Okay, so the smirk was adorable, too.
He was dressed in a police uniform: brown slacks and a matching shirt with a star shaped badge pinned to his chest. If I wasn’t so scared and embarrassed, I would have said it was hot. Because, you know, I was a red-blooded female and there was nothing—nothing—sexier than a guy in uniform.
Well, unless you count a sexily aggressive nightclub owner who may or may not moonlight as a giant wolf-monster or psycho kidnapper. Somehow, though, I sensed the latter wasn’t the case, and I wasn’t sure if that was more alarming or less.
Why is my life so weird?
“Are you—” I started, then shook my head. “Is Lulu—”
“Still in labor,” Dalton answered. “It’s gonna be an all-nighter. Lucky for you, I’m an all-night kind of guy.”
A bolt of guilt ran up my chest. Dalton had been such a great friend to me. And, if I was being honest, he had been a great ‘more than a friend’ too. And how had I repaid that awesomeness? By bumping uglies with the first sexy guy who looked at me twice.
His eyebrows rose. “Can I come in?”
Well, that was awkward. Here I was just standing there staring at him in silence.
“Sure,” I answered, because after all, it was his sister’s house, and who was I to say he couldn’t come in? “Have you called her husband?”
“His phone’s going straight to voicemail. He must still be in the air.” Dalton moved past me and gave me a peck on the cheek.
God, he still thought we were together.
I should have flinched away from him. I hadn’t been the type of girl who deserved a kiss from a guy like Dalton, someone capable of making me feel so safe and loved. I was the kind of girl who threw all that away for someone who kept secrets from me, someone who spouted nonsense when questioned about those secrets. But, for all that, Abram made me feel alive in a way that Dalton hadn’t, in a way I feared Dalton never could.
“How have you been?” he asked, moving through the foyer and scooping up Jack, who instantly perked up a thousand percent. “I missed you today at the diner.”
“Right,” I answered, remembering the text I had sent him. I was going to break up with him, but then the world turned upside down. And here he was being so gracious about me standing him up, too.
Break up with him now, dummy!
I opened my mouth, but no words came. The moment felt all … wrong. My world was still spinning. I wasn’t sure where I (or anything else) was going to land.
I should have broken up with him anyway, on the sole basis I didn’t deserve him. We weren’t officially together, but there was something between us. I was certain he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else, and yet I had.
I couldn’t even bring myself to defend my actions with the notion that we had never agreed to see each other exclusively. I’d never been one to see a problem with women dating as many men as they liked, but in this situation, the fact remained Dalton wasn’t aware of me seeing anyone else, and this would hurt him, and that was what made it wrong. The only right thing left to do was tell him.
Yet my mouth still couldn’t form the words.
“Sorry about dinner,” I said lamely. “Things came up.”
“They usually do,” he answered, tousling Jack’s hair. “No worries. Though I did have to brave the diner crowd shooting me pitiful looks. And on my first day in uniform and all.”
“Yeah, what’s that about?” I asked. “I thought detectives wore plain clothes.”
Not that I was complaining.
“It’s for the curfew.” He shrugged. ‘The town thought it would be more effective if the people on patrol looked like officers instead of—”
“Studs?” I finished.
A blush crept up his cheeks. Oh, no. I was doing it again, feeding into the relationship monster.
“Sorry,” I muttered instinctively.
Dalton’s eyebrows pulled together. “For what?”
Kill me now. “I don’t know. I’m not feeling right tonight.”
At least that was true. I felt wrong. All wrong. I shouldn’t be playing this game, and yet selfishly, I wanted Dalton to be here. Abram was either literally or figuratively a monster, and the reality was, if Abram wasn’t in my life, I would be with Dalton, no questions asked. But I didn’t deserve him after what I’d done.
Dalton nodded as if it was no big deal. If only he knew …
He looked at Jack, who was giggling now, but whose face was still streaked with tears and red blotches. “He’s been crying?”
“Only every second since before I got here,” I answered, squinting at the way he seemed so at ease with Jack in his arms and trying to decode the secret.
“Well, he’s better now.”
“Thanks to you.”
He smiled. “I have my talents.”
“I have no doubt,” I answered. Now a blush crept up my cheeks.
“Have you eaten?” he asked. “How about I put him to bed and throw on some spaghetti? How does that sound?”