Wait for It
: Chapter 9

Josh’s words had me freeze-framing in place. I had to glance over my shoulder with a long, marinara-covered spoon in hand so I could read his lips and make sure I hadn’t imagined his words. “What did you say?”

The almost eleven-year-old with his head in the fridge peeked out, a gallon of orange juice clutched in his hand. He faced me as he said the words I’d been hoping to have misheard: “Can my friends spend the night?”

My initial thought was no, please, Jesus Christ, no.

I didn’t even have to try and pull the memories of the last time his “friends” had slept over. Friends? More like demons from the ninth circle of hell.

My soul had been scarred; it hadn’t forgotten for one single second about the broken bunk beds, cracked dishes, clogged toilet, or, God help me, the yelling and the running through our apartment. I’d thought boy sleepovers would be like the sleepovers Van and I had damn near every weekend: we’d hang out in my room, look through magazines, watch movies, paint our nails, talk about boys, and eat all my mom’s snacks. Boy sleepovers were fucking hell, at least at Josh’s age. I took for granted how well behaved Josh and Louie were on their own. I really did. For all the shit they lost, things they forgot, toilet seats they peed on, food products they shoved into the cushions of the car, and the dirty socks they left everywhere, they were pretty damn great.

It wasn’t until I was around other people’s kids that I remembered why—before Josh and Louie—I hadn’t planned on having kids for a long, long time. If ever.

And somehow I’d gotten away with not having more than Josh and Louie at the same time for almost a year. It had taken me a year to recuperate from the beasts Josh had invited to stay over. Hell, I still hadn’t gotten over everything. I’d gotten lucky he hadn’t brought it up before.

Unfortunately, my time had run out.

How could I tell him he couldn’t have friends over so close to his birthday? He had already told me he didn’t want to have a party, but in the words of my mom, how could he not have a party? I’d always thought get-togethers were more for the adults than for the kids, but now I knew for sure that was the truth. Josh really could have been perfectly happy getting twenty bucks and going to the movies or the batting cage.

“Please?” the boy asked with so much hope in his voice it crushed my soul.

Please don’t do this to me, I thought, but what really came out of my mouth was more like “Sureeee…. But no more than three, okay?”

Was it too much to hope that he would say he really only wanted one friend over?

It was.

Because his response went: “Three’s good.”

God help me. I was paying for everything I’d ever put my parents through with interest.

* * *

“See you tomorrow morning!” I called out to the mom getting into her car, waving a hand with a little too much enthusiasm.

I’d bet she was excited. She’d just admitted her only child was spending the night at my house. Of course she was going to be ready to get the hell on with her Friday night. She hadn’t even bothered coming inside the house to make sure I didn’t have cages or a torture chamber. The boy on the Tornado team had been kicked to the curb: my curb.

Two out of three boys were over, and I could already hear them stomping around inside my house.

Oh my God. What had I done? Why had I agreed to this?

I wasn’t built for sleepovers.

If I could have hunched over and cried silently, rocking back and forth, I would have. Something was going to get broken before the end of the night, and I had no way of knowing what it would be. My sanity maybe. God, help me. I’d already eaten two packets of Pop-Tarts from how stressed I was and I had another foil-wrapped package tucked into my back pocket in case of an emergency.

When the sound of a truck engine idling had me opening my eyes again, I let out a deep breath and watched as the passenger door to a black Dodge pickup truck opened and out hopped a blond boy with a backpack in his hand. I’d forgotten Josh had mentioned that he was one of the kids spending the night. I smiled as he bounded up the pathway, not even turning around to pay attention to Trip who had parked the truck and was making his way around the front grill.

“Hi, Miss Diana.” The little blond smiled in a way that would have been shy on any other boy except him. On him it looked like… I don’t know what it looked liked. Trouble, more than likely. He’d come right up to me at the last practice and introduced himself. If I thought Josh had confidence, he had nothing on this kid. It reminded me of someone I knew: his dad.

“Hey, Dean. How are you?”

“Good.” He was still smiling.

So was I. He was cute. “Josh and the other boys are inside. Want me to show you where?” I asked him, glancing up to see Trip coming behind him, a knowing smirk on his playful, handsome face. From the looks of it, he had the ability to smell his own kind too, except his was trouble.

“I can figure it out.” Dean blinked those blue eyes just like Ginny’s. “Thank you for letting me spend the night.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, stepping aside to let him in the house.

Trip watched his son as the boy went in without a second glance behind him, calling out, “Bye, Dean!” in a sarcastic tone. To which he got a shouted reply of “Bye!”

Just “bye.” Not “bye, Dad,” no nothing. Even that hurt me.

Trip and I both shook our heads. I grimaced and he just looked resigned. “It’s the beginning of the end, isn’t it?” I asked the blond man still coming up the pathway.

Dressed in jeans, his usual motorcycle boots, and signature white T-shirt minus his motorcycle club vest, he looked freshly showered and too good-looking with his dark yellow scruff covering the lower half of his face. “It’s been the beginning of the end since he started talkin’. I’m gonna be payin’ for all the stupid-ass shit I did with that boy.”

I laughed because I could tell, like father like son. And hadn’t I just thought the same thing about Josh?

He winked as he stopped in front of me on the deck, his face playful, eyes bright.

“Hi, Trip,” I greeted him, grinning wide.

“Hey, honey.”

Feeling a little shy, I held out an arm and he leaned into me, throwing his own arm over my shoulder to give me a hug. The big smile on his face as he pulled back reminded me of how much I liked him. Part of it was because he reminded me so much of Ginny, but I really did feel like I knew him and was comfortable around him.

“Thanks for inviting Dean over,” he said, resting his hands on his hips.

The laugh I let out was all balled up nerves and dread and panic, and that must have been noticeable on my face because the older man burst out laughing.

“You just figured out you’re in for a world of shit tonight, huh?” Trip cackled out the statement.

Oh my God, I really cracked up that time, everything bubbling up inside of me. “I am, aren’t I?” I wheezed. “I’m scared to go in there. I really am.”

That only made him laugh harder.

“I’m just going to lock them in the room together and see what happens,” I joked, not knowing how else to cope but to make a joke so I wouldn’t cry. “Jace’s mom pretty much just kicked him out of the car and waved at me from the driver seat, and Kline’s mom came up to the door with him and burned rubber getting the hell out of here,” I told him.

“Jace and Kline are here?”

Oh God. “I messed up, didn’t I?”

“You got Benadryl?”

“Yeah….”

“I know me and Kline’s mom wouldn’t even be a little mad if you slipped ‘em some Benny later.” He could barely get the words out. “I’m just sayin’.”

What had I done? I should have asked for report cards and shit to approve the boys before they’d come over. Incident reports from other parents. Interviews. Something.

I groaned. Then I groaned a little more. I wasn’t going to cry this early in the evening. I wouldn’t.

Just messing around, I asked, “You got plans tonight? I have a few steaks in the fridge I was going to make for dinner tomorrow. I could be convinced to grill tonight…” I trailed off, half laughing as I said it.

One blue eye peered back at me, the corner of a grin caught high. “I was plannin’ on headin’ over to Mayhem since you’re keepin’ Dean tonight.” He pursed his lips together. “I could run to the store and get some beer and come back.”

Well shit. I hadn’t exactly expected him to take me seriously, but now that he wasn’t disagreeing… I eyed him a little, hoping he hadn’t gotten the wrong message from my invitation.

“As long as you promise you’re not gonna hit on me or anythin’.” He pretty much gurgled out in a laugh.

Goddammit. I couldn’t believe it. Dallas had told him. I threw my hands up as I leveled a glare at the blond. “Just friends, Jesus Christ. The little one is here, too. There will be supervision.”

“I’m fuckin’ with you, honey,” he chuckled. “Need anything from the store?”

I had already stocked up that morning since it had been my day off. “I’m good, thank you.”

Trip winked. “All right. I’ll be back then.”

I was beyond relieved to have someone else in the house with me while they were all over, even if that person was Trip. I gulped and turned to head back into my house as my new dinner buddy made his way toward his truck. Inside, the living room was empty, but I could hear a racket coming from Josh’s room. With Louie nowhere in sight, I peeked into his room and found him sprawled width-wise across his bed with his tablet in hand going at whatever game he was playing.

My guts went as far as to look into Josh’s room to find four boys in there. Josh had already asked me if we could move the Xbox into his room for the night, and I’d agreed. His other aunt had given him a small television for his last birthday, so if they broke anything, at least it would be his TV and not our forty-five inch. Before I got caught, I snuck back out and headed toward the kitchen.

I got as far as wrapping some potatoes in foil and seasoning the four steaks I’d bought the day before, with the intention of inviting my parents to dinner, when the doorbell rang. Through the peephole I found the back of Trip’s head on the other side, the phone he held to his face just barely visible.

“I told you where I’m at. Across the street. Diana has Dean.” Trip turned around in midconversation as the door creaked while I opened it. He held up the six-pack he’d run out to buy. “I just bought a six. Hold on.” He pulled the phone away from his face and asked, “You mind if Dallas comes over and has a beer?”

Huh. I shrugged and shook my head. We had made amends. Sort of. “Nope.” At least I had enough food. I’d planned on ordering Josh and his friends pizza later.

“Diana said to come over. She’s scared of Jace and Kline,” he told his cousin.

“Shut up,” I hissed at his exaggeration, earning me another wink.

“’Kay, later,” Trip finally said before getting off the phone. “He’s coming over.”

The words had barely come out of his mouth as the boys started yelling all together loud enough to be heard down the hall, “Kill him! Kill him! KILL HIM!”

And that was exactly how I found myself in a house with seven males on a Friday night.

* * *

“I told Ginny to come over,” I told the two men leaning against my kitchen counter, each cradling a bottle of the beer.

“She coming straight from the salon?”

I shook my head, flipping the steaks over with a fork. “No. She’s meeting up with Wheels for dinner and after that she said she’d come by.”

It was impossible to miss the slight sneer that came over the blond’s face, even though my attention wasn’t centered anywhere near him. I was too busy trying to coat the steaks in the oil evenly.

“You don’t like Wheels?” I asked him, referring to Ginny’s fiancé.

It was Dallas who let out a snicker in response that had me swinging my gaze over in his direction. He hadn’t said much since he’d showed up a few minutes ago, freshly showered and with a bottle of Jack in one hand and a cardboard container with four glass bottled Cokes in the other, which had me eyeing him, wondering if I’d been selling this man short all along. Oblivious to me checking out his excellent taste in sodas, all he’d said was, “Hi, Diana” and I’d said, “Hi, Dallas. Come in. Trip’s in the kitchen.” That was that.

We had just agreed to be friends—or at least friendly—so this should be no big deal. I didn’t want to make it weird, and I was glad he didn’t either. We could figure this out. Luckily, Trip talked enough to make up for any awkwardness there might be lingering between us.

So for Ginny’s fiancé to be the first thing he decided to comment on after Trip and I had argued about how to properly cook a steak, I was caught off guard. Then for him to shrug and be all casual about it, threw me off even more. “He’s all right….” Trip trailed off.

“You can’t tell me he’s all right and not tell me what you don’t like about him,” I said.

The two exchanged a look I wasn’t familiar with.

“Really? You’re not going to tell me?” I thought about it and straightened my spine, one sentence away from getting really angry. “Is it bad? Did he do something to Ginny?”

Trip hooted. “Not if he wants to keep livin’.”

Oh. “Then what is it?”

“Have you met him?”

“Yeah, a few times. He always seemed like a pretty good guy.”

Trip and Dallas shared another glance.

“What is it?” I asked again. “He’s always nice to me.”

It was only Trip who snorted that time. “Why wouldn’t he be nice to you?”

“Because no one has to be nice to anyone else. I’ve met plenty of assholes.”

Dallas snickered at the same time Trip snorted.

I went back to Ginny’s fiancé. “Is that all that’s wrong with him? You guys just don’t like him?”

The blond bobbed his head as if thinking about the question. “If Ginny was your family and you knew the stuff he’s done and the people he’s… messed around with, you wouldn’t be all about him being with her either,” he finally managed to explain. “But that’s who she wants to be with, and she knows all of his shit, so we can’t say nothin’ anymore.”

I could smell bullshit from a mile away, and that was exactly what I had a whiff of as he spoke his reasoning. Ginny loved Wheels. I’d seen them together enough. I’d overheard their phone conversations. And Wheels had always been really sweet to Gin. He brought her flowers, brought her lunch from time to time, texted and called her regularly. For whatever he might have done before her, he was nice to her now, and Gin was a grown woman. If she knew his business, then she could deal with it. If I was in her shoes, not so much, but I wasn’t.

“I’m sure she appreciates the thought behind you wanting the best for her, but she knows what she’s doing,” I told them.

“I’m not saying she doesn’t.”

“Yeah, but you’re saying you don’t like him because of what he’s done in the past, right?” I peeked at Trip over my shoulder to try and soften what I was going to say next. “Imagine if you found someone you wanted to be with and her family didn’t like you for the things you’d done ten years ago. That isn’t fair. I’m not the same person I was when I was twenty or even… twenty-six. Some people don’t change, but other people do. They grow up.”

“It’s different,” Trip started to argue.

“How is it different? Are you going to tell me that you guys have only slept with women who you’ve been in long-term relationships with?” Neither one of them said anything, even though I looked at both of them with a smirk on my face, knowing how they were going to answer. Of course they hadn’t. “No. Exactly. We’ve all done stupid things we regret. And if Gin knows all this and still wants to be with him, then let her do what she wants. Just saying.”

“You’re saying you’d marry somebody who’s messed around with half the women you’d have to see at get-togethers?” Trip asked with a goofy grin on his face.

“Me?” I scoffed. “No way in hell. But if she can handle it, let her go for it.”

That had Trip busting out with a big laugh. “That’s some kind of hypocrite shit!”

“No it’s not!” I laughed. “I’m possessive, and I get jealous. I know that. I accept it. I own up to it. I would be picturing this imaginary person I love having s-e-x,” I whispered the word just in case, “with whoever he’s been in a relationship with, and I’d want to stab each one of those girls. But not everyone is like that. That’s part of the reason why I don’t have a boyfriend. I know I’m crazy. I already feel sorry for whatever poor bastard ends up with me some day, but he’ll know what he’s getting into. I don’t hide it.”

Trip shook his head, grinning wide. “You said it. You’re fuckin’ nuts.”

What was I going to do? Deny it?

“Diana, I hate to tell you, I don’t know anybody like that.”

I frowned. “That’s okay. I’m sure there’s some nice, divorced Catholic boy out there somewhere in the world, who waited to lose it until he got married and now he’s waiting again for the right girl.”

“Doubt it.”

I gave Trip a face before checking on the steaks again. “Quit killing my dreams.”

“I’m just keepin’ it real for you, honey.”

“Okay, maybe if he’s really nice to me and good to me, and I’m the love of his life, and he writes me sweet notes on a regular basis telling me that I’m the light of his life and he can’t live without me, I’ll give him ten women tops. Tops.” I let out a breath. “I’m getting mad just thinking about it.”

Both of them groaned before Trip began cracking up. “Ten women and you’re already getting mad at the poor bastard.”

“Life is too short to not get what you want,” I argued with him, smiling so wide my face hurt even though I was facing the skillet. With my back to them, it took me a moment to remember that Dallas was still in the kitchen with us. He hadn’t said a word during our back and forth, so I glanced at him over my shoulder. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, looking tired.

We could do this. We could be friendly.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

He kind of closed one hazel eye as he asked, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”

His face went a little funny, a little smirk-ish before he squinted one eye. “You’re young, but not that young.”

I choked out a laugh that I swore had a tiny smile curling Dallas’s mouth.

He finally ended with, “Unless you’re hoping to find some kid still in high school, I think you’re shit out of luck.”

I hoped he understood that the look I shot him wasn’t a nice one, but I was going to let the age thing go. “What? Eleven women then?”

Trip closed his eyes, shaking his head just slightly. “I don’t know why Ginny didn’t bring you into my life before, honey.”

“Because she didn’t want you crushing my dreams and making me plan to spend the rest of my life alone?”

“I think you might just be able to make a family man outta me if you tried,” Trip joked.

I raised my eyebrows at Dallas, reminding myself that this wasn’t going to be weird between us, damn it, and shook my head quickly, pursing my lips together. “No thanks.”

The blond man sagged as he laughed, but it was Dallas I was looking at, and I didn’t miss his quick smile.

That was something.

“Buttercup!” Louie’s voice shouted from another room.

I didn’t move as my five-year-old stomped into the living room, his face pink and a mix of pouty and hurt. In blue swim trunks and an orange German national team soccer jersey my uncle had given him for his birthday a few months ago, he already looked like a mess without even taking in the watery blue eyes of his that went from Dallas to Trip and finally to me.

“What is it, Goo?” I asked.

Louie stalked toward me, his chest puffing. “They won’t let me play with them.”

I crouched down to get eye level with Lou, who was hesitating closer to the stove. “Video games?”

He nodded, closing the distance between us quickly, his forehead going straight to my collarbone. I hugged him. “He never lets me play when he’s with his friends,” he whispered.

I sighed and held him for a minute. “He likes playing with you. It’s just his birthday coming up, and he wants to hang out with his buddies, Goo. He still loves you.”

“But I wanna play with them,” he whined.

“I’ll go tell them to let him play,” Trip offered.

Louie just shook his head against my cheek, embarrassed.

“They’ll let you play,” Trip kept going. “Promise.”

“I don’t wanna,” the little boy whispered, changing his mind all of a sudden. His arms slipped around my neck. His body went soft in resignation.

“I got an Xbox at my house. I can bring it over and we can play.” Dallas’s suggestion had Lou and me both glancing over at the man still leaning against the counter.

“You do?”

“Sure do, buddy.”

I remembered seeing a couple of game consoles at his house and his massive TV, but I couldn’t really picture Dallas—this muscled mountain of a man who had been so serious every other time we’d spoken—sitting on his messy couch playing video games, at all.

Lou took a step away from me. “What games do you have?”

“Louie,” I hissed at him.

Dallas smiled, his entire face bright and welcoming. I narrowed my eyes, taking in the way he went from good-looking to more like stunning by using the muscles around his mouth. What kind of trickery was this? “A lot of them,” he told him. “What do you like to play?”

The little boy said the name of a game I wasn’t too familiar with, but Dallas nodded anyway. “I got it.”

That seemed to perk Louie up because he looked at me for approval, and I smiled at him.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” the older man explained.

“Can I come with you?” Louie blurted out.

“Louie, come on, you can’t invite yourself places,” I told him softly. Plus, he didn’t even know this guy. What the hell was he doing?

Dallas glanced at me with a shrug, a partial smile on his face courtesy of the five-year-old in the room. “I don’t mind. We’ll only be a minute.”

Did I trust this practical stranger with Louie at his house?

“Please, please, please, please, please.” That was Louie.

Our neighbor met my gaze evenly and lowered his chin. “I’ll leave the front door open.”

“One minute, Tia,” he begged.

I hesitated for a moment. This man spent hours with boys. Lou looked so hopeful… Damn it. I met my neighbor’s gaze. “If you don’t mind holding his hand.”

“Nope.” He was back to smiling down at Lou, resembling a different person with that expression on his face. Had he really been so serious and distant because he thought I was coming on to him? Really?

“Okay. Then go with Mr. Dallas and don’t steal anything.”

Louie’s face went red. “I don’t steal!”

I couldn’t help but grin at the other man, grateful at his kindness and still slightly unsure about him taking Louie somewhere. But I reminded myself I let this man spend a whole lot of time with Josh and so did plenty of other people. “He’s got little butterfingers. Watch him.”

“I’ll make him empty his pockets before we leave my house,” he said dryly, as he extended one of those big hands toward the little boy. “You can help me cross the street.”

I watched Lou and Dallas walk out of the house hand in hand and it sent this terrible bittersweet grief straight through me. All I could think about was my brother and how I would never get to see him do that with Louie. How Louie would never get to experience that with his dad who had loved him very, very much. This knot formed in my throat and didn’t seem to want to go anywhere despite how many times I swallowed in the time I kept facing the direction they had gone, even though they were out of the house.

Before I knew it, I had reached up to wipe at my eye with the back of my hand.

How was it possible that I lived in a world where my brother didn’t exist anymore?

“You all right?” Trip asked, reminding me he was in the room.

I nodded at him, distracted and sad at the same time. “Yeah, I just…” I forced myself to clear my throat. “I just remembered his dad, is all. Does he have kids?” I forced myself to ask, not able to explain what had gotten me so upset in more detail. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d somehow found out that the boys weren’t my biological kids or not, but I didn’t want to bring it up right then.

“Dallas?”

“Uh-huh.”

Trip shook his head, his mouth going firm for the first time since I’d met him. “No.” He took a swig of his beer and stayed quiet for a moment. “Why, you interested?”

“No.” God, why did everyone seem to think I was trying to—

“I’m fuckin’ with you.”

I got mad all over again, remembering Dallas admitting he thought I was flirting with him all because of some polvorones and a few phone calls. My panties needed to get out of the wad they were in and remember he’d realized how stupid he’d been. Because he’d been real stupid to think that.

“Don’t take it personal, honey. His ex, or soon-to-be ex, whatever the fuck she is now, did a real number on him. It doesn’t have nothin’ to do with you,” he explained.

I was being sarcastic when I asked, “What? She was a single parent too?”

“Uh, yeah, she was,” was the remark that suddenly had me feeling like a giant schmuck. Shit. I guess I couldn’t blame him for being hesitant with me. “Don’t worry about it though. He knows he ‘isn’t your type.’” He chuckled at that last bit, and I frowned. “You actually got a type?”

“Yeah, from the sound of it, I do now,” I said, facing the cast iron skillet popping on the stove once more. “High school virgins.”

Trip and I laughed so hard it filled the time until Dallas and Louie came back with two plastic grocery bags filled with a console, two controllers, and multiple games. I hadn’t bothered ordering Josh and his friends pizza yet. The last time I had checked, the cupboard’s two bags of chips, one container of cookies, and six sodas had already gone missing. I could force food on them later. Trip disappeared into the living room as I finished cooking the first two steaks.

While I kept an eye on the meat and checked the potatoes in the oven, I thought about Dallas and his single-mom-ex for all of a second before starting a mental list of what I needed to get done before Josh’s official birthday party. I was in the middle of flipping the steaks again when I heard the distinct sound of glass shattering from the living room.

“I’m sorry!” That was Louie.

The response was so low I couldn’t hear it. I flipped the flame off the stove, ready to go and make sure everything was okay. I’d barely turned around when Trip appeared in the kitchen. “Louie’s all right, but you got a vacuum or something? There was a glass cup on the coffee table…”

And it got knocked over.

Reaching under the sink, I pulled out the little handheld vacuum my parents had bought me years ago and started toward Trip, but Dallas appeared behind him, his attention focused downward. It wasn’t until he shouldered past the blond man that I saw his hands. They were cupped together and in them were shards of glass along with a decent amount of blood pooling in those wide palms. Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ Findɴovel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“I got it,” Trip said, taking the vacuum from me as I watched Dallas make his way toward the trash can.

“Jesus Christ. Let me see your hand.” I went after him.

“I’m all right. It’s only a cut,” he answered with his back to me.

“There’s blood all over you. You’re not all right.” I stopped right behind him, too close when he turned around to face me, one hand still holding the other.

“I’m fine,” the stubborn-ass insisted. “I tried to save it, but it shattered in my hand.”

Maybe he was fine and maybe he’d had a lot worse in his life, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Let me see it. I promise I won’t stick my hand down your pants,” I told him, only half joking.

The look he gave me almost made me feel like I was getting called to the principal’s office, but I didn’t take my words back or refocus my gaze. That was what he got for thinking something so stupid about me. He must have understood, because he didn’t say a word.

Without asking for his permission, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pulled him toward the sink.

He let me.

When I shoved his hand under the tap, him standing slightly behind my side at an angle, he still didn’t move or say a word as the cold water hit his wound. I hovered my face over the cut that sliced around the front of his thumb. “Let me make sure there’s no glass in there,” I offered. “It might hurt.”

“I’m fi—“ He groaned and grunted as I pressed on the sides of the wound and pinched them together.

I bet he was fine.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I did it again, watching blood pool and stream out, swirling in the empty, metal sink, the water diluting the red.

Dallas let out a low groan deep in his throat again.

“I’m so sorry, but I need to do it again.”

“No, it’s—” That third time I did it, he cleared his throat, and I couldn’t help but cluck my tongue to keep from grinning as I stopped what I was doing and let the cut sit under the faucet for a second before adding a drop of hand soap and dabbing it around the wound, rinsing it off as gently as I could. He cleared his throat once more, and that time I couldn’t help but glance up at him. His face was maybe three inches away; his arm pulled so far away from his body it was like I was forcing him to hug me around one side. Up close, I could see the lines at his eyes clearly and his sun-weathered face perfectly. How old was he exactly?

“Are you laughing at me?” he asked in a low voice as I reached to turn off the water and grab a paper towel afterward.

I didn’t even try to bullshit him. “I told you it was going to hurt,” I explained as I dabbed at the skin around his poor thumb, trying to dry it. “You have thick calluses.” I glanced up at him one more time. His gaze was on his hand, thankfully. “Are you a mechanic like Trip?” I doubted it since I’d seen the ladder and other tools on the back of his truck before.

Those hazel eyes flicked in my direction, so close I could see the golden ring around the pupil. I turned back to his hand. His voice was gruff. “No. I do home renovation jobs. Painting and flooring mostly.”

That explained the paint-stained clothes I’d seen him in. “That’s nice. On your own?”

“Mostly,” he groaned low as I touched the top of his cut.

“You don’t ever accidentally hurt yourself on the job?”

“No. I know what I’m doing.” Someone sounded insulted.

Dropping my gaze to look back at his hand, I let out a snort. “Not around sharp objects by the look of it. Hold on for a second so I can put a Band-Aid on you.”

“I don’t need a Band-Aid,” he tried to argue in that husky voice of his as I let go of him. The sound of the handheld vacuum turning on in the living room had us both glancing in that direction.

“You need one,” I insisted, even as I reached into one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out one of the many small first aid kits I had hidden around the house in case of emergencies. “You’re still bleeding. At least leave it on for today, please? I feel really bad. I knew I should have moved that glass earlier and I didn’t.”

His sigh was long, and he was giving me a flat look with that not-so-plain face when I glanced at him. Someone was not amused by my request. “Sure” was the word that came out of his mouth reluctantly, but his face said a different word completely.

Not wanting to waste any time before he changed his mind, I went up to him. He was so tall the bottom of his butt was pressed to the counter. I set the kit aside and pulled out a jar of honey from one of the cabinets. If Dallas thought it was strange that I was bringing it out and opening it, he didn’t say a word.

His fingertips were really rough and callused as I flipped my palm up to hold his hand in place. His fingers stretched out past the tops of my own. His hand was so much wider and almost as tan as mine; you could barely see my hand beneath his. Giving him a quick, reassuring smile that wasn’t exactly returned, I scooped out a drop of honey and set it on his cut with the tip of the butter knife I’d used, still holding him steady.

“Louie’s allergic to first aid cream. He gets a rash and blisters from it, so I don’t bother buying it anymore,” I explained. With a skill I’d picked up after taking care of so many of the boys’ cuts, I unpeeled the paper off the bandage with one hand and carefully wrapped it around his thumb, the pad of my thumb brushing against the side of his injured one, my other fingers dancing across his hard skin.

His question came out of the blue. “What happened to your finger?”

I blinked and glanced at my own hands. It took me a second to find the finger he was talking about, and I flexed it. There was a ragged line about a half-inch long on the index finger of my left hand from where I’d cut myself with my shears during a haircut two days ago. “I cut it at work.” And it had bled like a bitch.

“What did you put on it?” he asked, obviously taking in the goopy line along the seam of the wound.

“Super glue. It works like a charm, but yours isn’t deep enough to need it,” I explained, my attention downward. “I’m really sorry about your cut.”

“It was an accident,” he replied, sounding really close to me.

That had me lifting my head, grimacing. “Still, I’m sorry.”

Those hazel eyes were even and steady on my boring brown ones. He was probably six inches away from me, tops. He drew his hand away from mine and took a step back. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

The smile I gave him was so tight it made my cheeks ache. “All right. If you insist.” I tilted my head toward the stove. Sometimes friendships were built on baby steps, weren’t they? He could have said he didn’t want to come over when Trip invited him, and he could have pretended he didn’t have an Xbox for Louie to play on. He was trying, and I damn well was, too. I could do this. “How do you want your steak cooked? Burnt, perfect, or pink?”

His mouth twisted to the corner as he blinked. “Burnt.”

“Burnt it is,” I said, turning to face the stove.

There was a moment of silence before he asked, “We good?”

Of course, I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “Yeah, we are.” I blinked right back at him. “If I do anything to make you uncomfortable, just let me know. I don’t really have a verbal filter.” I thought about it for a second and added, “And I’m a little touchy-feely, but I don’t mean anything by it, so just tell me. It’s not a big deal. I won’t cry. I’ll tell you if I have a problem with something.”

Dallas made a sound that might have been a snort. “I’m getting that.”

I smiled awkwardly and maybe a bit tightly at him then turned back to face the stove when his question came.

“Since we’re good, can I ask why you have Pop-Tarts in your back pocket?”

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