Page 20 of Crossing Paths
“Uh…yeah?” The quick change in conversation made her answer tentative, and she glanced behind her to see what he was looking at. A couple of guys were stretching on nearby mats, but they appeared to be minding their own business.
“Let’s go.” Putting a hand against her back, he ushered her toward the door. “Davies!” he called across the gym.
“Yeah?” a guy responded, using his glove to stop the speed bag he’d been pummeling.
“Going to lunch. Watch the place.” Dash waited for the other man’s nod before grabbing his jacket and Norah’s bag from one of the storage cubbies and using his back to push open the door.
“We’re…going to lunch?” Norah felt a little like she’d been swept up in a muscle-bound tornado.
“You’re hungry, I’m hungry, and I don’t want an audience to hear our conversation.” Without dropping his hand from her lower back, he steered her left. “Especially those gossip-loving drama queens.”
She snorted a laugh at the description, startling herself. Everything was happening really fast, and her mind was buzzing. The heat from his hand on her back soaked into her muscles, giving her a lot to process. Add in the fact that she was pretty sure this could be considered a date, and her frantic thoughts refused to fall into any sort of logical order.
Worried about what might pop out of her mouth if she opened it, she kept her lips closed and concentrated on walking. It was another gorgeous fall day, and the sidewalk was busy. She expected to have to dodge other pedestrians, but everyone was quick to get out of Dash’s way. When she noticed the odd way people glanced at him and then carefully averted their eyes as they gave him a wide berth, she turned her head and studied him. Was it his size? His obvious strength? Or was it the severe downward twist of his mouth that made people wary?
“What?” he asked.
Blinking as she was pulled out of her thoughts, she met his gaze. “What?”
“Why are you looking at me like you want to dissect me in a lab?”
Another jolt of laughter escaped, and she marveled at how easily this grumpy man could get her to laugh. “I was just trying to figure out why people seem scared of you.”
Giving a grunt, he turned his head to face forward again. “Because I’m scary.”
She laughed again. Despite his sour expression, the man was funny. “No, you’re not.”
“I am.” He sounded almost offended that she didn’t find him terrifying.
“You’re objectively not scary.”
“Objectively?” The corner of his mouth tipped up, making him even less intimidating. “If you’re the only one who believes that, then you can’t say objectively. That’s pretty much the definition ofsubjectively.”
When she couldn’t think of a good counterargument, her shoulders twitched in a shrug. It had been an uncharacteristically inaccurate word choice for her to make, but she was feeling weirdly protective of the man by her side. “They’re idiots then. I don’t know how they survive if they’re that bad a judge of who’s scary.”
“Who do you think is scary?” He guided her across the street through a break in the traffic, giving her a good idea of where they were headed for lunch. Sure enough, he opened the door to her favorite Thai place, and her mouth immediately started watering as she walked inside. The hostess showed them to a red booth in the corner, and Dash waited for her to sit before slidinginto the seat across from her. After the hostess handed them menus and left, he looked at her, raising an inquiring eyebrow.
“Who do I think is scary?” she repeated. She was distracted enough by the menu that she answered without filtering her thoughts first. “Leifsen, although I pretend he isn’t because he wants me to be scared, so showing fear would be letting him win. Sonny Zarver, a skip my sister brought in who liked to set booby traps and wrapped me in explosives once. Stuart Powers, one of the treasure-hunters trying to find the necklace Mom stole, because he’s an amoral worm who’ll do anything—no matter how awful—for money, but he always seems to manage to wiggle out of punishment. I could keep going, since most people scare me, but you don’t. You say what you think, and you’ve never actually punched me in the face, despite all the opportunities you’ve had. You’re the opposite of scary.” Settling on an entrée, she glanced up from her menu and saw that Dash’s expression had gone ice cold.
“Wrapped. You. In. Explosives.” Each word was carefully enunciated with a pause in between, clipped rather than his usual grumbly rumble. “Where is Sonny Zarver?”
“Why?” she asked, a little surprised that she felt pleased by his ferocity on her behalf rather than nervous. It was a novel feeling to have someone want to fight her battles for her. “So you can find him and kill him for me?”
“No.” The coldness in his expression lightened, although she could tell he was trying to hold on to his frozen rage. “So I can find him and kill him forme.”
A laugh escaped her, and curiosity and amusement erasedthe last of the fury in his eyes, although his scowl stayed in place. “You’re too late. My sister caught him and dumped him back in jail.”
He grumbled a little but subsided when a server approached. As soon as their orders were taken and their menus swept away, Dash continued their conversation as if there hadn’t been an interruption. “Let me know when he gets out.”
Leaning back, she studied him. “I doubt he’s going to get out anytime soon. Probably not for fifty or sixty years.”
He mirrored her action, resting against the bench seat. His knees brushed hers under the table, and she jumped at the contact before shifting her legs out of the way. After working with him for ten sessions, she’d gotten used to how big he was, but seeing him take up an entire bench seat startled her anew. She wondered what it was like to constantly take up so much space. She’d always felt overly conscious of staying out of people’s way, and she was small.
“Things don’t always go the way they should,” he said. “Let me know.”
It seemed silly to argue about an improbable hypothetical, so she just gave a half shrug and nod of agreement.
“Good.”
