I’d learned years ago that I didn’t have to do things I didn’t want. It was a gift of being an adult, getting to choose what you wanted and didn’t want in life. You just had to see how many choices you had, and if you didn’t have any, then you made some.
And without thinking twice about it, the second Josh was around the corner, I made my decision. I was going to sit and watch the fucking game even if it killed me. In the words of my abuela, que todos se vayan a la chingada. Everyone could go to hell.
Except as I walked past the second to last man I wanted to talk to in the near future, fingers reached out and snatched at my wrist. “Diana,” my name came out comforting and smooth like warm milk.
I stopped, my gaze going down to the fingers wrapped around my bones. “I just want to watch the game. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”
“I know.” At least he wasn’t arguing with me. “But I wanna tell you I’m sorry. I know she’s been gunning for you, and I didn’t put a stop to it.”
I swallowed, my throat muscles bobbing hard, making me feel like I was trying to pass an egg, but really it was just my pride.
“She doesn’t have any idea what she’s talking about,” he said softly, with so much kindness and compassion, it unzipped me from the throat down.
Tears filled my eyes and I tried to blink them away, but they just stayed there, making my vision hazy and distorted. “I’ve never even done anything to her. So we argued. I argue with everyone. I know I’m a pain in the ass sometimes, but I would never go out of my way to be mean to someone who had never really done anything to me.”
“I know you wouldn’t, and you’re not a pain in the ass. We get along just fine, don’t we?” he assured me, making me sniffle.
“Yeah.” Was I still tearing up? “She doesn’t know me. She tried to tell me I wasn’t a good parent figure to Josh, that I—I’m not a real one. I am—”
“I know you are,” came his low reply, all mellow and tender. “They know you are.” I could see him getting closer to me out of the corner of my eye. “They couldn’t have anyone better raising them. It doesn’t matter what she says. You’re great. You know you are.”
I sniffled, angry and hurt. “Yeah, well, no one else seems to think I am except you… and them… and the Larsens.” My voice cracked. My own mom didn’t seem to believe that half the time. But I couldn’t say that out loud.
Instead, I started weeping again, silently.
I swore I could feel pressure at the back of my head like maybe he was cupping it. I didn’t move. I would swear on my life he made this “shh, shh, shh” sound, like he was trying to soothe me. “This is my fault.” When I didn’t say anything, he leaned in even closer to me. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
There was an earnestness in his tone—hell, in his entire body—that seemed to reach into me more than his actual words. I’d been apologized to hundreds of times in my life, but there was something about Dallas doing it that didn’t seem false or contrived. Maybe I was being dumb, but I didn’t think I was imagining hearing or sensing something that didn’t actually exist.
I looked up at him, hating him seeing me with what I was sure were puffy, red eyes with disaster written in the pupils. Dallas’s expression was a mournful one. There was a softness to his features that didn’t normally exist. And when he blew out a breath that hit the cheek closest to him, I could confirm his guilt.
“I try not to play favorites, and it came back to kick me in the ass. I’m sorry. I should have told her to go sit down when she started going off instead of telling her I didn’t have time to deal with her,” he said, so close to my face. “You’re my friend. I’m sorry for letting you down. I seem to do that a lot.”
“You didn’t let me down,” I muttered to him, feeling embarrassed all over again. “Look, I’m going to go sit in the car until the game starts. I want to be alone for a minute to get my shit together.”
He sighed, the fingers around my wrist retreating for a brief moment before they slid up my bare forearm, the calluses grazing my upper arm and shoulder over the sleeves of my T-shirt as they made the trek upward, and then he was palming my shoulders with both of those rough-worked hands. He breathed, rough and choppy. The tips of his tennis shoes inched closer to me, his hands squeezing my shoulders as he said in a whisper, “I’m gonna hug you as long as you promise not to grab my ass, okay?”
I almost laughed, but it sounded more like a broken croak.
I came from a hugging family. I was descended from a long line of huggers before me. We hugged for good things and we hugged for bad things. We hugged when there was a reason and we definitely hugged for no other reason than because we could. We hugged when we were mad at each other and when we weren’t. And I’d always loved it; it became a part of me. A hug was an easy way of showing someone you cared about them, of offering comfort, of saying, “I’m so happy to see you” without words.
So when Dallas wrapped his arms around the middle of my back, he swallowed me in something that had always been freely given in my life. And he said words that hadn’t always been so easily shared, “I’m sorry, Di.”
I smiled into his chest sadly, letting the nickname go in and out of my ears. “It’s not your fault, Professor.”
His body tightened along mine. “Professor?” he asked, slowly, quietly.
He knew. “Professor X. You know, Professor Xavier.”
My neighbor—my friend—made the same choking sound he’d made back at my house when I’d called him Mr. Clean.
“Dallas?” a voice called from outside the bathroom.
Said man didn’t loosen his hold on me even as his upper body started shaking a little. “Yeah?”
“Game’s about to start,” someone who wasn’t Trip told him.
“All right. I’ll be out in a sec,” the man hugging me answered, his palm making a flat trek up my back to land between my shoulder blades before he slowly pulled back just enough to look down at me. “I need to go.” There was a pause. “And I’m not bald. I’m just used to having short hair.”
I didn’t say anything; I just sniffled.
Dallas reached up and touched my forehead with one of his thumbs briefly before snatching the cap off his head and settling it over my hair. The tips of his fingers brushed high over my cheekbones for tears that had disappeared by that point. “Go watch your boy.”
When I didn’t say anything, he tipped his head to the side and lowered his face until it was inches from mine, his expression so tight I swore he looked furious. “Where’s that person who gave me a stare down and asked me if I wanted to be friends with her or if she should fuck off, hmm?”
The corners of my mouth tilted up just a little, and it made his lips do the same.
He blinked and told me in that bossy, military voice, “Don’t leave.”