She shrugged again, panting. She was in good shape, but the cold wind off of the water would take anyone’s breath. It whipped her ponytail, tossing it around her head wildly. He reached a hand out to capture the blonde strands, pulling until her head tipped up to his. “That was dirty.”
A little smirk tugged at her lips, but she held his gaze. “What are you going to do about it?”
A variety of punishments flashed through his mind, all of them more explicit than the last, but when her fierce face broke and she started giggling, those x-rated thoughts drained from his brain like the surf pulling away from the shore. He laughed too, his shoulders shaking with the sheer enjoyment of playing with her like this. He pulled her down onto the sand and she landed on his chest, laughing. Instead of thinking about spanking that tight little ass, all he wanted to do was press his mouth to hers while she giggled against his lips.
Either he’d gone soft, or Dani Petrillo was just that intoxicating.
After making out in the sand for way longer than was appropriate, they walked back to the car to add another layer, then down the access road to the part of the beach reserved for swimming. Even this late in the season, a few food trucks put in lunchtime hours in the parking lot. Mostly for hardcore surfers and fishermen. He bought Dani a crab cake and himself a burger and they found a log on the beach to sit on.
“Hey, remember that fancy dinner I promised you on our first date?” he said.
She wiped mayonnaise from her chin and grinned. “I do remember that promise. I figured this was it.”
He pinched her thigh, glad for her joke making what he was about to ask feel a little easier. “Well, um, it’s not black tie or anything, but I always take my mom out for dinner on her birthday. Somewhere fancy.”
“Sounds like you.”
“Yeah. Anyway, you wanna maybe come with me?”
Dani’s perfectly-shaped eyebrows shot to her hair. “You’re asking me to come to your mom’s birthday?”
His heart beat harder against his cold chest, and he forced a shrug, hoping his face didn’t scream please, I need you there. Lately, spending time with his mom was wearing on him. The comparisons, the foolish comments. The ghosts she seemed to like to keep around. He needed a break, a buffer. Dani made things easier.
“You’ve already met, so it isn’t weird, right? I can’t take too much of my mom and her…” complete disconnect from reality “... drama. You were great with the Jansens. Come charm her so I don’t have to.”
“I mean, I guess I could.” She pulled her lip between her teeth. “You really want me to?”
“You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Is this going to be a habit, me getting you out of talking to people?”
“Maybe.” He gave her that smile that always worked—his close the deal smile. This was a big one. “Look,” he said, Dani’s shyness about the whole thing giving him the courage he’d been lacking. “She likes you and we’re doing this, so let’s do it.”
He watched her swallow, her eyes darting around his face like she was searching for a lie. That being her first inclination twisted in his gut, but then she smiled. “Okay.”
The breath he’d been holding rushed from his lungs, fogging on the cold air. “Okay.”
Thirty
“Here’s two more,” his mother said, dropping two white envelopes on the table in front of him. Dylan tore one open, examining it. A letter from her dentist about a payment plan for her last cleaning. His mother let out a long-suffering sigh. “I just don’t know where they all come from.”
“From the businesses where you buy stuff, Ma. Cable company. Credit cards.” He shook his head. His father had been useless when it came to managing money, mostly because they didn’t have any, but maybe she deserved some of the blame. The woman couldn’t balance a checkbook for the life of her, and she was from the generation that still used those.
He entered the amounts of the last two bills into her online bill pay and wrote “paid” on the front of each of them, then put the dentist letter in his pocket. He’d take care of that one. He stacked them with the others, handing them over for her “filing system”.
“Thank you, Dylan.” Her smile was genuine and he felt guilty for his irritation. She was doing her best. She always had.
“No problem.”
“So,” she said, turning back to her oven. “What’s new? Have you found a nice girl yet?”
He almost laughed at the standard grilling, thinking of Dani in the shower last weekend, and how not nice she could be. He bit the inside of his lip to suppress a grin. He could tell her about it (well, not that part) or he could just let Dani show up to her birthday dinner and shock her properly. He was looking forward to the shocking. The shocking would be good. And if he examined a little further, he was just looking forward to her being there. Dani wasn’t one to turn things like this into milestones. And this wasn’t one. It was a simple favor. She would help him get through it and she wouldn’t overanalyze it. Since she’d said yes, he’d started to let himself imagine her being there for all of the things like that in life. Work stuff, times when he couldn’t deal with his mother. Partners in crime. Maybe this was why people took chances on other people.
“Oh you know me, Ma,” he said. “I know lots of nice girls.” She swatted him with her dish towel and he didn’t even bother dodging. “Anyway, did you decide where you want to go to dinner for your birthday?”
“You know I don’t care where we go, Dylan,” she said. “Just as long as I get to see you.” Italian Catholic guilt lilted her voice and he rolled his eyes.
I’m. Sitting. Right. Here.
“How about Parkers?”
She waved a hand at him. “That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think.” She always did this, acted like a nice meal might put him into financial ruin. His shoes cost more than the once a year dinner would run him.
“You know I’m not comfortable in those types of places,” she said.
He ran a hand over his face. Must they play this game every time? “How about The Hills? We went there for Mother’s Day.”
His mom sighed. “The year you were born, your father took me to Mother’s Day brunch at a restaurant on the water. We had champagne and eggs and an ocean view while you sat so quietly in your little baby seat. It’s one of my favorite memories.”
Dylan stopped scrolling through his phone and peered at her, a cold chill prickling the skin on his arms. No way was that a true story. Was she actually losing it now? Did she see that on one of her soaps and imagine it to be her own memory? Or had she switched from twisting the truth to outright lying? He wasn’t sure whether to rage or start googling symptoms of psychosis.