But before I can even scoop up a mouthful, the front door creaks, then slams. The floor shakes from heavy footfalls.
Dan charges into the kitchen, then freezes, standing stock-still on the checkered linoleum.
We stare at each other silently for entirely too long. I can hear my parents’ old grandfather clock ticking in the living room. I can hear the birds in the yard. I can practically hear my hair growing, it’s so silent in this kitchen.
But I can’t look away from him.
He’s wearing another pair of slutty little shorts, these meant for the gym, and a long-sleeved athletic shirt. It stretches across his chest and molds to his arms and shoulders like oil paint on a canvas and makes me wonder about the other tattoos he alluded to last night. His legs are thick and muscled (no tattoos there), and the smell of him, sweaty and metallic, somehow doesn’t turn my stomach.
I must still be drunk, because he smells so good that I want to lick him.
Lord, I don’t need togetfucked, Iamfucked.
“Thanks for the ride,” I bark out, like saying the words will keep me from crawling across the floor on my hands and knees and rubbing against him like a cat. “In the car, I mean. The ride in the car. And the ibuprofen.”
Dan just nods, dropping his gym bag on the floor and making his way to the sink to mix up a protein shake. I watch him run the faucet, measure out the powder, shake the cup. I brace for him to march silently out of the kitchen, never to speak to me again. I certainly deserve it after last night’s little performance. Dan is aperson who says virtually nothing, and I went and drunkenly saideverything.
But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he brings his protein shake over to the table, uses his foot to push back the chair beside mine, and drops down into it. The spicy, salty smell of him wafts over me, overpowering the sugary smell of the Lucky Charms.
His eyes drop to my cereal box.
“Do you want some? I can get you a bowl,” I say, but he shakes his head.
He may be sitting, but he’s not talking.
And suddenly I can’t take it anymore. Everything that happened last night is starting to fizz inside me like the volcanos I make with my kindergarteners. All of it just bubbling and climbing and trying desperately to get out. And lord knows I’ve never been good at keeping things in.
So my mouth opens.
“I’m sorry about last night. About texting you for a ride. And being drunk. Oh mygod, so drunk. And the talking,” I say, then swallow hard. “Thetalking. Ugh, I’m so sorry. I never should have said…any of that. I should have just kept my mouth shut, though that certainly would have been a first. I should probably do that now too, in fact. And I will try hard to do it for as long as you’re forced to say here.”
I practically bite the tip of my tongue off to stop myself from babbling even more. I turn my gaze to my bowl of cereal, which is rapidly growing soggy, and spoon a bite into my mouth.
Dan clears his throat.
“First of all, you don’t need to be sorry about the ride. I told you to call me if you needed me.” He takes a long gulp of his protein shake, then sets the cup down on the table with such force that I feel the thud in my chest. His voice is low and steady with just a hint of a growl beneath it. If I weren’t in the middle of some serious existential dread, I might find it sexy. “And as for everything else?—”
I immediately drop my spoon, sending it splashing into themilk, and wave him off like air traffic control trying to abort a landing. “Please, no. Let’s not?—”
“It’s fine, Carson,” he says. His voice races through my body like I’m sitting on a speaker, and the sound of him saying my name is freakingdelicious.God, this is quickly becoming a five-alarm, Harry Styles–level teenage crush. I feel like I’m seconds away from doodling Dan’s name in a notebook or hanging his photo on the inside of my closet door.
“I appreciate you saying that, but still,” I say. “I’m deeply embarrassed by what I said last night.”
He’s quiet for a beat, and I wonder if he’s already used up his daily allotment of words.
“Why?” he asks finally.
Oh man, I wish hewereout of words, because how do I even answer that?
“Seriously?”
Dan shrugs.
Is this a dream? Surely it is. Because only in a dream would Dan McBride say this many words in a row to me. Only in a dream would his tone possibly, maybe,potentiallybe…inviting, as if my little exclamation in the car wasn’t totally unwanted.
No. Noway.
Still, I should check. So I try a little verbal pinch to see if I wake up.
