Page 50 of Shy Girl
And I’d wasted all that time.
An hour later, her bedroom door clicked open.
I stood up from where I sat on a wicker couch full of overstuffed pillows. Dagny stepped out in a fluttery sundress the color of an emerald, with a diamond pattern of light green and gray. She wore her glossy hair down past her shoulders, where short sleeves barely capped the top of her arms. Her face looked bronzed from our time in the sand earlier, and my heart did a double beatat the sight of her.
Somehow, in the last hour, I imagined all that had been a dream. The kiss. The fun. The ease of being together. Her touch felt so natural in a world where I’d been trained to keep my distance. Until Dagny’s hand had been in mine, I didn’t realize how thirsty for physical connection I’d become. Seeing her stand before me made it clear that this was no dream.
Or it was the best dream ever.
“Hey,” I said as I stood. A stupid, lopsided smile was on my face, but I couldn’t have taken it off if I wanted to. Vik would have laughed at my less-than-smooth greeting to such a lovely woman. She stood just outside her bedroom, an expression of indecision on her face while she chewed on her bottom lip.
“Ab-bout earlier?”
I nodded to encourage her, but didn’t dare move. Her nostrils flared. She opened her mouth, then closed it again with a perplexed expression. To my surprise, I thought I knew exactly how she felt. I wasn't even ready to go there yet.
“How about we go to the dinner,” I said, “and talk about this later? It was just a kiss, right? Doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Something I couldn’t read flickered through her eyes, then faded. Her shoulders slumped a little, but she gave a little smile.
“Y-yes, p-please. Th-thank you.”
I felt like an idiot as she fidgeted with her fingers, then tried to hide doing so. Did I take it back? Elaborate? No, that made everything worse. What had I been thinking? Only an idiot would say that.
Of course that kiss meantsomething—it meant everything—but she looked so frustrated that I wanted to spare her the agony of getting the words out. The pain of commitment when that wasn’t what she wanted. For all I knew, she only wanted a vacation and couldn’t have cared less about me.
Relieved for an out, I held out my arm. “Then let’s get to the fondue. Thankfully, it’s not my turn to make a toast yet.”
Dagny put her arm through mine and we stepped out of the bungalow to head toward the hotel. The sun hung in a bright blue sky as we joined several other couples making their way across the sand and toward an atrium in the middle of the island.
“S-sand in fl-lip-fl-lops issoannoying,” she muttered. Grains of sand skittered ahead of and behind her as she waded through.
“You can go barefoot, you know. It’s an island. No one cares here.”
She smirked, but it seemed half-hearted. Dagny always struck me as an introverted person, but she’d spoken more than I expected on our trip. I began to wonder if she’d been hiding all this time. A reaction to her speech impediment, or something. Tonight, after playing so much in the sun and enjoying the sound of her voice, the quiet between us seemed all-encompassing.
Even a touch tense.
A few minutes later, we stepped into the hotel atrium.
Everything sparkled, from the glasses on the table to the silverware that looked likeactualsilver. Dagny’s gaze darted from person to person with that keen curiosity she usually had, but never truly indulged through conversation. Waiters bustled around with covered trays or glasses of champagne, and the general air of moneylingered in the room.
It only made me more tense.
Victoria's words when she broke things off with me whispered through my mind far too often.There's just no stability in law enforcement, whether it's time or money. I want someone that can be with me and provide for all the things that I want and need. I don't think you can do that on your salary.
A direct jab to a man's pride, particularly when the backdrop of her life wasthis. To her credit, she'd been right. My world would never collide with this one. For that, I was immensely grateful. No pressure to be and provide something I couldn't in a relationship, but it took coming back to this to realize it.
I held Dagny's arm a bit closer to my side.
“It's l-lovely,” she said quietly.
“A bit much, if you ask me.”
She smiled a little, but didn't disagree. Several long tables filled the room with their white tablecloths and elegant arrays of flowers in the middle. A sideboard across the room dripped with platters of hors d'oeuvres near which a few people mingled. Waiters swished in and out of the kitchen, bringing more food to people in the crowd.
“Wh-what would you p-prefer to this?” she asked.
“A beer at the Diner.”
