“Fuck, you’re cute,” Diesel says from beside me.
I try to fight the blush that comes to my cheeks when he throws an arm over my shoulders and pulls me into his side. I bat him away, but it does no good. He just holds on tighter and smiles into the top of my head where he places a kiss into my hair. It’s a sweet move. Too sweet. I like it too much, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I haven’t felt this way in years about a man. Grady was the first and last to really catch my attention this way. Sure, men have come on to me. I’ve even let them think they’ve won me. The prize was taking me to bed, but they soon found out that’s all they won. Some were content with that and others weren’t, but I didn’t care. Until now. Until Diesel started saying sweet things to me. Until he threw his arm around my shoulders and told me I’m cute.
It’s incredible how good it feels to have someone appreciate me. Even if I don’t think I really believe it in my heart, I like the way the lie feels too much to push him away. So I don’t. I just sink into his side and let myself pretend this is real.
“So, we gonna stand here like a couple of fucking creepers all day, or are we going to join the party?”
“Join the party, definitely. I need cake,” I say. I feel more myself in this moment than I have in almost a year. Sure, Grady hooking up with Holly Mercer didn’t help anything, but that’s not really what threw me off my game. It was my dad’s death and all those pesky unresolved feelings that swelled up in the aftermath that have wreaked the most havoc in my heart. I’ve never been especially peppy, but I wasn’t always so sullen and morose. At least for right now, for a nine-year-old little girl who’s trying to have a good birthday despite one very important person being missing, I have to muster up some of the old me for her. I was being selfish earlier, and I think I would’ve hated myself for skipping out on this.
“That’s my girl,” Diesel says and leads us across the grass toward the party guests. The park is dotted with thick, old redwoods that shade the grass from the sun. Redwoods are all over Northern California, but you don’t get them like this in Sacramento. Not in the same number or the same lush colors as here in Mendocino County.
A little boy darts out from behind one of the larger redwoods and beelines for the play structure where Izzy is happily zooming through the air on one of the swings. I still in place, not believing what I’m seeing. He can’t be here. He just can’t. Diesel zeroes in on what I’m looking at and stops as well. His body tenses in reaction to my gasping when I see the little boy’s mother appear from behind the same tree.
“Oh, fuck no,” I mutter and move to rush across the lawn and escort Chel out of the park, but Diesel wraps a hand around my upper arm to stop me.
Something shifts in the air, and I forget what I was thinking about. The only thing I can focus on is the way Diesel’s touch makes me feel.
His touch is firm and unyielding. This is so different from a few months ago when Grady pulled a very similar move. He grabbed my arm and pushed me up against the 101 Club. He didn’t hurt me, but his touch was so different. I feel something in Diesel’s touch that I never once felt with Grady. Even when we were having sex and I’d mistaken it for making love, he never touched me like this. Diesel is gentle and commanding. He’s all masculine beauty in both his body and his temperament, but it’s more than that.
You’re not it for me either.
Diesel’s probably nothing special to other women. Just like Ryan and Duke—and now Grady—are nothing special to me, but to their women, they’re not only special, they’re it. I’ve seen the way Nic looks at Duke and how they both look at their little girl, Robin. I’d call bullshit if I hadn’t seen it for myself. Even more special—or so I’ve heard—is the pinky thing Ryan and Alex do. It’s a small way that they show their love. I can’t believe I missed it before. I can’t believe I thought I’d lost something when Grady hooked up with Holly.
I never lost him. He was never mine.
But this man beside me—he could be mine. I just have to make the decision to fight for us.
“Babe,” Diesel says, giving me a little shake. I blink away my thoughts and stare at him blankly. “Are you even listening?”