“What about his first marriage?” she asked. “You didn’t follow him down that path.”
Damn right. Even science has a margin of error. “That was different.”
“How?”
“I knew him marrying Sarah was a terrible idea,” he explained. “And I knew he was doing it for the wrong reasons. That was the one time in his life Josh didn’t have a clue what he was doing.”
Dani pushed her hand into his hair, stroking absently. They’d gotten used to the warmth of the water now and her fingers felt hot on his exposed skin.
“Maybe you’re the barometer sometimes too,” she said quietly.
The idea burrowed into his brain. He’d never thought of it that way. People had their roles in friendships that long, and he knew his, but maybe she was right. Maybe there had been a time or two where he’d been on the other side.
Her finger stopped moving, and she sighed. “With Cat, it feels like she’s moved to a different universe, and maybe I’m so mad because she likes it better there, whether I’m there or not.”
“Do you want to be in that universe?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. If I found the right guy.”
The right guy. The distinction sliced at him. Who was the right guy for Dani? Someone who would sweet talk her? Hold her hand and stare longingly into her eyes? He doubted it. Maybe it was his competitive side, but that little ache in his chest from before and the multiple beers he’d consumed stirred together and made him wish he could just say it. Why not me?
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t say it, and he couldn’t be it. That wasn’t him. He’d never been the right guy.
He sniffed and refocused his gaze over her shoulder. “Hey, at least you know what you don’t want, right?” he said, nodding through the trees to Josh and Cat’s tent.
She followed his gaze, then her eyes dipped to his. “Maybe I do, though,” she said, pinning him with two beams of electric blue. “Maybe I want that.”
He felt that look like a punch to his solar plexus—the question she was asking with her eyes. Part of him wanted to dive for cover, run back up the beach and forget he’d ever started this conversation. Maybe if she wasn’t wrapped around him, molded to him so perfectly with her breath coming in shallow little spurts like she was holding it just for him, he might have.
Regardless of what he would blame it on later, though—too much to drink, the atmosphere—he didn’t shut up. He didn’t run.
“Yeah,” he said, his blood pumping dangerously. “Maybe I do too.”
Dani’s eyes darted over his face, her mouth dropping open before easing over his in the kind of kiss that they hadn’t shared yet. The kind that traveled from his mouth to his groin but stopped somewhere in the middle and made his gut flip. Maybe he hadn’t shared a kiss like that with anyone before.
He bent his knees, taking them deeper into the water so he could use the buoyancy to hold her up while he touched every bare inch of skin he could find.
Her fingers clutched his hair, then darted to his chest, tracing the lines of his muscles. She touched him like it was the first time, like she wasn’t already intimately acquainted with every part of him. And it sort of felt like the first time. Like one last piece of clothing had been removed and now they could finally see each other. They’d admitted something to each other after Cassidy, and then they’d both run from it. But here it was again, pulsing between them in hot heavy breaths.
He broke their kiss, both of them rushing to pull in air. He caught her eye in the moonlight, and in a way they’d gotten very comfortable communicating, she lifted an eyebrow.
He looked between them, disappointment surging. “I don’t have anything,” he said. “In my tent…”
He started to walk them out of the water, but she shook her head. “I’m on the pill, remember.”
“You’re sure?”
Dani bit her lip and nodded. “I trust you.”
“You can.” His fingers were already pulling aside the wet fabric that separated them.
It was probably just the lingering emotion of the thing with Cat, but the sound she made when she sank down onto him was different, vulnerable. Despite himself and the rawness he felt at his own exposure, he leaned into it, testing out what he’d just suggested—the idea that maybe he could want something he’d never allowed himself to ponder before.
It felt better than he could have imagined.
Twenty-four
Dylan’s phone buzzing across his chest snapped his head up from the arm of the couch. He’d fallen asleep there sometime after dinner, exhausted from a long week of being back at work. He rubbed his eyes, letting them adjust, then fought a smile when he saw the caller ID. He’d been waiting for this call.
“Hey, Dani-pie. Thinking about me again so soon?”
She huffed a chuckle into the receiver. “Something like that.”
He was dying to play the did you miss me game with her, but a fit of nerves he was unacquainted with sparked in his chest, making him pause.
After that moment in the water, when he’d gone and admitted something that felt monumental, things with Dani were largely the same. They’d kissed goodbye in secret when Sonya wasn’t paying attention, shared almost daily texts back and forth during the week, now she was calling to invite him over for their usual Friday night hookup. It was their normal weekly routine, but he felt different. He felt edgy, irritated like he sometimes did when he’d gone too long without coffee. His whole body felt tight and restless. He’d passed out on his couch because he’d barely slept all week.
Knowing Dani might have a date with someone else Saturday night was eating away at him. “What time do you want me to come over tomorrow?” he asked, needing to start an official countdown.
“Actually, I need to cancel tomorrow night.”
Dylan turned down the volume on Thursday Night Football and sat up quickly, the remote clattering to the floor. “What do you mean?”
“I will not be requiring your services this week, Mr. Pierce.” She was joking but his stomach dropped. Was this the day his Dani card finally got declined? With a phone call? Thanks for the good times, see you around? It wasn’t even twenty-four hours notice. Okay, it wasn’t an appointment for maintenance on his car, but still. He wasn’t ready.
“Just all of a sudden?” he asked, trying to sound unaffected. “What, did you end up liking one of them?”
“One of what?”
“Your dates.” He cleared his throat. “Did you meet your soulmate or whatever?”