Page 72 of The Heartbreaker Next Door

Damon fell into step beside me.

“Look at that,” he said. “Nobody got punched. I’m really growing as a person.”

“Shut up, Damon.”

“I’m just saying. Mom would be proud.”

“It’s amazing how you can make every situation about you,” I shook my head.

Damon grinned proudly. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

24

NO CEREAL AND COW TALK

Felicity

The night air was chilly, the kind of cold that cut clean through the truck window. Dean drove with one hand on the wheel, the other loosely covering mine where it rested in my lap. It felt like a tether, an anchor. The roads were empty and dark, the town’s Founder’s Day banners fluttering along Valentine Boulevard. A few stragglers from the fundraiser were visible in the frosted glow of streetlamps, clutching their to-go dessert plates and laughing into the wind. In the back seat, Maverick was a silent lump, so thoroughly asleep that his face had gone slack and his fingers twitched in little dreams.

We’d blown past the fundraising goal, three thousand above the financial target, a fact that had Gen beaming and hugging me about twenty times, and the mayor promising to buy a round at Cupid’s Arrow for every volunteer. It should have felt triumphant. But instead, as Dean nosed the truck down my drive, the only thing I felt was an emptiness, like someone had reached in and scooped out all my good parts and left the empty shell behind.

Today had been draining. It wasn’t just today, just the four hours that Tanner didn’t bring Mav home. It was the years that Tanner had put me through days and nights of uncertainty, then somehow turned it around on me. It was exhausting.

Having not only Dean beside me, on my team, but also his family, was something I was telling myself not to get used to. This wasn’t anything. Our relationship was somewhere between co-workers-with-benefits and a situationship, and it terrified me how natural it felt. I had to continually remind myself that Dean was a good man. His attraction to me was separate from his character. That was not specific to Maverick or me. I was sure he would do what he’d done for me for anyone in town.

Dean lived his life by the gospel of Vanilla Ice: if there was a problem, yo, he’d solve it. If there wasn’t a problem, give him five minutes, he’d probably find one and he could solve that too. The man had never met a crisis he couldn’t fix. Despite his actions feeling personal to me, they weren’t. I had to remember that.

We pulled to a stop, and before I’d even gotten out of the truck, Dean was easing Maverick from his booster seat, cradling him as if he weighed nothing. He carried him inside with a protective vigilance that made my heart hurt. I trailed behind, carrying my purse, feeling at loose ends. After a lifetime of being the only adult in the house, the only dependable person in any room, I didn’t know how to process someone else carrying my responsibilities—literally and metaphorically. I didn’t know how to let myself want it, much less accept it.

I hovered outside Maverick’s room. Dean laid him down, straightened the twisted sheets, and brushed the hair off Maverick’s forehead in a gesture so gentle I almost burst into tears on the spot. He tucked Deputy Neigh under Mav’s arm, then straightened and stepped out, quietly closing the door behind him.

We walked into the living room together in silence. The house was full of the familiar smells of vanilla candle and clean laundry, and even though I’d lived there for months, it struck me that this was the first time it really felt like home.

Dean’s hands were in his pockets. He’d rolled his sleeves up, and I could see the faint smudge of ink on his forearm where Maverick had given him a “tattoo” earlier. I wanted to reach out and trace it with my thumb.

The silence stretched between us, and suddenly I had no idea what to do with my hands.

Hugging him seemed reasonable.

Kissing him seemed better.

Bursting into tears and make the entire situation horrifying for everyone involved was apparently also on the table.

I shifted my weight, then crossed my arms, mostly to keep my hands from betraying me and reaching for him anyway.

Unfortunately, that did nothing about the rest of my body. My chest felt too tight, my eyes had started doing that dangerous pre-cry sting, and my skin seemed to have shrunk at least two sizes in the last thirty seconds.

I rocked back on my heels and stared at a spot somewhere near his shoulder. Because looking directly at him felt like a gateway drug to making very bad decisions.

I was tired. I wanted to curl up under a mountain of blankets and not move for a week. I also wanted—deeply, unreasonably—for Dean to stay, for his voice and his steadiness to fill the next few hours and maybe the rest of my life. But the only thing I could manage to say was, “I think I’m going to head to bed.”

He nodded, then leaned down to kiss my forehead, the press of his lips was tender and sweet. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He made it one step towards the door and panic rose in me.

Before running it by my brain, my hand shot out, grabbing his wrist. The shock of his skin against mine was electric. “Don’t go,” I breathed, it came out small, almost a plea. “Just…don’t. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

He looked down at my hand, then at my face, searching my eyes. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for or if he found it. But the next thing I knew, Dean’s arms encircled me, pulling me flush against him, not in the hesitant, is-this-okay way of a man uncertain of his welcome, but like he’d been waiting for this precise moment his whole life. His hold tightened around me, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself relax, let my guard down past the polite, past the banter, down to the marrow.

“You don’t have to do it alone.” He paused, settling his hands at my waist. “I’m here. For both of you. For as long as you’ll let me.”