Page 32 of Crossing Paths
Norah realized she was shaking her head and forced herself to stop. All she had to do was explainreasonablywhy what he was asking her to do was impossible, and he’d drop it. “Just the once, so she’s still pretty much a stranger…so no. I don’t…I mean…especially Chloe. She’s so… She’s confident and in aband, with tattoos, and she walks shelter dogs in her free time, with that great hair… I. Can’t. No. Just can’t. Impossible.”
His lips tightened in an obvious attempt to hold back a smile at her horrified ramblings, but Norah didn’t care. As long as he didn’t make her strike up a conversation with someone who seemed infinitely too badass and awesome and girl-crush-worthy as Chloe Ballister, he could laugh all he wanted.
“Why don’tyouapproach her?” Norah asked, even as her stomach twisted at the thought of dangling Dash in front of Chloe like delicious, delicious bait. “You can borrow my dog.”
She didn’t realize it was possible to scoff with a grunt, but somehow Dash managed. “She wouldn’t talk tome.”
It was Norah’s turn to give him a disbelieving look. “Of course she would. A hot guy with a cute dog? She’d be much more likely to talk to you than me.”
He paused, and she had a hard time reading his expression as he flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You think I’m hot?”
For some reason, her face was heating up, and she knew she was blushing. Unwilling to meet his gaze if he glanced at her, she stared through the windshield, her back poker straight. “Of course I do. I mean, you’re objectively attractive. I’m not giving you an emotion-based compliment. It’s just a fact.” As hard as she tried to keep her voice steady and her words clinically cool, she felt herself growing more and more flustered until she finally shut her mouth.
Dash seemed to take pity on her and resumed the less-embarrassing portion of their conversation. “If I approach Chloe, she’s going to be either annoyed or scared.”
“What?” The absurdity of that made her forget her earlier awkwardness and turn her head to face him again. “First of all, Chloe doesn’t get scared.”
He actually laughed—if you could call the rusty coughing sound he made a laugh. “How do you know? Of course she gets scared. Everyone does. And I’m a scary guy.”
“Not Chloe.” Norah set her chin in a stubborn tilt. “She sat next to a stranger at Chico’s.She sang in front of a huge crowd atDutch’s. There’s no way she’d be scared, especially of you.” She wasn’t sure why he’d called himself scary. Even the first time she’d met him, she hadn’t been afraid of him, and she was the biggest scaredy-cat she knew. The only thing she’d felt whenshe’d first seen Dash was reassurance and safety.
“Fine.” She was pretty sure he would’ve rolled his eyes if he did that sort of thing. “Let’s say she wouldn’t be scared. She’d definitely beannoyed.”
“Why?” Norah couldn’t fathom being annoyed if Dash approached her, especially if he had Warrant, the most adorable dog in the universe, in tow.
“Weren’t you annoyed when Tucker approached you at the gym?”
“Tucker?” She drew a blank. The only person besides Dash she knew from the gym was Davies, and she only knew his name because Dash had shouted it.
“The ‘objectively attractive’ man who hit on you after your session last week until I sent him to work on his side kicks.” His description held more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Oh!” That last part rang a bell. “The obstacle.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” She definitely didn’t want to explain that the only way she was able to walk through the crowded gym was to pretend all the other people were obstacles on her hunt for her Dash-shaped prize.
“My point is that you thought he was annoying, right?”
“Well, yes,” she had to admit. “But he wasn’tyou.”
His huff of laughter sounded like he couldn’t decide whether to be exasperated or amused. “Very few people share your reaction to me.”
She twitched her shoulders in a shrug. “You’re just trying to get out of talking to Chloe.”
“So are you.”
“Well, yes.” When he laughed again, she gave a reluctant smile. “Why don’t we see if one of my sisters will talk to Chloe? They’re both good at chatting with strangers.”
“Fine.” He pulled his SUV up to the curb in front of her house. “But I think you’re wrong about her not wanting to talk to you. I bet you could be friends.”
Just like the first time he’d suggested it, the thought of initiating a conversation with the extremely awesome-seeming—despite her potentially terrible taste in past friends—Chloe made Norah’s brain freeze with panic. All she could manage to stumble out was, “No, I…she…no.”
The mortifying thought of approaching Chloe kept her locked in her thoughts until her door opened and Dash’s smug expression unfroze her.
“If you want to be protective,” she said, getting out of the SUV, “you’d protect me from terrifying hypothetical encounters with almost strangers I’m supposed to somehow befriend.”
He coughed another rusty laugh before escorting her toward her front door with his hand on her back. “She’d love you. I don’t know how you don’t see it.”
