Dean bopped our hands against his knee. “You should be real-er with me.”
“That’s not a word.”
His mouth twitched. “It should be a word. We’re not playing Scrabble. Basically, I want to know what you’re thinking. Like, I guess I want to know what it is about me that’s giving you doubts. Unless it’s my looks or my personality. Then maybe don’t tell me.”
I buried my face into the side of his arm, rubbing my nose across the curves of his muscles before settling there. “I’m a big fan of your looks and your personality. But Dean, I’ve never seen you commit to a woman longer than a month or two. The cavewoman part of me is happy about that. But mostly, it just makes me think this won’t work.”
I felt his fingers softly weave their way through the back of my hair. “Sometimes a business idea fails, and no one knows why. There’s a ton of enthusiasm, the marketing is on point, and the items are high quality. But it just bombs. Customers don’t show, no matter what they do. Relationships are different, though. It will work because we’ll choose to make it work. We don’t need it to work for anyone else. Just us. Well, us and Piper.”
“Us and Piper,” I repeated.
“You’re not wrong about me, though. I’ve never felt the way I feel about you with anyone else. And now that I’ve said that, I almost want to take it back.”
Because I might not accept it. I should have reassured him, but instead I froze, and I knew he could feel the tension filling my body because he stopped playing with my hair and sighed. He deserved better than this. He deserved better than me.
“Grace.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you need right now? You can worry about the what-ifs later when you’re supposed to be sleeping.”
Ah, insomnia, my old friend. He wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t want to make this about me. “What do you want to do?” I asked. I made the mistake of looking up at him, and I knew exactly what he wanted to do. The answer was in his gaze, and probably mine. He wanted to kiss me, and then I’d kiss him back and soon I’d forget my own name.
He broke the moment with a smile. “Why don’t we play with my golf simulator. It’s down in my gym. We’ll blast some music and hit some pretend golf balls.”
“Um, okay.”
He stood up and reached out his hands to pull me to my feet. “We’re going to be buddies right now, Grace. Until you want to be more. And in the meantime, I’m going to woo you.”
“Woo me?”
“Yeah. It’s like seduction, but better. Because I don’t just want your body. I want your mind and heart in tune with mine. I want you to love me so much you’ll never let me go. And until then, maybe we should stay away from dragon-shifting reenactment.” He grinned at the look on my face in response to that, and then led the way to his basement with a loose hold on my hand.
Chapter 30 – Dean
My wooing plan was going about as well as you could expect when the woman you loved was terrified of relationships and feared making life-altering decisions.
I hadn’t kissed Grace in almost six weeks. Not a real kiss, anyway, one where time stopped and the earth opened up and swallowed us whole. I had kissed her cheeks, her nose, her forehead. But I hadn’t spent more than a few seconds on her lips because I didn’t want to scare her away. Yeah, I thought about it way more than was healthy.
Being her friend was so great, because it meant spending uncomplicated time together. We had been to a few more GoWithFriends outings and given each other a hard time on the app. At least once a week, we played Jackbox games until late with Charlie and Olivia from our respective houses. I was even helping Grace coach Piper’s basketball team. But I couldn’t lie and say it didn’t hurt a little, too. Everyone wants to think they’re irresistible. I was definitely resistible. At least, for now.
On this particular Saturday, I hurried out of my car and ran into the gymnasium, blinking at the sudden shift from blinding brightness to indoor lighting. Once I could see, I spotted Grace standing across the gym floor, surrounded by tiny basketballplayers, some listening to her expectantly and some paying no attention whatsoever.
She wore a whistle around her neck, a light gray coaching t-shirt, and black jogger shorts made for the sole purpose of making me lose my mind.Love me, woman.My thoughts were often in growl form these days.
I jogged over and joined the huddle to listen to the pregame instructions. No one noticed me until Piper darted across the circle to slap my hand. Grace stopped midsentence and took in what I was wearing. I’d traded my generic coaching shirt the league gave out for one I had specially made.
ASSISTANT COACH
Come see me for:
The post-game snack schedule
High fives
How much time is left
The score
