She thought about that. “Probably. But I would have felt guilty about it afterward.”
Something tugged in his middle over the accuracy of that. “So what has . . . changed about you? That you’d no longer roll your eyes at a stoned hippie who decorates with stuffed animals?”
Rosie’s gaze traveled over him, as if she was startled that he’d asked something that deep. “Well, for one, last-ditch therapy was my idea and my pride is in the way of me admitting I went a little extreme.” They traded a knowing smile. “But I wouldn’t change the decision now. Lately I’ve learned that letting something feel crazy, not rejecting the unfamiliarity of a situation . . . can lead to something amazing.”
“You’re talking about the club?”
“Partly,” she hedged. “Did you know me, Bethany, and Georgie formed the league because we all showed up for Zumba early? Really, it’s Kristin’s fault for being late.” She smiled to herself. “Now, Zumba. That gets an eye roll. Who wants to watch themselves dance in a mirror?”
Dominic rolled a shoulder. “I could never mind watching you dance.” They traded a ripple of heated eye contact, but he was enjoying talking to her too much to push it further. He didn’t want to credit Armie, but something about being removed from their usual setting—being out there in nature—made him appreciate being with her, hearing her voice, even more than he normally did. “How the hell are we supposed to rig up this wind chime?”
“Oh.” Rosie shook herself, obviously having forgotten their task. “I brought some string. Do you have your pocketknife?”
“Always.” He slipped the smooth object out of his back pocket and flipped open the narrowest cutting tool with his thumb. “What’s your plan? Put holes in some sticks and hang them?”
“Yes. Maybe attach some pennies to the bottom so they clang?”
“Not bad.”
Rosie laughed. “Not exactly good, either, but we’ll get away with it.” She pressed her lips together. “I think it goes against the hippie-cratic oath to give bad grades.”
He slow-clapped. “Nicely done.”
They spent a few minutes collecting sticks, Rosie retrieving them and Dominic whittling holes in the top.
“So . . . not rejecting something that feels crazy,” Dominic said, calling back her earlier words while twisting metal into wood. “Does that also apply to the restaurant?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, furrowing her brow. “Somewhere along the line, it did start to feel crazy. Taking that leap.”
Regret slithered in Dominic’s gut, knowing he’d been part of the reason opening her restaurant had become an unreachable goal. He could turn the tide now, though, couldn’t he? Here they were, talking—trying—so it couldn’t be too late.
“Sometimes when I was active duty,” he said, “home seemed like a dream. Like it wasn’t real and I’d never get back here again.” He nudged her with his elbow. “I almost always thought of you frowning over a recipe or dancing from the stove to the sink. And I knew home had to be real. You cooking is not a leap. You . . . doing anything you set your mind to is not a leap.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, sounding almost surprised. “I wish you’d do that more. Not . . . not encourage me, although that was really, really nice. But I mean talk about your time overseas. You’ve never talked to me about it.”
A bolt turned in the side of Dominic’s neck. The time he’d served with the military had been hard. It was hard for every soldier, being under the constant threat of attack, being so far removed from reality, you didn’t know how you’d make it back. Vocalizing that meant exposing a weakness, however, and he didn’t do that. Stiff upper lip. Be the strong one. He’d been raised with that mentality, and he worried that breaking that code might make him seem less dependable. Just . . . less. But he had to set aside those fears, because Rosie was watching him expectantly and—
A movement on Rosie’s shoulder caught his attention.
“Shit, honey. Don’t move.”
Her face lost some color. “What is it?”
Knowing if he said the word “spider” she would freak the fuck out, Dominic reached out to slap the eight-legged creature off her shoulder, but it scuttled away, he cursed, and Rosie launched into the air like a torpedo, slapping at every inch of exposed skin on her body and shaking out her hair. “Oh my God. Is it still on me? Get it!”
“Honey girl,” he said, biting down on a smile. “You have to stand still.”
“What? No!”
He gripped her by the shoulders and turned her around. “You probably knocked it off.”
“You’re just saying that,” she said miserably. “Oh my God. How big was it? Is it hairy?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said truthfully.
She screamed in her throat.
The spider reappeared on her arm, and Dominic smacked it off before she could become aware of it, watching as it hit the forest floor and disappeared beneath some leaves. “Gone. Got it.” He gave up on suppressing his laughter. “It can’t hurt you anymore.”
“You jerk.” Rosie threw herself into his arms, mouth pressed to his neck, her body shaking with mirth. “You enjoyed that.”
“I don’t like seeing you scared.” He closed her in his arms and breathed in the coconut scent of her hair. “But I’m not going to pretend I mind this.”
They melted against each other a little bit, Rosie’s hand curling in the material of his shirt before she pushed away, both of them breathing heavily. As they continued making the wind chime, Dominic could feel her watching him. And he knew she could feel his attention coming her way, too. Every peek of her belly when she reached up to tie a stick to a low-hanging branch was catalogued in his mind. Every lip bite. Every elegant angle of her neck.
His own skin burned from the evidence of her interest, and just as he’d done that morning in the gym, he put himself on display for her. Fuck it. He’d use what he had. Rolling up his sleeves, he got to work lighting the fire, building it to a cluster of gentle flames. Night had fallen by the time they finished building the campsite and they wandered toward each other, right to the center of it, as if pushed by an unseen force.
“Earlier, you said you wanted to talk about the present?” Dominic said, nudging her chin up. “Let’s do it.”
Rosie’s nipples peaked inside her shirt, accompanied by her shaky exhale. “Maybe I only said that because I was annoyed at you for bringing up our Twilight fight.” She paused. “It happened in the past, but it’s frustrating me in the present, so it’s fair game to discuss.”
“Good, talk about it. Get frustrated.”
“You brought it up to make a point. That we’re supposed to love each other through fights. Through all of it.”
Dominic leaned in and breathed against her mouth. “Never mind why I brought it up. Call me every name in the book. Just don’t act like we don’t know every last thing about each other.” His hand closed around the nape of her neck and the muscles turned to water, just like he’d expected. Just like always. “You know how to talk to me, Rosie. It . . .” Admitting a weakness was difficult, but he forced it out. “It fucked me up when you said you didn’t.”