Page 61 of Hard to Lose

She shouts but not in the way I expected. Instead, she twirls around with her hands out much like she did on our first date, laughing like a loon.

“Dance with me,” she urges.

“Why?” I laugh.

“Because from here on out, every time it rains, you’ll stop and think of me.”

She’s absolutely fucking right. I’ll never feel a raindrop again without thinking of this moment, right now. Of her sexy smile and her wild eyes.

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Yes.” She grabs my hand and laughs. “Can you hear it?” she asks and holds her hand to her ear. When I close my eyes, I can barely hear Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” from the speakers still playing at the bar. “C’mon.”

And so we dance.

Body to body, as the warm summer thundershower comes down around us.

With fields of daisies on either side of us.

And something definitely growing between us.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Chase

The ringing of my cell jolts me awake, causing my laptop to fall off my legs and onto the bed. It takes me a second to orient myself and find my phone where it fell between the two pillows I’m currently propped up on.

I look at the screen and sigh in relief that it’s not my dad or sisters. Everyone is okay and the worrywart in me can breathe a little easier.

But it is Gunner. The same Gunner who should be at work right now. Because it’s one in the morning.

“Hey. Is everything okay?”

His masculine chuckle greets my ears and I allow myself to melt into the pillows at its sound.

“I’m good. Everything’s okay. I didn’t mean to startle you. Were you sleeping?”

“No. Yes. I nodded off while I was working.” I have a million questions I want to ask as to why he’s calling, but I do something rare for me. I sit back and wait without questioning.

“I’m at work still, so I can’t talk long, but uh, I never answered you tonight, and I didn’t want you to think I was hiding anything from you.”

“Gunner? What are you talking about?” My mind races over all the questions at Brushes ‘N’ Booze that he answered before returning to our slow dance in the warm, summer storm.

“My love life. You asked about it and I didn’t answer.”

“It’s okay. I haven’t even thought twice about it.” And I haven’t, but now with those words, I wonder what is so important that he’d call me at one in the morning to tell me.

“It’s not okay. You shared and I didn’t.” He pauses. “I don’t have any skeletons in my closet when it comes to my dating life. Like you, I date, but I’ve rarely let anyone get close. I had a lot to deal with after everything that happened over there.”

“Okay.” And I’m sure that a lot to deal with is yet another understatement of how grueling it had to have been to recover from such horrific injuries. Mentally and physically.

“And before I start, full disclosure. I may have had a few drinks of liquid courage in order to make this call.”

“Liquid courage is sometimes needed,” I murmur, suddenly on edge about whatever he wants to divulge.

“As is a phone call, because to say this face to face is harder.” He emits a nervous chuckle that is so damn endearing.

“Noted.”