Page 27 of The Perfect Catch

I let my mind open to the creativity that, for some reason, I locked up more often than I should have. I scrolled through a mental lineup of Halloween ideas—witches, ghosts, skeletons—but none of them seemed like something I wanted to tackle.

A quick glance at the clock showed we had about ninety minutes until we had to be ready for dinner. Luckily, we were out in my stepdad’s garage—or man cave, as he liked to call it—so we wouldn’t be in the way of my mom and her friend preparing the food for our Spooky Dinner before the dance.

Resting a hand on my hip, I tipped my head back to look at him. “What if we do some kind of superhero? We can paint on the shirt and then accent it with the glow sticks.”

“That sounds pretty awesome, but I’d be willing to dress up as a unicorn if that’s what you wanted.” His smirk opened the cage of butterflies in my stomach. “But only because it’s you.” Something about his words was more tender, more real than the joking from before.

A few seconds passed, and I broke my gaze away from him. “Superheroes it is. Who is your favorite superhero?”

“Captain America.” Dax did a slow head bob, his lips scrunched, trying to look more intense than he actually was.

“What? Not Thor or Superman?” I asked, opening a bottle of glow-in-the-dark paint.

Dax’s hand touched the back of mine, and I paused, a quick bolt of electricity passing between us. “I know I don’t look like I’m into comics or anything, but we have to get one thing straight. Captain America and Thor are from Marvel Comics. Superman is from DC Comics.”

“Okay,” I said, letting my voice trail off. I smiled wider as I saw how adamant he was about teaching me this one thing. Kind of how he was when he explained math.

“Two different universes. But Superman would be my choice from DC.” He laughed, the sound hearty and filling. “What about you? Who are you going to be?”

I tapped the dry sponge paintbrush against my lips, trying to remember some of them. “I could be Wonder Woman. Or there are some others, but I can’t think of them right now.”

Dax leaned back, holding up his hand. “Black Widow, The Wasp. Yeah, I can’t remember either.” We both laughed at that.

“I think I’ll stick with Wonder Woman. Do you want to pull up a picture of the logos on your phone? That will help us with designing the shirt.”

As he scrolled through his phone, punching in things, he said, “When you say us, you really mean you, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, glancing his way as I squeezed a small dot of paint onto a paper plate. Not the tools I used for the more delicate art pieces I worked with, but then again, not having to clean the paint board and brushes was going to be nice. I’d just have to be really precise with the brushes I was using.

“Believe me, if you want people to even remotely recognize the character I am, you’ll paint mine too.” He set his phone down on the table, and a Wonder Woman logo stared at me from the screen.

I leaned in closer to him, raising my pointer finger and waving it back and forth at him. “I don’t care if they can recognize it or not. That’s the fun of this,” I said, waving my hand over the materials on the table. The light in there wasn’t the best, even during the later afternoon, and shadows passed over Dax’s face.

“I’m not joking when I say I’m not good at anything creative. Machines, math, baseball…that about covers my abilities.”

I stared at him and realized the emotions playing on his face were supposed to cover the nerves I could see every once in a while.

I leaned forward, resting my hand on his upper arm, trying to focus on the words I was supposed to use to encourage him instead of the strong muscle beneath my hand.

“Dax, really. Just try it. I’m not making you dress up like a unicorn, but I am making you paint your own shirt.”

His expression fell, and he picked up a brush. He slowly dipped it into the paint and froze as he stared at the shirt again.

Fear of failure. I definitely knew that look from all the times I froze over things. Like math, and an important test. Or having to meet the world at one of my mom’s parties.

Taking a step behind him, I placed my hand on his wrist, the touch pulling him out of the trance. “How about I help you at the beginning?”

The piercing gaze of his dark-brown irises caused me to swallow hard for a moment as the tension built between us. For a moment, I thought maybe he was the one who’d kissed me last spring. But after all the time we’d spent together, he would have said something about it, right? The ego he showed the rest of the world would have spilled the beans. For some reason, it didn’t quite fit him, and I shook it off.

He nodded and glanced back at the shirt.

Oh boy, what had I been thinking to ask him to the dance? There were too many emotions swirling through me right now. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up wishing I’d never given him the chance in the first place.

Chapter 19

Dax

Seeing the determination in Kate’s eyes to have me paint my own t-shirt, plus the added pressure of her soft fingers around my wrist, caused my heart to beat rapidly against my rib cage. I’d never had these emotions running through me before, and the light pink of her lips kept drawing my eyes down, wanting to repeat what happened last spring.

---