They’re arguing. The two people who never said a cross word to each other, ever.
Two seconds later, I hear the door to the basement slam shut, footsteps slamming down the staircase, and the whirring of the treadmill starting up. My dad always ran down there after a hard day teaching, and some nights, he’d run for miles and miles and not come back up until I’d been asleep for hours. A second later, I hear my mom climbing the stairs. She knocks on my door and comes inside, holding the dress she’s going to work her miracles on. “I’m going to turn in, dear. I’m tired.”
I drop the phone to my chest, covering the display as if she might be able to tell it’s Dax I’m talking to, and look at the alarm clock at my bedside. It’s only eight-thirty. “Okay.”
She closes the door, leaving me to wonder if this could get any weirder. My mom was the night owl, and now she’s going to bed early. They’re arguing so much that I don’t think they can be in the same room together. What the hell happened here? This feels like a war zone. Or worse than that, The Twilight Zone.
“Kate—Fuck. Katherine?” Dax says.
I’m holding the phone in a sweaty death-grip. I’d spent a long time dreaming about moving to the city, thinking how glamorous it would be. In a few weeks, my house will be gone, and I won’t have any reason to set foot in Friesville again. Boston might as well be my real home, because once my parents sell this place, I won’t have one. “I’m sorry. What?” I ask, my forehead sweaty from the sudden anxiety that’s gripped me.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. My parents were just arguing.”
He laughs. “Your parents? I didn’t think those two did that.”
“Nobody’s relationship is perfect, I guess,” I mutter. “It’s . . . things are a little strained around here, to say the least.”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
I don’t speak. I can’t tell him this. If I tell him this, and it’ll just make me tell him more, and more, and more, knocking down every wall between us. It’ll be like the domino effect, the floodgates will open and then all of my quickly weakening resolve will be gone and it won’t ever come back.
But at the same time, as much as I want to keep him away, right now I can’t think of any other person I’d rather talk to than him.
“You want to get out of there? I’ll pick you up,” he offers, as if he read my mind.
I suck in a breath. No. I can’t. I won’t. I do that, and it’s all over. My mouth opens, but instead of the definitive NO my head is telling me to say, “And go where?” comes out.
“Wherever.” When I don’t answer, he says, “I’ll bring you to the shop and go over the options for your car, okay?”
That sounds harmless. But nothing with Dax has ever been harmless. There’s a reason my parents said I should stay away . . . and not only that, I said I should stay away.
If only I could remember what that reason was.
I listen for a few moments to my father’s feet pounding steadily on the treadmill downstairs. I think of Dax as he’d looked when he came to tow my car, lifting the hood of my VW, tattooed arms flexing, the way he’d smiled that devilish smile at me through a jawline coated with rich dark stubble.
Despite having nothing in common, there was something we always had an abundance of: Chemistry. I used to think of us as two magnets with opposite charge—impossible to keep apart.
It’s clear he’s no longer that same boy who used to drive me crazy by saying left and going right, who used to kiss me silly under the tree outside the house when I’d meet him out there.
No, he’s probably a lot more dangerous than that now, judging by his manly looks and the subtle changes I sense in his confidence and attitude.
But I guess I could use a little danger right now. “Okay,” I say.
Chapter 5
It’s dark by the time Dax comes around to pick me up.
I’m dressed in cut-off shorts to show off my legs, my best feature by far. He used to caress my thigh and tell me how soft and silky smooth my skin was.
The feeling was beyond delicious.
And although I realize that I’m sliding down a very steep hill now, I can’t help it—I want to look good for him.
My mother’s sleeping and my father is still running downstairs, so I easily slip out the front door. Dax’s waiting next to the car, and in the darkness, I can see him faintly illuminated by the porch light from our house.
He’s almost otherworldly in his chiseled strength, and from a distance, I can truly see just how gorgeous he is. Sometimes with Dax, I used to feel so connected to him and so familiar that I was able to forget how absolutely devastating he was in the looks department.
So truly out of my league.
But now, with the passage of so much time and the way he’s filled out in all the right places, I’m back to being just stunned. Does he even realize that he has the looks and charisma to make a million in Hollywood if he so desires?