“Yeah, Dad, can we?” Dean asked Trip.
I wasn’t the one driving; I glanced at Dallas who shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He blinked down at me.
“All right. Sure, go. But once I run out of money, that’s it. I have a bunch of change….” I trailed off as we made our way to the giant arcade by the front doors. The entire movie complex was packed with people going to see the brand-new movie, but there weren’t more than maybe fifteen kids hanging around, playing games. Feeling around the bottom of my purse, I scooped out a handful of coins.
“You got a vending machine addiction I don’t know about?” Dallas joked.
I crossed my eyes as I picked out the quarters and handed an equal amount to all three of the boys. “I would if any of them carried Pop-Tarts. Hold on a sec, guys. I have more.” One more scoop of change from my purse, three five dollar bills from Trip, and a twenty-dollar bill that Dallas gave Dean with the promise that he’d get change and split it between the three of them, and the boys were gone.
“I’m gonna take a piss while we’re waiting,” Trip announced. “I’ll be right back.”
“I think Dean’s having problems with the change machine, let me go see,” Dallas said too, disappearing into the cavern of the arcade.
All right. Keeping an eye toward the front doors, I watched people come inside. I hadn’t thought too much about Anita in the last few weeks, but with hundreds of people coming in and out, I couldn’t help but remember how she’d shown up to my house unannounced. I had no idea where she was even living now, and a part of me was worried it was Austin. I was looking around when something caught my eye on the other side of the doors by the ticket counter. It was something about the golden-brown hair that triggered a memory in my brain and stole the breath right out of my mouth.
From one instant to the next, my stomach started cramping as the man took a step ahead in the winding line of people waiting to purchase tickets.
My head started pounding. My hands started sweating. I was dizzy.
It had been three years since I’d last seen Jeremy, but it felt like days.
My right hand started shaking.
I dropped my head forward and tried to take a deep breath. I was fine. I was fine. I was fine.
I glanced back up to process the sight of the man again. He looked shorter… and no, this man had facial hair. Jeremy had never been able to grow facial hair.
And what would he be doing in Austin?
It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him, I told myself, but still, I couldn’t ease the knot in my stomach or the way my hands were trembling and slick from sweat. It wasn’t him.
“We got it sorted—Diana, what’s wrong?” came Dallas’s voice going from his normal voice to a low, distressed one.
I was fine, I repeated to myself, trying to steel my spine, to stand up straight and catch my breath. It wasn’t him. On top of that, it had been three years. Three long years, and I wasn’t the same person I’d been back then.
“What is it?” Dallas asked again, stopping directly in front of me; his body long and wide, inches away. His voice was low as he noted, “You’re pale.”
When I raised my head and focused on the triangle of brown ink right above the collar of his faded brown T-shirt, I fisted my hand at my side, even as goose bumps spread out over my arms. “I’m all right,” I mostly lied.
“I know you’re not. What is it? You feel sick?” He dipped his face closer to mine, those hazel eyes finding my own even though I didn’t want them to. His eyelids dipped over his irises and that pale pink mouth formed the shape of a frown. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t help but look away, biting the inside of my cheek as I let out a breath that was a lot shakier than I would have wanted it to be.
“Someone say something to you?” he asked, his voice getting more worried by the second.
Shit. Shit. Reaching up, I scrubbed my hand over my eyes and met his gaze again. I was fine. What happened had been a long time ago. I wasn’t that person anymore. I wasn’t. “I thought I saw my ex,” I told him, as my throat burned.
Dallas’s expression dropped instantly, and I’d swear his shoulders did too. “Oh.”
“No. It’s not like that. We—” I glanced to my side to make sure the boys were still in the arcade. All three of them were together, hovering by a big game. “Things didn’t end well. I….” God. How could I still feel like such a fucking idiot after so many years? How? I was ashamed of myself for what had happened. How could I tell this man I respected so much that I had been a complete dumbass?
His eyebrows were knit together as he watched me. “You can tell me anything.”
I bit my cheek and tried to swallow my giant pride that had gotten in my way so many times in the past. “I’m not proud of myself, okay?” These stupid-ass tears that were becoming way too common in my life lately filled my eyes but didn’t go any further. “I was an idiot back then—”
“Diana,” he ground out my name, his forehead becoming more lined. Those shoulders that had fallen a second ago came back into position, tight and taut and broad. “You’re not an idiot.”
“I was back then.” I needed him to understand as I glanced toward the doors again, but luckily couldn’t see that familiar color of hair anymore. At least for now. “He… hurt me toward the end of our relationship—”
If Dallas was tall every day of his life, on this day, he seemed to grow half a foot taller. His spine extended, his posture turning into one that would belong perfectly on a statue. His Adam’s apple bobbed and his nostrils flared. And in the deepest voice I’d ever heard, he asked, “He hit you?” His question was pulled out like each word was its own sentence.
“Yeah—”
Those big hands fisted at his sides, and his neck went pink. “Which one is he?”
“Dallas, stop, it isn’t him,” I said, reaching for his shirt and grabbing a handful of it. “It was a long time ago.”
“A lifetime wouldn’t be long enough,” he ground out. “Which one is he, Diana?”
“Please don’t. I’m not lying. I swear it’s not him. He doesn’t even live in Austin. That happened back when I lived in Fort Worth.”
“Is it the guy over there in the green shirt?”
“No—”
“In the red shirt?”
“Dallas, listen to me—”
Was he shaking?
“Stop being stubborn. It isn’t him. And even if it was, I pressed charges against him. He went to jail for a few months—”
“Jail?” He turned around slowly to face me. His face… I’d never seen anything like it before, and I hoped I never did again. He was shaking. “Tell me what his name is, and I’ll put him six feet in the ground.”