I sucked in a breath and couldn’t help but smile at him, even with my eyes all teary. “It’s like you’re purposely trying to get me to love you, Dallas. I swear to God. You don’t even want me to stick my hand down your pants. You want me to want it all,” I laughed, trying to make a joke but failing awfully.
He blinked. Then he blinked again. He grew another two inches it seemed as he stared down at me, that angry face morphing into a serious but somehow slightly softer one.
I smacked him in the stomach with the back of my hand and then reached for his wrist briefly before dropping my hand. “I’m joking. I promise. Just listen to me, all right? I told myself a long time ago I never wanted to see him again, and the boys don’t know about that part of my life. They’ve been through enough shit in their lives. If you don’t let it go for me, let it go for them.”
He stayed quiet, staring down at me for so long, a shiver shot down my spine. It wasn’t until we both seemed to spot Trip about fifteen feet away on a path toward us that he dipped his face closer to mine, his fingers going to my wrist in the same way I had gone for his, but he didn’t move away or let go of me. Our eyes were locked on each other, staring, intense, as he said, “Tell me what his name is, and I won’t say another word about it.”
Trip was even closer.
Shit. I whispered his name. “Jeremy.” And then his last name as Trip’s voice reached us.
“Goddamn that line was long.”
Dallas dropped his hand and took a step back, and if it wasn’t for the fists he had at his sides, I wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong. But I knew, I knew as he glanced around the movie theater that he was looking for someone. He was looking for the man who I had let get too rough with me. Who had squeezed me a little too hard while he was mad over a story I’d told him about me cutting a male client’s hair. The same man who didn’t like the way I smiled at our waiter at a restaurant and had reached under the table and squeezed my thigh so tightly it left bruises. The same person who called me a whore and slapped me and punched me when I had gone out with my friends without him.
No matter how much I smiled at the kids when they came back out of the arcade, I still couldn’t push aside those memories of Jeremy.
If Trip thought the silence in the cab of Dallas’s truck was weird, he didn’t say a word. He was too busy typing on his phone’s screen as we dropped Dean off and headed home. I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t know what Dallas was capable of saying. I didn’t think he had it in him to be so mad. Hadn’t Trip said something along those words before? How he didn’t get mad?
He had barely parked his truck in his driveway, when he told his cousin, “Help me move those boxes on Diana’s lawn into the backyard.”
“You guys don’t have to do that,” I protested.
Trip walked by me. “Take the help, Miss Independent.”
I couldn’t help it, despite everything going around in my brain, I shook my head at him. “Fine. Help me then.”
Between the two of them, and with one, “What the hell is in these? Lead weights?” from Trip, they carried both boxes into the backyard, holding them high above the four-foot fence with only a small amount of grunting to get them over.
The moment the second one was set in the backyard for Mac to bark at later, Trip wiped his hands on his pants. “I’m gonna get going. There’s some business at the bar I need to handle before it closes. Di, we’ll have a play date again, I’m sure.”
“As long as you don’t ever say ‘play date’ again.”
He laughed and gave me a hug. “See you later, honey. Tell the boys I said bye. See ya, Dal,” he called out, closing the gate behind him with a wave of his fingers as he headed toward his bike.
Josh and Louie had gone straight inside, and it was only us two in the yard with the light outside the kitchen door illuminating the space for us.
There wasn’t a specific emotion on Dallas’s face; in fact, he looked so detached and unemotional, part of me felt like I’d fucked up telling him about who I’d been to let that happen to me years ago. Maybe he saw me different now. He saw that Diana instead of the one I was today and didn’t like her.
I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t like that Diana much either, honestly.
He was looking down at the crates when he finally spoke to me for the first time in almost an hour. “I wanna take a look at the inside so I can see what tools you need. You have a hammer by any chance?”
When I had started rubbing my palm on my jeans, I had no idea. “I have tools. I have a hammer. Let me grab it. It’s inside.”
Dallas still didn’t glance up as I went into my kitchen and grabbed my toolbox from one of the cabinets, lugging the colorful, metal container against my leg as I headed outside with it.
“God, this thing is heavy,” I told him as I walked down the steps with it. His attention was still on the ground as I dropped it right beside one of the crates, admiring the paint job my best friend had given it.
But as I looked up at the man who I thought was my friend and had just, barely an hour ago, offered to go kill someone for me, I frowned. He was staring, really staring, down at my toolbox. And as furious as his expression had been when I told him about my ex, it was nothing compared to the one that he had right then.
What was wrong with my box?
I toed it, glancing back and forth between it and him, not understanding. “It was my brother’s. I kept it after we sold most of his stuff, but it made me too sad and my best friend painted it for me. I thought it was fun. They look like those Giga Pets I used to have when I was a kid,” I explained. “They’re puppies. Who doesn’t like puppies?”
The exhaled, “Jesus fucking Christ,” had me frowning at Dallas.
I watched as both his hands went up to his head and he cupped each side of his skull, interlacing his fingers at the top.
“What is it?” I asked, suddenly getting a little frustrated at his reaction.
He didn’t seem to hear me as he sighed, the sound distraught and almost furious.
“What the hell did I do?” I asked him, not understanding but wanting to.
Dallas was still focused on the toolbox when he answered me, his voice thick and strained. “I can’t do this tonight, Diana. I can’t fucking do this right now.”
“Do what?”
“You’re—” He closed his eyes and covered them with his palms for a moment before dropping his arms at his sides. He finally raised his gaze to mine, something in those hazel irises looking pained as he said, “I’ll help you build it. Don’t ask your dad. I just can’t do it right now. Okay?”
“That’s all right.” I took in his stricken features all over again. “Are you okay?”
He lifted a hand but didn’t confirm yes or no. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He took a step back and eyed my toolbox one more time, his chest taking a big inhale and a bigger exhale. “Night.”
“Goodnight,” I called out to him as he turned and headed out of the backyard through the gate, closing it behind him. Then he was jogging across the street and disappearing up his pathway to his deck.
What the hell had just happened?
Chapter Nineteen