Stupid tears sprang to my eyes, and for just a second, I let myself lean my head against Dare’s strong chest and let him ruffle my hair.
Dare rocked us to a stop by the Burger Geek tent and grabbed a bag labeledTurneroff the counter.
“What’s this?” I demanded as he shoved the bag into my hand.
“Lunch,” he said, snagging a bottle of water. “Come on.” He led me back behind the tents to a grassy area by the parking lot.
“What are we doing?”
“It’s calledsitting. Newfangled thing I like to do while eating lunch. Makes use of all my padding.” He slapped one heavily-muscled ass cheek before folding himself down onto the ground with a grace you wouldn’t expect from a guy of his size unless you’d known him as long as I had.
He looked up at me and patted the ground beside him. “Sitting works best when all members of a party do it at the same time, Bri-bri.”
I sighed gustily. “I truly hate you sometimes.”
“I doubt it's anything remotely that forceful. What you feel is mild irritation because I boss you around and cheer you up like the big brother you never had.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to sound so pissed off about it,” I grumbled. I set the bag on the ground by Dare’s knee and laid out flat on the grass with my hands stacked behind my head. Above, the late spring sky was bright blue streaked with wisps of white.
“I’m not pissed,” Dare said, nevertheless sounding pissed. “If Iwere, you’d know. Open your mouth, baby bird.”
“Wha—?” I broke off as Dare shoved half a cheeseburger toward my face.
“Uh huh. Chew and swallow, buddy. That’s the way.”
I scowled. “I’m capable of eating, you know.”
“But the faster you eat, the faster the fat and carbs can begin soothing away the pain of your heartache.” Dare’s mouth twisted up into a lopsided grin as he demolished the rest of the sandwich in his hand.
I licked my lips and tasted mayonnaise and ketchup, my personal favorite condiment combination. “Sucks to be you, because they put mayo on your burger.”
Dare rolled his dark brown eyes. “Because I asked them to.”
“Yeah?” I bent my knees and set my feet flat on the ground. “Why? How’d you know I was gonna have a broken heart?”
Then again, given my track record, this was hardly rocket science.
He shook his head, handily ignoring my question by taking exception to a different part of it. “That wasn’t yourheart, babe. You were attracted to him, not in love with him. One day you’re gonna get the difference.” Dare turned so he could lean back against my bent legs.
I sighed up at the sky. “But Mark’s got thisvibe,like he’s lonely or something. And didn’t you see his eyes, Dare? How blue they were? How intelligent they were? He was gonna be my soulmate! He was going to support me through life’s ups and downs, and laugh when I laughed and cried when I cried, and listen when I talked, and hug me tightly until even my shit days were good days because we were together.” I was joking… a little. Exaggerating butnot.
“Wow. Tall order.”
I sighed again. I was a being comprised of nothing but sighs… and cheeseburger. “And we were gonna have epic sex all the time and have genius babies together too.”
Dare raised an eyebrow and peered down at me. “If you thought the epic sex was gonna lead to the genius babies, we need to talk.”
“Shutup,” I commanded, poking him in the side. “Let me have this sadness.”
Dare’s expression turned serious. “Brian, babe, what did I tell you when you had the blind date with the mechanic from Rushton?”
“That I shouldn’t put out for discounted oil changes?”
“Yes, but theotherthing.”
“That I didn’t really know him,” I recited dully. “That I was trying to fit a guy into my fairy tale, rather thanbuildinga story with my guy.”
I didn’t totally get the difference, but whatever.
