“Fine, just needed to get out of there.” Not exactly a lie, but also not the whole truth.
“Can I ask you something?” Her eyes were heavy with concern, and he couldn’t help but notice the faint lines at the edges. He nodded yes, and she continued, “You seemed upset out there—not like yourself. What was going on?”
He waited for another lie to come, but instead the truth tumbled out. “I don’t drink.” He said the words to a corner of the room but eventually returned his focus to her. And to his relief, her eyes were clear and gentle, not even a flicker of judgment there.
“Do you mean, like, ever?”
In that moment, he knew that if he told her the truth, he would be safe. He could trust her. He took a breath in, then out, and finally said, “I’ve been sober for eighteen months.”
The words hung in the air: humid and sticky and making Dash limp from the embarrassment of having to reveal them.
But Sophie did not seem fazed as she calmly sat on the edge of the bed. She eventually asked, “Does Poppy know?”
“No one in my family knows. Just Chris, who’s my best friend, and now you.”
“Oh.” Her brows furrowed.
He sat on the bed just next to her. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to them, if that’s okay. My family is important to me, but I can’t trust them with this.”
“Of course,” she quickly answered. “I won’t.”
At Sophie’s words, an unexpected shiver ran through Dash, like releasing this weight had also taken away some of its power. Chris had told him that when he was ready to open up to the people in his life—mainly, his family—he’d feel relief, along with dread and apprehension, of course. But he didn’t feel dread, not as he looked at Sophie and her eyes softened.
“That must be really hard,” Sophie continued. “To have this big thing that they don’t know about.”
“Sometimes.” All the time.
“Thank you for telling me.”
Why had he told her? He hadn’t told anyone new in so long, but he’d confessed to Sophie. And something about her knowing this truth made his whole body tingle with lightness. Like a door had just opened and the shimmering sun was finally washing over him. Sophie was his sun.
She gave him a warm smile and squeezed his open palm. If this was how Sophie reacted, maybe his family wouldn’t be so bad.
“I’ve tried really hard to not be in situations where I might be triggered. I know people will continue to drink around me, but in these early days I’m just trying to stay sober and not get distracted.”
And then her expression shifted to something akin to disgust, as she said, “I made you take care of me when I was hungover.”
“You didn’t make me do anything.” His hand found its way to her shoulder, and he squeezed for reassurance.
She looked at his hand, then up at him, and swallowed. “I think it’s really cool that you’re sober.”
Something about her saying that made him roll his eyes grudgingly. She was trying to empathize, which was sweet, but she didn’t have to take pity on him.
“No, I’m serious!” She inched closer and put a hand on his knee. “Committing to anything is hard. And you’re smart enough to know something had to change. That takes a lot of courage. You’re an impressive person, Dash Montrose. You’ll just have to accept that fact.”
And he stared at her, and she stared back, and they stayed frozen like that for a few beats more. There was no judgment from her about anything he’d said, only a heat he couldn’t quite place. Then her eyes danced from his mouth back up his face, and she licked her lips. And he’d never ever in his entire life wanted anything more than to have her. And maybe he was imagining it, but she seemed like she wanted the exact same thing. Without thinking through what he was doing, he reached a hand up and rested it against the back of her head, and no movement he’d ever made had felt this natural. His fingers touched the soft hairs at the nape of her neck and goose bumps erupted across her flesh.
His breath grew shallow as he asked, “Can I kiss you?”
And he knew as soon as the words came out that he couldn’t take them back, and kissing Sophie would change everything, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to pull her toward him and see if she tasted the way he imagined: lime and sun and salt.
“Yes, Dash.” She said his name, and it was coated with a layer of something thick and sweet, too.
His thumb grazed the side of her cheek as he looked into her eyes to check that she really was okay with this.
She smirked back. “Dash,” she breathed out again.
The whisper of his name made him want her even more. Her lips met his, and she tasted like a sip of warm tea that heated his entire body. Her wide bottom lip pressed against his mouth, then her lips parted, and so did his, and their tongues met.
He couldn’t keep them this far apart, even though it was only a few inches, really. He reached a hand around her waist and pulled her toward him. And, to his delight, her legs parted and she hoisted up her dress and straddled his lap.
Her hands went to his face, and she trailed her fingertips along the scruff of his jawline. “I didn’t expect this.”
And he hadn’t either. He had fantasized about her, of course. After all, the mere thought of her sizzling gaze made him hard. But he hadn’t expected anything to happen between them, especially because he wasn’t sure when he’d feel comfortable enough to be with someone while trying to stay sober.
He knew, logically, that he would eventually date. But asking someone to handle all the complications that came from dating a newly sober person was intimidating. And, frankly, he didn’t want to have to explain his sobriety repeatedly while trying to date. But Sophie wasn’t someone he’d planned to connect with at all. She’d just happened to need him, and he’d helped, and now he needed her.
“Should we talk about this? Or about how you’re feeling? I’m okay, but if you want to stop—”
He pressed his lips to hers because he was done talking. He knew why Sophie wanted to talk things through—she had a hard time not talking—but for now, all he wanted was to keep kissing her. He overthought almost everything in his life these days: second-guessed interactions with people, worried about what his family might think, or what to do with the rest of his life. But he knew with crystal certainty that he wanted to kiss Sophie, and as her fingers dug into his arms, he knew that she wanted to kiss him, too.
His hands wove through her hair and pulled out the bun she’d so carefully crafted on top of her head. He let her hair fall around them and that citrus scent of hers enveloped them both.
Later he would figure out what they were to each other. But right now, all he wanted was her—and that was better than any high he’d ever felt.
He could keep kissing her for the rest of the night, but he pulled back. His thumb grazed her cheekbone, and she searched his eyes.