“For a few days.”
“You shouldn’t have had to try in the first place,” I told him, and he glanced up, a small smile on that bristly face.
“I should have if it really mattered to her that much, but I didn’t care enough. I’ve never been with anyone longer than a year, you know. Long-distance relationships don’t usually work, and I never tried one until her, but every couple I know who did it and survived, always compromised. You have to care about the other person’s feelings enough to not always be right or have your way. I don’t regret not trying to make it work, but if I’d loved her, I should have.”
Was it rude for me to think I was glad he hadn’t?
Before I could think about that too long, he threw out, “Now I know for next time.”
I was not going to sabotage any future relationships of his. I wasn’t.
Then what the hell was I going to do? I wondered. Move somewhere else? Find a boyfriend to maybe be half the man he was and hopefully he’d keep my mind off the one who lived across the street from me who I had all these… feelings for?
What the hell had I done? Why had I done this to myself? I knew better. I knew better than to like Dallas. And yet, I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you… had a lot of girlfriends?”
This man glanced over at me with a funny expression on his face before facing the crate again. “I’ve never been one of those guys with a new girl every week or every month.”
That still wasn’t an answer, and at the risk of sounding like a crazy person, all I did was mumble, “Hmm.” Either I was dying inside or this was what a serial killer felt like when he or she needed to get another fix. It could have been either or.
That was enough for him to look at me again with that weird facial expression. “I’m forty-one, Diana. I’ve had girlfriends. Except for my ex, I never lived with any of them. Never proposed to any of them. The only girl I’ve loved was my high school girlfriend, and I haven’t heard anything about her since I broke up with her to join the navy. I’ve never looked any of them up online, talked to them on the phone, and I can’t remember most of their names or what they look like. I was at sea a lot.”
Of course I knew he’d had other relationships in the past, but him acknowledging them still made my stomach roll in jealousy and maybe a little hatred too. Bitches. Not trusting myself to not call all of his exes sluts, my brilliant fucking response was another “Hmm.” And then, as if I was trying to make myself feel better, I told him, “I’ve only had four real boyfriends in my entire life, my ex not included. If I ever saw any of them again, they would probably run the other way.”
How did Dallas respond? With a “Hmm” that had me eyeing him.
Was he using too much force to pry the nail out or was I imagining it?
“Thanks for going to see Nana,” he commented suddenly, changing the subject and making me keep looking at him. He walked toward the corner right by me before glancing over in my direction, his eyes going to my pink, puppy toolbox for a brief second. He glanced away from it almost immediately.
I groped for the change in subject. “Yeah, of course. She told me she’s going to be staying with you until her house gets fixed.”
“Yeah.” He positioned his body directly to my side, his butt inches from me. I looked away. “She wants her own place back, but she’s gonna be stuck with me for a while, no matter what she says.”
“She doesn’t want to stay with you?”
“She doesn’t want to stay with anyone. She keeps telling me that she hasn’t lived under somebody else’s roof in over seventy years and she’s not gonna do it for any longer than she needs to. She offered to go stay with her sister who lives in a retirement community to ‘get out of my hair,’ but I’m not gonna let her live with anybody but me until her house gets fixed. She’s my grandma. I’m not about to pawn her off.”
I did not like this man as more than a friend. A passing acquaintance. He was just a nice guy and it made perfect sense to admire someone with his type of loyalty.
I did not like him. I didn’t. And I sure as hell wasn’t falling in love with him a little. No way.
While I was busy repeating to myself that, yes, I thought he was super-hot, and yes, his heart might be made of the finest silver in the land, but there were plenty of men like that in the world.
I didn’t even believe myself.
Dallas shoved the lid off the top of the crate and took a step back, eyeing me once before glancing back to the contents inside. “The motorcycle club is having a cook-off at the shop where Trip works to raise money for Nana’s house this weekend.”
Shit. I really had no business spending money on things while I couldn’t work. The flowers I’d bought for Miss Pearl had to be my one and only splurge for a long time.
He kept going. “This is the boys’ weekend with their grandparents, isn’t it?” I nodded and he did the same. “Come. I’ll buy you a plate.”
“You don’t have to—”
That big hand reached over to tap the back of my hand, his face tipped down and serious. “Are you ever going to accept me trying to be nice without arguing?”
I pressed my lips together for a second. “Probably not.”
He smiled. “Come.” He touched the back of my hand again. “Trip will be there.”
Why was my first thought, As long as you’re there, it’s fine with me? What was wrong with me? I was asking for a mess. For pain. For heartbreak. For having to move one day.
And even knowing all of that, like an idiot, I didn’t say no, but I did sigh. “If you’re paying, Mr. Clean….”
*
“DIANA! MY HERO!”
Even surrounded by what looked like at least 100 people hanging around the lot of the mechanic shop right by the salon, I still managed to pull that one familiar voice yelling out of the air. Smirking, I glanced around from face to face until I found the one I was looking for in the crowd, pushing his way through. The big smile on Trip’s face was obviously the result of being a little drunk.
“Hey.” I waved at him, trying to see if I recognized anyone else at the cookout Dallas had invited me to.
Trip tossed an arm over my shoulder as he pulled me into his side, giving me a side hug. “How you holdin’ up?”
“Better.” I held up my bandaged hand. The blisters had finally started to go away, leaving tight, red skin behind. A couple of days ago, for some reason I was beyond understanding, I’d looked up burns online and almost lost my lunch. Things could have been a lot worse; I wasn’t going to complain about my injury after I’d seen that.