Dallas tipped his face down to look at me, his expression harsh, no-nonsense even through my hazy brain. “Diana,” he said my name solidly without a single trace of the familiar affection we’d grown for each other.
“I didn’t know you were here,” I said, still looking at him upside down.
He might have blinked, but his mouth was drawn so tight I couldn’t look past it. “I’ve been here the entire time.”
I swallowed and only managed to nod, my face getting hot all over again. Even in that position, I could see his eyes flick over my face and my throat and some other place I couldn’t confirm. “You could have come said hi. We’re friends. We can sit next to each other in public.” And that was how I would later on know I was drunk. What the hell was I thinking saying that?
“You’ve been busy,” he stated in that same detached, almost mean voice.
“What?”
“You’ve had enough to drink,” Dallas said. “I’m taking you both home.”
“But we just got this drink!” Ginny protested.
“I’ll give you the ten bucks. Let’s go, now,” he demanded. Without warning, the arms on either side of me moved, his hands going to the handles of the stool I was on right before he jerked it away from the bar, making it scrape against the floor.
Some reasonable part of Ginny’s and my brains must have recognized that we’d overdone the drinking, because neither one of us grumbled much at his order. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my boss pushing her chair back, not forced out of it like I had been. Turning the stool around so I could get out and grabbing my purse at the same time, I came face-to-face with Dallas’s body standing centimeters from my knees. Glancing up at his face, ready to ask him to back up so I could get down, I couldn’t help but smile at the scowl on his face.
“Hi,” I said again like I hadn’t just greeted him two minutes ago.
He wasn’t amused. In fact, I’m pretty sure he sounded more pissed than he had a minute ago when he spoke next. “Let’s go.”
I thought I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why do you sound so mad?”
“We’ll talk about it in the truck,” he said and gestured me forward, his tone still low, even.
“You sure you don’t want me to drive you?” the mechanic guy asked as Ginny slid out of her chair and came to stand next to Dallas.
Dallas didn’t tear his eyes away from me as he beat us to answer, “No.”
I’m pretty sure I heard the biker in the seat beside mine laugh.
My ankles betrayed me as I took a step forward and wobbled, my chest hitting Dallas’s, and I craned my neck back to give him a funny look. There were more lines at his forehead and beneath his eyes than I’d ever seen. What was up his ass?
“Bye, Diana,” the older biker called out.
Tilting my head to the side, forcing myself to look away from my neighbor—Josh’s coach—I waved at my new biker friend. “Bye. Be careful getting home,” I told him.
But before I could say anything else, a big, warm hand slipped into mine; the long fingers meshing through my smaller ones, and I lost my train of thought in less than a second. I knew those fingers. All I managed to do was look up at Dallas with a confused and shocked expression on my face before he was tugging me forward and through the bar and the mass of people inside of it. Distractedly, I looked over my shoulder to make sure Ginny was following, and she was. Shit. Taking her in right then, I noticed how flushed her face was.
We really had drank too much.
The night air was chilly, and I suddenly realized I hadn’t grabbed my shirt after I’d taken it off. “Wait!” I started to say before Dallas held up the hand not holding mine.
“I’ve got your shirt,” he said, taking a quick glance over his shoulder that landed directly on my chest.
I was a little drunk but not drunk enough to not notice how the tendons along his neck flexed. I was also pretty sure he muttered “Jesus” under his breath as he pulled me along behind him.
Could I have let go of his hand?
I flexed my fingers inside of his, linked together tightly, and decided probably not.
Not that I even wanted to, even though I knew I had no right. I knew this didn’t mean anything. Couldn’t mean anything. How many times had he made it apparent he wasn’t interested in me other than us being friends and because he’d had a single mom and related to me on that level?
Friends held hands when they’d had too much to drink.
This was nothing. Just one friend watching out for another. It wasn’t the first time I’d been around him in a bad mood. I had no reason to think too much about it. He probably just thought I was stupid for drinking too much and he’d be right. I was.
None of us said a word as we headed toward the double cab truck parked a block over at the same lot where I’d left my car. I had this strange urge to reach out and touch my beloved CRV, but the grip on my hand was too secure and I was steered right to Dallas’s passenger side door. I watched him shove his key into the lock and turn it, pulling the door open, and without meeting my eyes, he grabbed me by the hips and lifted me in—so quick I didn’t even have time to register his action until it was over.
I’d had too much to drink, but I could have gotten into his truck on my own. Couldn’t I? I’d definitely had way too much in the past and had never had a problem getting into a car… at least from what I could remember.
“Scoot over,” Dallas’s rough voice ordered.
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I moved over to the middle, watching as he crossed the front of his pickup, leaving Ginny to get into his truck on her own. His entire body looked strung tight, his jaw a straight line that reminded me of my mom’s when I’d piss her off as a kid and she was planning on putting me in my place the second we had some privacy. I looked around the inside of the cab and appreciated again that, while he didn’t take care of his house that well, he treated his truck like a baby.
“Why did you talk me into that third drink?” Ginny muttered as she settled in next to me, the side of her jean-covered leg and shoulder touching mine.
“What? You talked me into it,” I argued with her in a whisper.
All she did was shake her head.
“I’m never going out with you again.”
“We had fun. Don’t even try to pretend we didn’t.” I bumped my thigh against hers.
She giggled as the driver side door opened and, a second later, Dallas’s big body slid in behind the wheel, taking up all of the remaining space and more. So much more he was practically sealed to my side, gluing me to him like a conjoined twin I’d be stuck with forever. Just as I started to scoot over toward Ginny, he slid me a look at the same time his key went into the ignition, the low sound of country music cutting into the stinging silence. And there was something in that hard, uncompromising gaze that stopped me in midmovement.