Page 71 of Falling Into Forever
Why are my emotions on steroids now? Once the floodgates opened, they obliterated the dam that held them in check.
“I think I liked it better when you were an asshole,” I say.
“Oh, Sass. I’m still an asshole.” He chuckles, then hardens his tone when someone clears their throat. “But I’ll always be a better friend.”
“Am I interrupting?” Dante’s voice covers me like an electric blanket. I’m suddenly too warm, too overloaded with sensations, too—alive.
“Always,” Grady growls, but there’s a sliver of humor on his face when he winks. I laugh and turn toward Dante.
“No, you’re not interrupting. Grady is just being a good friend. But I’ve hit my limit with peopling tonight. I’m going to head out.”
Dante’s expression falls blank. “I’m only here for you, Oscar. If you’re leaving, then so am I.”
Grady chuckles. “Only he could get away with calling you Oscar and keep his balls intact. Remember what I said, Sass.” He turns his head and lowers his voice so only I can hear him. “Let him try.”
Rolling my eyes so hard they ache, I peer around Dante to the poker table and find all the men watching us. When they catch me glaring at them, they immediately turn their heads every way but mine. And they say women are the ones who gossip the most. I snort. Apparently, they’ve never met the men of Hope Hollow.
“What about poker?” I ask.
Dante aims his scowl in Grady’s direction. “It’s not poker. It’s more of a therapy session, and my time ran out.”
Grady shrugs. “It is poker, but you had to pass inspection first.”
“Did I pass?” Dante’s cute when he’s nervous. He pushes his hands deep into the pockets of his shorts and rocks on his heels. He wants to be here—it shows in his open expression that reads like a book. He wants to belong, just like he did at fifteen.
Grady assesses him with cool indifference. “Remains to be seen.” He tilts his head in my direction. The unsaid words speak volumes.It depends on how we proceed.
Dante nods his head but takes my hand in his. “Ready to go home?”
Home.
The contact of skin on skin sends an electric current running through my body. It sizzles and crackles the air between us, and for better or worse, I couldn’t turn back now, even if I wanted to. I hope my therapist is ready for me because this path I’m choosing is covered with thorns and buried in memories I’ve spent years trying to forget.
* * *
Crickets chirpingover the waves licking the shore are the soundtrack to the multitude of fears spiraling in my mind on the walk home.
Dante also seems lost in his head, and I can’t stop myself from checking on him out of the corner of my eye. What the hell did the guys do to him?
We arrive at the back door of my house, which has a private staircase leading to the apartment upstairs so we don’t have to go through the bookstore.
I remove the keys from my purse, but Dante takes them from my hand and unlocks the door. Anxiety creeps up my spine and lodges itself in my throat when he still doesn’t say anything. Is he rethinking our…situationship? Did the guys warn him away from me and my…issues? That’s what I’d do, isn’t it?
There are fourteen steps to the top, I’ve counted them every day since I was a kid. Tonight, each one makes my muscles burn and my heart hammer inside my chest, but it’s not from the physical exertion—it’s the mental one. What happens now? What happens tomorrow? When will he leave me and go back to California? Will he come back?
He holds the door open, and I enter the apartment first. Then the door swishes closed with a near-silent click, but I don’t hear Dante’s footsteps.Did he leave?Tiny dots litter my vision, and sweat gathers on my upper lip.
It’s terrifying how much I want him to be here and how quickly he’s secured himself in my life. I turn slowly with dread weighing down my limbs, only to find him leaning against the door with a boyish smile that makes his dimples pop and his eyes glow in the moonlight.
“I’ve missed you,” he says.
I release a breath so deep I’m sure it reaches him across the room. “We were only apart for an hour.”
I grab the pendant around my neck, the one I made from my sister’s engagement ring, and twist it back and forth on the chain. I had her diamond cut into smaller ones and the jeweler created two beautiful stars out of it. One for me and one for Ainsley. I had them set mine so it appears to float in a thick ring of platinum. Ainsley kept hers small, and she wears the delicate star like I wear mine—as a connection to a life once filled with love.
Dante was right about the dates, though. They’re etched into the precious metal circle that gives me something to hold on to when I feel like I’m drowning.
He shakes his head. “I would dream about you.” His slow, measured steps do nothing to ease the erratic thump of my pulse. “And then I’d wake up with a hard-on so painful I had to count to ten before I could walk.” His voice grows raspy. “But that was nothing compared to the pain of realizing I didn’t have you. It was like losing you over and over again.”
