I quickly pull out a little piece of paper and scribble my dad’s cell phone on it. “Yeah. If you’re interested, I mean, if you’ve got the balls, you can call and talk to him about it.”
I push the paper across the table, staring him in the eye, framing it up as a challenge. Dare can’t possibly know how I’m trying to will my heart to slow down before it explodes, but maybe he does, because a smile stretches slowly and knowingly across his lips.
“Oh, I’ve got balls,” he confirms, his eyes gleaming again.
Dare me.
I swallow hard.
“I’m ready to ask my second question,” I tell him. He raises an eyebrow.
“Already? Is it about my balls?”
I flush and shake my head.
“What did you mean before?” I ask him slowly, not lowering my gaze. “Why exactly do you think this is kismet?”
His eyes crinkle up a little bit as he smiles yet again. And yet again, his grin is thoroughly amused. A real smile, not a fake one like I’m accustomed to around my house.
“It’s kismet because you seem like someone I might like to know. Is that odd?”
No, because I want to know you, too.
“Maybe,” I say instead. “Is it odd that I feel like I already know you somehow?”
Because I do. There’s something so familiar about his eyes, so dark, so bottomless. But then again, I have been dreaming about them for days.
Dare raises an eyebrow. “Maybe I have that kind of face.”
I choke back a snort. Hardly.
He stares at me. “Regardless, kismet always prevails.”
I shake my head and smile. A real smile. “The jury is still out on that one.”
Dare takes a last drink of coffee, his gaze still frozen to mine, before he thunks his cup down on the table and stands up.
“Well, let me know what the jury decides.”
And then he walks away.
I’m so dazed by his abrupt departure that it takes me a second to realize something because kismet always prevails and I’m someone he might like to know.
He took my dad’s phone number with him.
Chapter Nineteen
Time swirls and twirls and twists as it goes.
It’s tenuous, it’s sharp, it’s complex.
Adair DuBray does rent the Carriage House, and he’s elusive, and he’s mysterious and every day, I want to know him more.
Every day, I feel more like I know him already.
Every night, I dream about him, growing closer and closer to him.
A month passes, and one night, we stand at my favorite place, the blue tidal pools, and stare at the stars.
Dare points upward.
“That’s Orion’s belt. And that over there…. That’s Andromeda. I don’t think we can see Perseus tonight.” He pauses and stares down at me. “Do you know their myth?”
His voice is calm and soothing and as I listen to him, I let myself drift away from my current problems and toward him, toward his dark eyes and full lips and long hands.
I nod, remembering what I’d learned about Andromeda last year in Astrology. “Yes. Andromeda’s mother insulted Poseidon, and she was condemned to die by a sea monster, but Perseus saved her and then married her.”
He nods, pleased by my answer. “Yes. And now they linger in the skies to remind young lovers everywhere of the merits of undying love.”
I snort. “Yeah. And then they had a corny movie made for them that managed to butcher several different Greek myths at once.”
Dare’s lip twitches. “Perhaps. But maybe we can overlook that due to the underlying message of eternal love.” His expression is droll and I can’t decide if he’s being serious or just trying to be ironic or something, because the irony is lost on you.
“That’s bullshit, you know,” I tell him, rolling the metaphorical dice. “Undying love, I mean. Nothing is undying. People fall out of love or their chemistry dies or maybe they even die themselves. Any way you look at it, love always dies eventually.”
I should know. I’m Funeral Home Girl. I see it all the time.