I burst into laughter, the sound spilling out before I can stop it, breaking whatever that was before it can turn into something else.
I try to speak, but it comes out in broken sounds, and when I take a sip of my beer, it goes straight up my nose.
“Oh my God…” I cough, laughing harder, clutching my face.
Dex stares at me for half a second.
Then he loses it.
Full-on laughter, head tipped back, shoulders shaking, the sound filling the room in a way I’ve never heard from him before.
My laughter fades as I watch him.
Really watch him.
The strength in him is still there, the presence that demands attention without trying, but like this, open and unguarded, it doesn’t feel intimidating.
It feels… safe.
Like stepping closer wouldn’t mean losing myself.
Like his arms would be something to lean into, not something to fear.
He looks back at me, catching me staring.
“You…” he tries, failing through a grin. “You just…”
“I know,” I laugh again, shaking my head.
And for the first time since I met him, since all of this started and I wrote him off as the biggest asshole…
Being close to him doesn’t feel like something I need to fight.
It feels like something I might actually want.
CHAPTER 19
Dexter
I head downstairs, the familiar creak of the steps grounding me before I even reach the bar, a sound that used to blend into the background but now feels sharper after days of quiet.
The storm is finally over.
Four days of nothing but snow piling up against the windows, the world outside buried and cut off, followed by two slow days of thaw where the roads started to show again, where people tested movement like they didn’t quite trust it yet. And now, this morning, the sky has opened into clear blue like none of it ever happened.
And today, we’re opening again.
It should feel like a relief.
It doesn’t.
I step inside and already know what I’ll find.
Lexy’s behind the counter, setting out napkins with that same focused look she gets when she’s trying to stay inside her own head, and the sunlight pouring through the front windows catches her just right, turning her blonde hair almost whitewhere it hits, like something softer has slipped into this place without asking.
I slow without meaning to.
There’s that feeling again, the one I’ve been trying to ignore ever since she walked in here asking for a job, only now it’s heavier, harder to brush off after being stuck upstairs with her for days, after getting used to the quiet of just the two of us moving around each other like it wasn’t temporary.
