“I mean, you guys are just the cutest fucking couple I’ve ever seen,” she gushed, beaming at us. “It’s almost too cute, you know?”
I smiled, looking over to Dash, who had his eyes pointed downward. But he was smiling too—faintly, and bashfully, but it was there.
“What do you guys do in your free time?” she said. “Like, do foodie people cook when they go home, or are you so burnt out after doing it at work that you just order in?”
“Um—well, we usually…” Dash started to say, immediately meeting my eyes. Of course we usually didn’t do anything. We showed up for events, but went our own separate ways at the end of the day.
“I love cooking for Dash,” I said. “But he tends to be tired at the end of the day. I pour him his glass of wine, let him go relax in the living room, and then bring him dinner afterward.”
“God, you never pour me a glass of wine,” Cynthia said to her boyfriend next to her, giving him a playful slap on the shoulder. “So you’re a damn good boyfriend, Eric.”
I shrugged, looking over to Dash, who was actually blushing. “Can’t speak for myself. Dash, what do you think?”
“Yeah,” Dash said, nodding. His cheeks deepened even further in color. “Eric’s a great boyfriend. I don’t know what I’d do if I hadn’t found him. San Diego would be a much lonelier place.”
Cynthia erupted into a long awwww, and I reached over and drew Dash into my arms. He leaned against me, just resting near my shoulder, and I pressed a kiss into his hair. I didn’t let go of him, hoping he’d stay leaned against me.
And for once, he actually did. I drifted my hand along his upper arm as Cynthia kept chatting and the sun slowly sank further and further. I sort of drifted in and out of the conversation, barely able to focus on anything other than the gentle, slow warming of my skin under Dash’s body, and the rise and fall of his breath against me.
Some terrifying, deep part of my brain never wanted to let him go.
Twenty minutes later, Cynthia had gotten Dash into a ranting conversation about the media.
“It’s like—I don’t even know how you guys deal with it,” Cynthia said. “All I have is a restaurant, but my Yelp reviews kill me. It must be awful reading about your personal lives online.”
“Yeah, it kinda sucks,” I said, “But we don’t have it half as bad as some people. My friend Leo had it terrible in 2007, as I’m sure you all know. But none of us are as famous as Chandler, who still literally gets followed by paparazzi at all times. When I think about him, my life seems 10 times easier in comparison.”
“That’s true,” Dash said, nodding, and I let myself stare into his eyes.
“Oh yeah, Dash,” Cynthia said, her tone growing more serious, “I saw that Mirror article, by the way. Did you really do that?”
Dash hitched up his eyebrows. “What?”
“That thing with the billboard? Shit, had you not seen the article? I’m so sorry—I thought you must have by now. It came out last night.”
Dash shrugged it off, but I could tell that his face had tightened and he stared at the ground. “Oh. Well, whatever it said, I don’t mind. I think I’ve finally gotten to a place where I don’t give a shit what is said about me online.”
There was a lull in conversation before someone else started talking about the best new restaurants in town, but I slipped my phone out of my pocket and googled “Mirror article Dash Thompson.”
I found the article Cynthia had been talking about, and as I scrolled through, I felt my face falling into a confused frown. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, and I had to look it over a couple times to make sure it was even written about the same Dash Thompson. Would he do something like what I was reading about? It didn’t seem like him at all.
“Dash,” I said, my voice low, “Can you come here for a second?”
I stood up, brushing some stray sand off of my shorts, and walked far enough away so that no one would hear us talking.
“What is it?” Dash said, walking up behind me. “You didn’t look up that dumb article, did you?”
I pressed my phone into his palm. “Yeah, I did. And I really think you need to read it, now. Howcome you hadn’t told me about this?”
Dash’s eyes skimmed over the phone, and as he scrolled through, I watched exhaustion grow on his face.
“Oh,” he said, as he reached the end of the article. “So they found out.”
“Dash, are you….” I trailed off.
He shook his head, handing me back the phone. “Whatever. It’s fine. I don’t care what they say about me, like I said. Let’s just go back and enjoy the rest of the picnic.” He started to walk away, but I caught his wrist and gently pulled him back.
“Dash, is that—is that true? What they said in the article? Or is someone making shit up about you?”
He didn’t meet my gaze, instead looking out over the dying sunlight. He took a deep breath. “No, it’s true. But, um… listen, I don’t want to talk about it, okay? So let’s just leave it alone. I’m not gonna let it affect me.”
He was off again, back down the sand, and then sitting down in the same spot he’d been in before.
Like nothing had happened.
Like I hadn’t just read a poorly written, unsympathetic viral article about how Dash had proposed to his ex using a billboard, and subsequently had been arrested the night Caleb had said no.
Twelve
Dash
A pit of dread formed in my stomach over the course of the rest of the picnic, and only grew worse with each passing minute.
The sun set, the air cooled down, and little by little people left, until it was just me and Eric, hauling a bunch of blankets and half-eaten containers of food back up the hill to his house.
And I knew he was going to ask me about the article. I’d seen how his face had changed after reading it. He was probably going to treat me differently now, too. People tended to when they found out that I had been arrested.
And of course it was only made a million times worse because it was for such a dumb reason. A reason that showed just how pathetic I could really be. There was a reason I didn’t bring it up to anyone—especially not Eric—but unfortunately, it had been brought up for me, in a very public way.
We didn’t speak as we labored up the hill—it was hard enough to even walk with all the junk we had to bring back up to his house, so thankfully I was spared from talking about my past at least for that brief moment.
But when we finally got everything back into Eric’s house, he turned to me, his face a perfect picture of concern.
“Don’t,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the wall.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Dash, how am I—”
“Seriously—Eric—you can stop while you’re ahead. I’ll tell you what you are dying to know. Yeah, the article was true. I got arrested. But it’s not… a big deal. At least it isn’t anymore. I was… arrested for vandalism, okay? It’s old news.”
His face twisted into a frown. “God, Dash, vandalism? Why?”
I looked to the side, and then back to him. “Because…” I took a deep breath. “It’s a long fucking story.”
“So tell it.”
I looked up at him, my heart already starting to race. “So, uh… you saw in the article that I did that stupid billboard proposal, right?”
“Yeah, you rented a billboard? Jesus, how expensive was that?”
“Really fucking expensive. The cheapest I could do it for in my hometown in New Jersey was four thousand dollars for two days.”
“Holy shit,” Eric muttered.
“Yeah, I know. So I rented it, and put up a huge photo of myself, on fucking bended knee with big text next to it that said ‘Will you marry me, Caleb?’... and it was a goddamned mistake.”
“How did you… get him to New Jersey to see it?”
“That was the point. We were in New Jersey visiting my parents for just
one weekend. I kept trying to send Caleb out of the house so that he’d walk past the billboard—I sent him to get milk, to get butter, to get fucking stamps. He walked by the damn thing four times before he ever saw it.”
Eric nodded. “So what happened when he finally did?”
I bit my lip. “He came back to my parents house, brought me outside, and said ‘What the fuck was that, D?’” I said, breathing deep. “He, uh, didn’t like it, to say the least. He said it was cheesy, and garish, and an embarrassment to us both.”
“Oh my God,” Eric said, his face softening.
“Yeah,” I said, “And uh, needless to say, he rejected the proposal. I’d rented the billboard for thousands of dollars, gotten the ring already, and everything. But it was… just fucking stupid.”
“Dash… it’s not stupid,” Eric said, his eyes pained.
“You haven’t heard the stupidest part yet,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “The night he rejected me, he ended up going back to the city while I stayed in New Jersey. Said he needed some time to himself. So I was stuck with my fucking parents, after just being rejected by the man I thought I’d marry.”
“That is so, so rough,” Eric said, and I nodded.
“So… I went to a nearby dive bar. Got completely trashed. And guess what I did after six shots of whiskey?”
Eric looked worried. “What?”
“I went to a hardware store and got spray paint, climbed all the way up a very rickety ladder to the billboard, and tried to spray black paint over the whole damn thing.”
“Oh my God, that is fucking terrifying, Dash—you could have died—”
“I know. But I wasn’t thinking, at all. I was in a complete daze and couldn’t think about anything other than needing that billboard to be gone. I’d rented it for the weekend, and it was only going to be up for another 24 hours, but I couldn’t take it being up there for another second. I was up there, fucking spray painting and bawling my eyes out. And I only got five minutes into spray painting it when the police showed up and arrested me.”
“Wow,” was all Eric said.
“Yeah. I mean, they probably saved my life. I shouldn’t have been up there at all. Drunk, at night, with paint fumes everywhere, up on a goddamn billboard.”
I paused, taking a breath, realizing that I was shaking. I couldn’t even meet Eric’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” Eric asked, his voice low and soft.
“Not really,” I said, “I’ve never told anyone this story before.”
“Then how did the stupid Mirror get the story, Dash?”
“Caleb. Caleb told his friends. And I guess the Mirror paid someone to dish about my past.”
“What the fuck? Someone did that to you?”
“Guess so. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. Listen, it’s over, it’s in the past, so just—”
“Wow,” he said, “Wow.” He raked his hands through his hair, seemingly overwhelmed.
“What?” I dreaded this, the moment where he realized he’d have to treat me differently now. I wished it never had to happen. I was the idiot, the guy who went out on a limb for someone because of love and screwed it up completely. Eric probably thought I was a lunatic, and maybe he wasn’t wrong.
“I just… God, Dash, I’m so… I’m so fucking glad you didn’t marry him.”
Suddenly Eric’s arms were around me, squeezing me, tighter than he ever hugged me when we were in public. He still smelled like the beach, faintly salty and like the breeze.
“Thanks, Eric, but this is really not necessary.”
He let me go, and I thought his bout of overreaction was finished. But he reached his hands up and cupped the sides of my face, then bent low and pressed his lips to mine.
I let out a small sound of shock—we never kissed each other, unless we were around other people. At first I thought it might be a small kiss, for sympathy, like one friend to another. But then his hands twisted into my hair, raking through it, pulling me close to his body again and deepening the kiss. When he eventually pulled back, resting his forehead against mine, I’d slipped thoroughly into a haze, like being drunk but only from his touch.
“Okay,” I said, my voice low. I took a few deep breaths, and I knew I was destined to make a mistake the longer I stayed so close to him. “Um. You really don’t have to do this.” I finally summoned the will to pull away from him, and took a few paces toward the front door again. I spoke quickly, and kept my eyes to the ground. “Really. I’m okay. The article sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I appreciate your sympathy, though. Have a good night, Eric.”
I heard him let out a strangled groan, and he came closer to me. “Please—can you just stay? This isn’t me trying to be sympathetic, or comfort you, or something. Although if you need that, I can give that to you.”
“I don’t need that.”
His eyes were pained, and he was almost begging. I’d really never seen him look quite that way, and it was startling. I opened my mouth to speak, but he spoke first.
“This has nothing to do with the article, Dash. I just… I don’t want you to leave.”
“…Why not?” I asked. My voice came out strange, weaker than usual.
He threw his arms into the air, and took a step even closer to me. “Because...” I searched his face for any trace of joking, or a sign that he was messing with me. But it wasn’t there. He looked exhausted, actually, with tired eyes full of ache. “…Because I always want you to stay. Every time we have to say goodbye, every time we have to stop pretending.”
“Listen, I realize you might feel sorry for me after reading the article, but—”
“It’s not the fucking article,” he said, his voice louder than before. “I was already… I already wanted to tell you this, earlier tonight, before I even read the damn thing.”
I paused, looking right at him, a startling feeling building inside me. “So you… so you don’t see me differently, now?”
“What?” he said, furrowing his brow and pressing in closer to me, so that we were only inches away.
“After reading it. You don’t think I’m… crazy?”
“God, Dash, no. I think… I think you’re fucking amazing. And for the record, I love that you did something so wild. The billboard, not the vandalism—but still. It shows how… passionate you are.”
His face was so close to mine and he looked at me, not a trace of his usual teasing in sight. He was completely serious. A rush of warmth ran through me as I realized that he actually meant it—he didn’t judge me for my past, but he saw me for me.
No matter how fake our relationship was, no one knew me better than him, at this moment. That was scary and thrilling all at once. Ten years with my ex, and every single one of them I constantly had to walk on eggshells around him.
There was none of that with Eric.
He puffed out a long breath and ran his hands through his hair, like he was coming apart at the seams.
“You’re… you’re so goddamn beautiful, Dash, I….”
His words broke me completely. And so I closed the distance between us. I grabbed his arm and took his wrist to my mouth, kissing it lightly. He groaned at the contact, his eyes fluttering shut, and I gripped around his wrist to pull him even closer to me. Our bodies pressed against one another, his warmth and heartbeat against me, suddenly so close after what seemed like forever apart.
And I let everything go. I didn’t see him as my coworker, my past hookup, or my stupid fake boyfriend. He was just Eric. Real and honest and somehow lovely in front of me. Impossibly, he was right here, ready to give me everything.
I pressed my lips to the side of his neck, in a soft, yielding kiss. He responded immediately, leaning into my touch, arching his head backward slightly to give me more of his skin. And now, I was willing to take it, sucking a little mark into the curve where his neck met his shoulder, and biting gently just further down.
His hand snaked through the back of my hair and he tugged gently, a
ngling my head so he could look at me again. He groaned a little, as if he’d been waiting for this all night.
“Kiss me again,” he said, his voice so low and deep, and I obliged immediately, meeting his lips and opening to him, letting his tongue inside and kissing back just as deep.
He took my arms in his grip as he pulled away, and guided me to the couch in his living room. It was at once both gentle and rough, like he wanted to be careful with me but also urgently needed more. Next he tugged my shirt up and off over my head, casting it away before laying me back onto his couch and climbing on top of me. His mouth was at my hip before I had even fully sunk back onto the sofa, and he nipped and licked at my hipbone before moving upward, up my stomach and to my chest.
And the problem was, I was giving away all my cards far too early, arching up into his touch, so impossibly hard already, and I knew he could feel it even through the denim of both our jeans. My body was a traitor and gave everything away so easily—I was absolutely lit up for him, gasping a little at every touch: his hand gliding along my shoulder, his mouth pressed against my nipple, his hips rocking against my own. I was undone by all of it, so quickly and so absolutely.
When his hand snuck to open the button of my jeans and then traveled below the waistband, trailing further and further down until he settled against the base of my cock, my own words betrayed me, too.
“Oh my God, Eric,” I moaned involuntarily, feeling the heat growing between us, my cock throbbing just below his hand. It was a tight fit, him reaching inside without my pants being fully opened, but that somehow made me all the more desperate.
“Are you good?” he whispered low and hot against my ear and I swallowed hard, letting out a shuddering breath as I nodded.
“So good, so fucking good,” was all I could manage.
And I knew that part of the reason it really was so fucking good was because we weren’t supposed to be doing any of it. We weren’t a couple. We were fake boyfriends, putting on an act just for the world. But here we were, behind the closed door of Eric’s home, and it was abundantly clear that no part of this was for anyone but the two of us.
The Sweetest Star: Under the Stars Book 2 Page 13