Page 37 of The Sharpest Edges

Biologically, he still could. Emotionally, he never wanted to subject a child to the temper that runs deep in his family’s blood and that won’t change.

“I see nothing wrong with your genes,” she says while stealing a few of his cheddar popcorns.

“You ain’t looked deep enough yet.”

She furrows her brows, waiting for him to continue.

“My old man was a shit person, is all. Bad temper. Violent. That kinda thing gets passed down. Wouldn’t want a kid to grow up like I did.”

“Oh. My husband, he was…like that, too. Shit person is putting it kindly.”

Her husband hurt her and if he wasn’t already dead, Dean would send him down to hell himself. “Fuck ‘em both then.”

She huffs. “Yeah.”

Everything is too heavy now, and he searches for something that doesn’t have anything to do with the husband she didn’t like, the child she lost, or the kids he never had. “Hey, you ever get that car fixed? Still leakin’?”

If anything, she looks even sadder for a split second. “It’s still burning a hole through the concrete.”

“Can take a look at it for ya now that I’m out. Maybe this weekend?” That prompts a genuine smile, and he finally feels like he did something right.

“Okay. I can hand you tools and provide iced tea. It’s a date.”

He worries his fingers against the paper of his popcorn bag, glancing at the dusting of barely there constellations across her collarbone illuminated by twinkle lights strung up in the trees. He should be excited that he has another reason to see her again, and he will be later, but all he can think of right nowis how much he wants to kiss her. How soft her lips look and how she seems to be waiting for him to lean in and do just that.

His palms are sweaty and his heart races but he steels his courage, remembering that he’s already kissed her before she didn’t push him back then. She is still here.

The barest hint of a smile edges up the corners of her mouth as she waits, her attention drifting down to his lips in encouragement. When he begins to close the distance between them, she meets him halfway, removing the pressure to complete that journey alone. She tastes sweet and icy, like mint popcorn. Her tongue traces the seam of his lips until he parts them for her, allowing her in for an easy, gentle swoop before she retreats again.

He goes for her bottom lip like he had the last time because it’s so damn tempting, soft and plump, and right there waiting for him. He captures it between his lips, holding a moment before giving her a light suck, and receives a sharp inhale into his mouth for his efforts.

When they part it’s only for a moment, noses nestling and the air from their lungs mingling before he goes in for another, one hand shifting up the side of her arm and back down again to settle on her elbow, her fingers tickling the back of his neck to create a sizzle that travels up his scalp.

He is kissing a woman on a public park bench, something so out of his comfort zone he could never imagine it before and yet it’s the most natural thing with her.

The tips of her fingers run a reverent pass over her lips when he leans away, and then her shoulder finds his, prompting his arm to lift and tuck her in against his side. They spend the rest of the evening people-watching and touching in ways thatskirt the line of innocence. Their fingers lace together, tracing lines across palm. Her breath ghosts his neck where she curls into him, her foot rubbing up his calf while he glides a slow pass over her back with a light touch.

When he takes her home half an hour later, they part ways quickly, as if they’re both afraid of going too far in this type of setting, when there’s easy access to the inside of a house and a soft bed. He is anxious about pleasing her with only sparse, drunken experiences to fall back on, and even more anxious about her seeing the scars covering his body in a more intimate setting instead of under the harsh lights of the prison.

He wrestles with the option of inviting her over, anyway. She could leave her car in this parking garage and drive back with him, as if the logistics are anything to be concerned about, but his pause of uncertainty prompts the same in her, and the anxiety he feels mirrors across her face.

“See you this weekend,” he says, taking the easy way out.

“This weekend. I’ll text you my address.”

They don’t kiss again, but she gives him the best smile he’s ever seen and tells him she’s looking forward to watching him crawl under her car and then she’s gone. He already misses her all over again.

He sends her that flower via text the next time he stops at a red light, not bothering to wait until he gets home.

16

Chapter 16

One thing Ava has learned about Dean over the last three days is that he doesn’t follow common dating practices. At least not the ones that she’s pretty sure have become normal since the last time she dated anyone. Which was forever ago, when she was fresh out of nursing school and dating John. She knows that when it comes to ‘courting’ or whatever they call it now, men have a way of blowing hot and cold.

Showing interest one second and falling off the face of the earth the next.

Even in the beginning, when she first met John, he did it too. Her mother, her friends, they all said that she needed to be patient, that men didn’t like a clingy woman, and she was expecting too much to assume he’d respond to her phone calls or not be late for half their dates.

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