I told him the same thing I had when he’d argued that he could stay with his grandparents, or that he could stay with my parents. “Nope.” But I did tell him something I hadn’t before. “Dean is going to be there.”
That wiped the frown off his face just enough. “He is?”
“Yes. Trip texted me and asked if you were going.”
His response was a grunt that I chose to ignore.
“All right, let’s go, gangsters.”
Louie hopped to his feet. “Okay, gangster.”
Grabbing my purse and Ginny’s gift, I corralled the boys outside, trying to balance everything under my armpits as I made Louie lock the door behind us. Josh was already at the back passenger door of the SUV when I heard, “Diana!”
I couldn’t help but smile as I turned in the direction of the person yelling. Not “the person.” Dallas. Sure enough, striding across the street in the way that only someone so tall with his kind of confidence was capable of, was my neighbor looking better than ever. And that was saying something since I’d seen him shirtless. In charcoal gray dress pants, a white shirt, and lavender tie, he was the best-looking man I’d ever seen.
Coming toward me.
Smiling.
Who said he was in love with me.
And looking at me with this focus that almost made me break out in a sweat. He’d shaved recently, his facial hair more of a five o’clock shadow than the neat beard he usually kept.
“Hi, Professor” I called out to him as he took a step onto the sidewalk directly in front of my house.
“You mean Coach,” Josh suggested.
I shook my head, still watching my neighbor. “No, I meant Professor.”
Dallas must have heard us because I spotted him smirking and shaking his head.
Louie immediately asked, “Are you coming with us?”
Dallas touched Josh on the back of the shoulder as he approached us, one of his hands extended out toward me. He took the gift from under my arm as he answered, “If you guys don’t mind.”
Like I would ever mind.
“Come with us!” Louie agreed.
“I don’t care,” Josh added.
I swallowed the knot in my throat as Dallas leaned forward and kissed my cheek for one brief moment that would be etched into my memory forever and ever even as Josh made a gagging noise. “Of course you can.” I gave the keys a jiggle. “Want to drive?”
He looked me right in the eye as he took the keys. “Tell me how to get there, Peach.”
* * *
I’d beento a lot of weddings in my life—my parents used to drag me to every single one they ever went to when I was a kid—but even if I hadn’t known Ginny, I would have thought it was the most beautiful wedding I’d ever been to. There was a reason why she’d been so tight with money for so long. She’d splurged. A lot. But as I sat in the banquet hall following the ceremony, which had taken place in another section of the facility, I had a feeling she was going to have zero regrets about all the struggling she’d put herself through. Gin was beaming. Her happiness was like a light at the end of a dark tunnel.
It made my heart swell. I hadn’t known Ginny back when she’d been with her ex, but I’d heard why they split up. They’d both been young, and by the time they decided to go their own way, they were completely different people. No shit. You weren’t the same person you were at seventeen that you were at thirty-three.
I thought about Trip and Dallas’s dislike of her new husband—of why they felt the way that they felt—but all I could think to myself was that, if she could be so happy with someone who had “been around the block” a few times, what did it matter what someone had done before you? No one ever succeeded at anything on the first try.
“Saving your first dance for me?”
I blinked from the empty plate of food in front of me and gazed at the man standing beside my chair. I smiled at Trip. “You dance?”
“You bet your ass I do. Come on.” He flexed his fingers at me in an invitation. There was a slow country song playing through the speakers, following the couple’s first dance.
