“Like you’ve been reading from my dream journal,” I answered, realizing how hungry I was.
As he moved from Jack’s room to the kitchen, eyeing the place from top to bottom, I realized why he was actually here.
“Lulu sent you to check up on me, didn’t she?” I asked, arms crossed.
It all made sense. I was here, as useless as a soaking wet parachute, and she sent her brother to make sure I wasn’t destroying her home and her kid.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” His smile faltered as he put the pasta on the stove. “I’m sure you’re doing a great job.”
“Save it. She thinks I’m going to make a mess of things.”
“I believe the word ‘sinkhole’ was used.” He grinned, his hand moving to rake through his hair. “But it’s not bad.”
I arched my eyebrows.
“Well it’s not that bad.” He chuckled.
“Don’t laugh. This isn’t funny,” I said, surprised at how angry I was becoming. “We’re in a crisis, and my best friend doesn’t trust me!”
“Well,” Dalton said, moving closer in a slow (and decidedly wary) manner. “First of all, it’s not a crisis. She’s in the hospital. You know, where pregnant women go when they go into labor.”
I would have pointed out not all of them, according to Lulu, but I really didn’t know enough to argue. I frowned.
“She’ll be fine,” Dalton said. “And if she’s a little bit concerned about your abilities in certain areas …” He cleared his throat. “And, for the record, I am not saying she is concerned. Mostly because she’d kill me if she knew I told you. It’d only be because she knows this type of thing isn’t really your bag.”
Disregarding his retro usage of the word ‘bag’, I said, “That’s just a nice way of saying I don’t fit in with her anymore.”
And there it was, the truth of what had been simmering between Lulu and I since I returned to New Haven.
“Face it,” I continued, “if it had been Ester who found her, you wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“You’re right.” He shook his head. “If that stuck-up snob would have found my sister, I wouldn’t be having this conversation. But I wouldn’t be here, either.” He leaned in, kissing me on the cheek. “Because you are.” Dalton brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes and continued. “You’re amazing. You have to see that. God, knows everybody else does. It’s why Ester hates you. It’s why Lulu loves you so much. It’s why …”
His hand lingered on my cheek as his voice trailed off. Heat ran through his fingers, tingled along my cheek. It was all around me, thick and warm, almost like—
“Your pasta is burning,” I said, noticing the billowing smoke.
“Not the impression I wanted to make.” He grinned, still looking into my eyes.
Biting my lip, I answered, “You’re doing just fine.”
***
Two phone calls to the hospital to check up on Lulu and an absolutely breathtaking (if a little overdone) pasta and eggplant dish later, Dalton and I were snuggling on the couch.
It would have felt wrong if he hadn’t been so right. Sure, he wasn’t strong in the way Abram was. After all, Abram was massive. Abram was a thrilling, intimidating, and exhilarating thing. Like fire. But like fire, the thought of him consumed me. It devoured my mind until there was nothing left of me.
But Dalton was strong, too, in a solid-like-stone sense-of-being type of way. You could build on stone. You could make a life on stone. Stone did not destroy all it touched. It didn’t leave you burned and broken, with nothing to show for your time and passion but ash scattered on the floor.
With Dalton, there was no bull, no drama, no chained up girls, and no magical excuses or beastly traits. And he wanted me.
But did I want him?
I snuggled as close as I could, trying to come up with the answer. But it wasn’t long before I realized what I was actually doing was trying to convince my heart to want something it didn’t.
I knew what was good for me. Any idiot could see that this man, so wonderful, so kind, was the right choice. But Abram was different. There was something about him that drew me in like a moth to flame. Questions and concerns aside, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would go to that flame again.
I was cold without him—isn’t that how it is with fire? Whether or not it was foolish to do so, I would keep going back to him, just like all the other times I vowed never to see him again.
Fact was, I trusted him. Conduits and beasts be damned. I believed every freaking word of it. How could I not? To deny it would be to deny things I had seen with my own eyes, experienced with my own body. No man, no matter how strong, could throw a woman like that.