“Hmm.” He studied me, parsing out all the hidden meaning behind my bland answer, or at least, trying to. “Come sit and tell me about it.”
He patted the seat next to him and smiled when Piper added her approval. “Yes, Mommy. Come sit with us.”
I walked over and sat down near where Dean had patted with his hand, adjusting my dress so it almost covered my knees. Shoot, there was one spot I’d missed in shaving. I put my hand over it.
“Did you survive Valentine’s Day?” he asked. “How did you guys do?”
“We had great sales, actually. Thanks to Natalie, social media made a big difference this year. Lots of first-time customers came in for flowers and mentioned seeing her reels.”
“And I sold lots and lots of Valentine’s Day cards,” Piper added. She designed them herself, and they were really cute.
“Do I hear a Piper?” Carmen called out from down the hall. “Uncle Isaac is picking up pizza for us. Come help me get this box out of my closet. It has all my toys from when I was a kid. Do you like Polly Pockets?”
“I love Polly Pockets!” Piper ran off to find Carmen, leaving the two of us sitting together on the couch. Well, not together, together. There was a good six inches between us.
I had not always been this obsessive about my proximity to Dean. Heck, when I met him, I thought he was a shrimpy know-it-all rich kid who talked way too confidently for a fifteen-year-old. I, of course, was so much more mature at seventeen. Our parents had been dating at the time, and the thought of gaining a step-brother was horrifying. But then they broke up and Dean became my little brother’s annoying best friend instead. We gained a godfather in his dad.
And that was the family-friendly box Dean stayed in until… well, until he didn’t fit there anymore. My divorce changed me in so many big ways, but it caused small changes, too. Like how Dean saw me, and how I saw him. On his end, I think he saw someone to worry about.
There had to be a way to let Dean know I was fine now. That I’d moved on from my ex’s rejection of me, and I did not need him to flirt with me as some sort of misguided self-esteem-building exercise.
My mind flitted to Knead against my will. Perfect. Now I was fantasizing about a neck and arm. Tonight had to go well. It just had to. Dean was not an option for me. I could not think of him as boyfriend material. That was just weird.
Plus, charm was just Dean’s default setting. He used it at work, and here, and everywhere else. I would not let him use it on me, even if he couldn’t help himself.
“You look nice, by the way,” Dean murmured.
“Thanks. Where are you headed to?”
“I have a date. I heard you have one, too.”
“It’s a group activity.”
“Well, mine’s a date.” He gazed at me like it was my turn to read into his answer. Nope. Eye contact was a very bad idea with him unless we were glaring at each other.
I smoothed out the hem of my dress instead. “I’m happy for you, Dean. I hope you have an excellent time.”
“What are you doing for your group activity?” he asked.
GoWithFriends had hooked us up with a small dance studio for the night, and Jackson had volunteered to be our DJ. We were basically going clubbing at the most exclusive club ever. The one where you could see everyone in the room, nobody would be drunk and sweaty, and the night ended promptly at ten p.m. Sometimes it scared me how well the algorithm knew me.
“Um, I’m going dancing.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Yep.” I pulled my phone out of my purse to check the time. “I should get going.”
“Me too.”
He stood and held out a hand to help me up. The second our skin touched, I knew I’d have a hard time not thinking about him tonight. I’d love to say my attraction to Dean haddeveloped gradually, but I knew the exact moment things changed for me. He probably barely remembered that night. And thank goodness.
“Bye, Dean.” I reclaimed my hand and hurried around the couch and down the hall to find Carmen and thank her and Isaac for babysitting. Thankfully, by the time I’d given Piper hugs goodbye and walked out, Dean was nowhere in sight.
Chapter 4 – Dean
This was going to be a disaster. Maybe I could be a no-show. Knead, with his fake name and strategically zoomed-in profile photo was totally the type to change his mind about coming in person. It would only confirm what they were already thinking, that I had something to hide, something the vetting process at GoWithFriends didn’t catch.
I should have said something the first day I jumped in the chat and saw Grace’s profile in there. But I was in shock, and once that wore off, I was curious.
