Page 43 of One More Shot
He goes quiet, the smile wiped off his face, and I can practically see the gears in his brain working overtime as he scrambles for a way to respond.
‘Honestly?’
I nod and bump his shoulder with mine. The touch sends that same warmth shooting through me again. ‘Honestly.’
Dane shrugs and he’s not blushing exactly, but there’s something about the expression on his face. Something I can’t quite place. ‘Maybe I just don’t want to share you with anyone else?’
His response is equal parts evasive and flirtatious – very much the Dane I’ve come to know over the last few weeks. But there’s something else to it. A rare air of vulnerability there. Like I’ve finally caught him with his walls down and he’s not quite sure how to proceed, so he’s trying to mask it with a joke that’s not entirely untrue.
I don’t know what to say in response, so I don’t say anything. But I do smile.
And then he smiles back and the urge to run and grab my camera and capture this moment – Dane, grinning widely, the setting sun around us making his skin glow even more than usual – is so strong, it startles me.
Chapter FifteenELIOTT
When the final Friday rolls around and Dane puts the finishing touches on Nan’s patio, I can’t even pretend like I’m happy about it.
I realise, as I watch Nan shuffle around her newly repaired patio inspecting every inch of it with eagle eyes, that I’ve started to look forward to our Friday evenings together.
They’ve somehow become the only pocket of time I have where I don’t have to worry about anything at all. It’s like Dane has neatly slotted himself into this gap in my life I didn’t even realise was there. I don’t have to think twice when it comes to him. There’s nothing niggling at the back of my mind. No work. No family. No crisis that’s just waiting on the periphery, ready to break and consume my thoughts.
‘A job well done,’ Nan says after her third full inspection of the patio. There’s a soft smile tugging at her lips, and I know she’s more pleased than she wants to let on. I can’timagine how frustrating it’s been for her to have her garden inaccessible for so long, and I feel a pulse of guilt for not having sorted it out sooner. ‘Thank you, Dane.’
‘It’s been my pleasure, Gloria.’
I’m not sure when Nan and Dane got on first-name terms, but it’s weird. Nan was a teacher back in the day and I’ve seen her scold adults twice my age for assuming familiarity and using her first name, but she doesn’t seem to mind when it comes to Dane.
‘Stay for dinner,’ Nan orders as she climbs back up the garden steps and into the house.
Dane opens his mouth to, I assume, politely decline, just like he’s done every Friday for the last five weeks, but I get there first.
‘Yeah.’ I lean against the doorframe as casually as I can. ‘You should stay. Unless—’
‘No “unless”,’ Nan scoffs. ‘He’s staying.’ She leaves no room for argument and shuffles back inside the kitchen.
As soon as she’s out of sight, Dane raises a brow. ‘Unless?’
‘Unless you’ve got somewhere else to be?’ I say with a shrug. I jog down the steps and come to sit by his side on the patio. ‘It’s your first free Friday night in over a month. I don’t want to assume.’
I’m fishing.
He knows it. I know it. Hell, if Nan was still listening in, she’d know it too.
A laugh rumbles out of him. It’s deep, like rolling thunder, and settles in the depths of my chest. ‘Somewhere?’
‘Sure,’ I laugh with him. ‘You’ve got your Friday nights free again. The legions of women lining up to date you can resume their regularly scheduled programming.’
‘Aline?’ he snorts, clearly amused. ‘There’s no line, Eliott.’
I find that hard to believe. ‘Maybe not a physical line, but—’
‘There’s not a line right now, anyway,’ Dane says firmly. He glances at me as he says it and then looks away.
‘You’re off the market?’ I ask. He’s not mentioned a girlfriend, but I suppose I haven’t asked. Despite the rampant flirting, love and dating have been the only topics we’ve both seemed to mutually agree to avoid over the last month.
But the month is over now and I can’t pretend like I haven’t developed a kind of morbid curiosity about Dane’s love life. He seems the type to always to have a date lined up and, now that I’m done monopolising his Friday, I expect him to get right back into it. Even if the thought of it does irritate me for reasons I’d rather not dwell on right now.
For a moment, the mask slips and the expression on his face is one I’m not used to. He looks almost…hurt. The moment is fleeting and his trademark grin is back up so fast, I almost wonder if it ever disappeared. ‘No. And that’s not happening anytime soon.’
