and curl my mouth into a curious smirk. “I don’t know yet. I found it in the attic. It’s the only room I haven’t gone through yet.”
Dallas straightens his back and looks around the room. His smooth lips turn down into a small frown before he turns his attention back to me. “So, basically it’s a mystery box.”
“It is.” I scoot closer to him on the couch and lean forward, pulling the box to the edge of the table. I run the tip of my finger along the tape, feeling the smooth plastic. “When I moved in here, there were so many pieces of my mother scattered around.” I swallow my words, digesting the confession I’m about to make to Dallas. “But I knew nothing about her.”
“We don’t have to talk about this,” Dallas says, clearing his throat again. I look over my shoulder, resting my chin on the exposed skin as I look up at him. My skin smells like the soap he smeared all over me earlier.
“I want to,” I say, lifting one of my shoulders. “You told me about your parents.”
Dallas doesn’t speak another word, and I take his silence as an agreement for me to continue.
“My father told me she died when I was a baby. I used to ask him about her when I was younger because everyone I ever knew had a mother, and if their mother didn’t live with them, they at least got to see her every summer. They would come to school on the first day, bragging about all the things they did on their summer vacations, how their moms took them to all these amusement parks and road trips across the country. Anyway, after a few years of disappointment and unanswered questions, I just stopped asking.” I push the box away and sit back on the couch, tucking my legs underneath me as I play with the drawstring on my shorts. “My father died several years ago in a car accident. He never did tell me about my mother, and until her lawyer showed up at my doorstep with the deed to her house, I thought she was long dead.”
“Oh.” Dallas scratches at his jaw. The short hairs on his chin scrape across his fingers. “I’m sorry your father passed away without ever telling you the truth. That’s kind of fucked up. Does it bother you that he lied to you for so long?”
I scoff and follow it up with a smirk. “I’m still working on that.”
It’s true. I haven’t quite been able to forgive my father for his twenty-year lie.
I haven’t thought about my father’s death in a long time. It left me with a slow sort of grief. It didn’t feel real for a few weeks, and then I learned to live around the grief.
“In a way, I’m thankful my mother left me this house. I still don’t know what happened for us to be separated or if she ever had any interest in getting to know me, but I was more focused on building a new life after what Cole did than worrying about why my father chose to lie to me about my mother. Honestly, I couldn’t be more grateful for the timing of this house.”
My throat swells at the thought of what I’m about to tell Dallas. I’m still not sure why I feel the sudden need to explain my situation to him, but the relationship between us has shifted. I know it isn’t deeper than the sex we’ve been having. That isn’t what Dallas wants. It isn’t what I want. Or at least, I don’t think it is, but I can feel the wound of Cole and Brenna’s betrayal dissolving with each day that passes. The pain has faded to near non-existence, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a part of me, a small bump in the road that is my life that has forever changed it.
“Several months ago, I was engaged.” I look up at Dallas and bite down on my bottom lip in nervousness. I don’t know how he’ll react to knowing I was once engaged, and at such a young age. I’m only twenty-two. Dallas is twenty-six and lives a full bachelor lifestyle.
His reaction isn’t what I expect. “What happened?”
“I, um…” I clear my throat, the day I found Cole and Brenna still a vivid memory. “Cole and I weren’t engaged for very long, but we had been dating for years before that. He started to grow distant from me those last few months. He’d make excuses as to why he couldn’t have dinner or come home after classes. Then one day I came home from one of my student teaching days at the elementary school near our apartment.” I inhale a shaky breath, holding back the tears welling behind my eyes. I look up at Dallas. “I found him fucking my best friend, Brenna, on our dining room table.”
Dallas releases a heavy sigh as he processes my confession. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.” I close my eyes and inhale a deep breath, allowing it to fill my chest like a balloon. “Her back was flat on the silver table runner I had picked out myself. He was standing between her legs, completely naked. I didn’t know what to do when I first saw them. My mind went blank, and then I just left. They heard me come through the door and stopped when they saw me, but I didn’t say a word. I stood there like a deer caught in headlights. And then…and then I just left. It’s one thing to catch your fiancé having an affair. It's another to realize it’s with your best friend.”
“Shit,” Dallas says. A tear slides down my cheek when he shifts on the couch, pulling me toward him. He wraps his long arms around me, holding me to his chest. I bury my face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in. He smells the same as me, the scent of my soap still lingering on his skin, but mixed in with the soap, he still smells like he usually does. His hold on me is warm, and a tear slides down my cheek again, soaking and disappearing into the fabric of his shirt.
I sit up and swipe at my cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,�
� he says. He clenches his jaw and stretches out his fingers. He flexes them a few times before he relaxes them. “It was fucked up what they did, and I’m so sorry. If Cole was the kind of person to fuck his fiancée’s best friend, you’re better off finding out when you did than if you had gone through with marrying him.”
“You’re right.” I nod, swipe my fingers across my cheek again, and sniff. “I never talked to Brenna after I found her at my apartment that day. I did see Cole since we shared the apartment together. He didn’t even bother trying to convince me to forgive him or take him back. He said he loved her and had been in love with her since I’d introduced them the first year we were together. He had no excuse to give. He acted as if it wasn’t a big deal and that he hadn’t been fucking my best friend behind my back. I moved most of my things out that week, and I was staying with Liam until I could figure out where I was going to go or what I was going to do. That was when my mother’s lawyer showed up, telling me she had left me her house.”
I look at the box sitting on my coffee table, unopened. Dallas’ focus turns on it as well. His eyes sadden and a small frown appears on his all-too-perfect mouth. I can’t figure it out, but it seems as if every time I talk about my mother, a piece of his hard exterior cracks.
He doesn’t say another word about my mother or Cole’s affair.
“Do you ever think about performing on stage again?” I ask him, thinking back on his issue with me performing with Gareth. His irritation with the performance goes beyond just his problem with my singing partner.
“Sloan…” My name rolls off his tongue, vibrating from his chest. “We agreed not to talk about this kind of stuff.”
“No,” I say pointedly. “You said not to ask about your past, not that we couldn’t talk about our hobbies.”
“Right,” he murmurs reluctantly. He sighs and runs his hand down the side of his face. “I haven’t really thought about it, but no, I probably won’t. It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up my guitar, and I’m probably not that great anymore.”
I release a small laugh. “Somehow I don’t believe that.”
“Yeah, well…” Dallas looks down and traces the lines of his palm with his index finger.
“Yeah.” I press my lips together and shift my focus back to the box sitting in front of us. I can tell I’m not going to get much more information from him.
Maybe letting Dallas see the broken pieces inside me will help him to better understand me.
“Do you have any ideas of what could be in there?” I ask him, trying to lighten the mood. His silence weighs on my shoulders as he lets it linger and stretch.
“No.” He shakes his head.
I turn back to look at the box. I’m still staring at it when Dallas’ hand slides over mine. He tugs on it, pulling me toward him. I slide myself between his legs as he lies back and rests his head on the arm of the couch. I lie on top of him and rest my head on his chest, listening to the sound of his heart beating against his ribs.
The steady rhythm pulsates against the side of my face as Dallas reaches up, threading his fingers through my damp hair.
I don’t know if telling him about my past will have him reconsidering his second rule on not asking him about his, but I’d be lying if I said a small part of me isn’t hoping it will.
Chapter Nineteen
Secrets and lies co-exist. One simply can’t live without the other.
The fact that I lied to Sloan about knowing her mother when I first met her is still staring me in the face. Quite literally.
I truly don’t know what’s inside the box that sits on Sloan’s coffee table. There’s no label, no sign of any kind that would give a tell as to what’s inside.
But that’s the type of person Ellie was. She always left you guessing.
The secret I’ve kept from Sloan about knowing her mother starts to eat away at me. For a while, I’ve been able to push it aside and shove it under the rug. It wasn’t a big deal when we first met. I never thought I would be this close to Sloan—well, in a co-worker’s who sleep together sense.
That’s the thing with secrets and lies. Once you’re in them, it’s hard to imagine a way to get yourself out.
I hate the idea that I’m keeping a secret from Sloan the same way her father and Cole did. Her father lied to her all her life about the fact that Ellie wasn’t dead. With the passing of her father years ago, she’ll never be able to know the truth of why he lied to her in the first place.
And then there’s Cole. Knowing what he did to Sloan sparks a new kind of anger inside me that I haven’t felt in a long time. There have been multiple times since she told me about his affair when I’ve imagined how it would feel to have my fist connect with his face. Cole’s secret affair uprooted her life. What made it worse was he was having an affair with her best friend. Now Sloan’s rules on relationships make sense.
All those times she ignored the attention she got from men, she truly had no interest, but there’s something different in the way she is with me. She’s willing to open up in a way she hasn’t been able to for a long time.
Sloan is asleep beside me. She feels like silk with her legs tangled up with mine. Her hand is resting on my chest.
I slept over at her house last night. When I woke up nearly thirty minutes ago, my stomach flipped as my mind caught up with the fact that I had woken up in her bed. In truth, I was the one who clarified the rule of sleeping over, giving both of us permission to stay. So, it shouldn’t have been shocking to me. But it was.
I don’t actually sleep with women. Ever. Sloan is the first since Hailey, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
“Good morning.” Sloan stirs on top of me, tilting her head up to look at me. She grins as she sighs. Her naked body is glowing under the orange morning sun. She’s fucking gorgeous. There’s no denying that.
“Hey,” I say back. The guilt from our conversation last night is still eating away at me. I can’t help it, but the longer I keep seeing Sloan, the harder it is to keep my secrets. Which is why I created rule number two. It was the only way I could think of to keep a line drawn between us.
If Sloan knew the man I used to be and how I knew her mother, she wouldn’t be lying with me now, her warm body wrapped around mine.
“Did you sleep good?” I ask her. I run my fingers through her long hair. It’s fanned out behind her, the strands resting on the inside of my bicep.
“Mhmm. What time is it?” she asks in a sleepy voice.
“Um…” I quickly glance at my phone on the nightstand. “It’s nine in the morning.”
Fuck.
Not only have I missed my morning run, I’ve stayed at Sloan’s longer than I intended.
“Oh.” She rubs her eye with the heel of her palm. Her cheek is still pressed against my chest. “I didn’t mean to sleep this late.”
“Neither did I.” I chuckle. It’s the truth. I haven’t slept this late in forever.
“Are you working today? I can’t remember if you were on the schedule or not.”
“Yeah. I have a few things to do at my house, but I should be there later. What about you? Colton made the schedule this week so I’m not sure what he put you on.”
“He put me on for tonight, but I also have to practice with Gareth at some point.” She groans against me. “We only have two weeks to prepare.”
The idea of Gareth playing guitar while Sloan sings still bothers me. “Are you sure?” I ask her. I don’t want to come across as the jealous boyfriend because I sure as fuck am not, but I know the kind of man Gareth is.
“What’s your deal with him?” She rests her chin on her hand that’s pressed against my chest. She’s looking down at me with hooded eyes. All I can think about is claiming her mouth with mine, but I can see the curiosity in her eyes, so I resist.
“Colton and I have known him for a long time. He’s been coming into the bar since we opened, and I’ve caught him flirting with a lot of the female customers. There were a few times
I had to usher him out because he got too drunk and tried to hit on Vada when she was working.” I clench my hands into fists. “He didn’t do anything awful to her, but she definitely wasn’t interested, and he wasn’t getting the hint. So, I kicked him out.”
“You kicked him out, huh?” She grins, giggling against me. “I bet he loved that.”
“You’re terrible, you know that?” I grin, pretending to push her off me. I catch her before she rolls too far.
She places her hand on my chest again. “If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll make sure to be careful around him. I don’t think Colton would have set us up to play together if he thought we couldn’t make this work.”
“You’re right.” Fuck if I know if I’m right. My agreement is wavering at best. I do feel better knowing Sloan will be more cautious around Gareth.
But it isn’t simply Gareth’s past that has me cautious of his performing with Sloan. It’s the fact that he was so quick to agree to playing. It’s that he gets to sit beside Sloan and play. I know technically this situation is the result of my refusal to play, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I fucking can’t stand Gareth.
“Do you want some breakfast?” She pauses, realizing how her question comes across. She clenches her teeth in a wince. Her sharp breath in, causes her to hiss. “Shit. That’s probably not in our arrangement. Forget I said anything.”
She starts to push away from me, but I grab her. Her long brown hair is curtained around her face, creating a perfect frame around her smooth cheeks. Her breasts are dipping into two supple mounds. My dick twitches then hardens.
It’s that goddamn orange sun pouring out over her tan skin. “No, wait.” I place my hand against the side of her face and pull her forward. She inches up my body until her face is close enough to mine for me to kiss her. I place my lips on hers and pull back just enough to keep them barely touching. My fingers thread through her hair as I slide my hand down her back, down to the curve of her hips. “In fact, I think I would like some breakfast.”
The Rules of Heartbreak: An Enemies-to-Lovers/Next-Door Neighbor Romance (The Heartbreak Series Book 1) Page 18