Page 20 of Huge Dynamite
“Therapy?” I stare up into his handsome face. His cheekbones are so strong they look chiseled, and his nose is slightly wide but straight and strong.
“In a sense. Yeah.” Raising his hand, he points to something across the street. “See that?”
“The liquor store?”
“That’s your therapy.”
“I don’t know, Seth.”
Smiling, he nods. “Do you have work tomorrow?”
“No, I’m off for the next two days.”
“Good.” Reaching out, he taps me on the nose. “Holly. No one is saying you should make it a habit, but there’s a reason tequila exists—for times just like these. It’s worked for centuries. What do you say?”
“I say…” Glancing at the store across the street, I take a deep breath. “I say that flashing ‘welcome’ sign on the door is an omen.”
He grins at me.
What the hell—everything I have done and accomplished up until this time in my life has made me miserable. Why the hell shouldn’t I take a chance? Glancing up, I look at Seth’s strong jaw and steal a quick peek at his broad shoulders and—hell, yeah.
With Seth Hardy as my guide, why wouldn’t I take a chance for once in my life?
***
“No, no, no.” Sitting in the back seat of my car that’s still parked in the lot of the tattoo parlor, I hold the bottle of tequila in my hand. Squinting really hard, I try to wiggle my nose. “Seriously. There was a television show once—way back in the 1960s—and there was a woman who was a genie and when she wiggled her nose, she could make things happen.” Sighing, I look at Seth. “I wish I could do that. I wish I could just wiggle my nose and things just magically manifested.”
“What would you manifest? Just before, when we were talking about getting tequila—”
“—which was an excellent idea, by the way,” I interrupt, smiling.
“Agreed. You said you wanted to do more. To do something that wasn’t scheduled and approved by your parents. What is that?”
“Oh.” Releasing a pent-up breath, I drop my head back against the seat and look up at the night sky. “It is beautiful out tonight.” Turning in my seat, I draw a leg up between us and face him. “Do you know that before driving out here tonight, I had no idea that this car was a convertible? I mean, I must have known but I really never thought about it.”
“That’s kind of funny.”
He turns to me, and just looking at him—his gorgeous face, his strong body, the way I feel safe and protected around him—an ache forms between my legs. Whoa. I have never had a reaction like this in all of my life.
“Why is it funny?”
Shaking his head, he puts his arm up across the top of the back seat in an uber-masculine move that just about makes me melt.
“I don’t mean funny,” he corrects. “Just that it’s an odd thing that you’ve never done anything spontaneous—like open a convertible. Sometimes I think that’s all I do—act without planning ahead. That’s why the guys call me ‘Dynamite’.”
My brow furrows as I look into his face. “I don’t think that’s true. The impulsive part, that is.”
“You haven’t known me that long. And how can you of all people say that? When you met me, it’s because I had just stabbed myself with a knife I pulled on my friend. Remember the night we met?”
“How could I forget? From what I gathered, you were fighting and passion got the best of you, Seth.” Leaning forward, I make steady eye contact. “It’s not that you’re impulsive. It’s that you’re passionate. There’s a difference. In the ER, I see all kinds of different people every day. Most of the time, people with impulse control issues have a mental disorder—something like kleptomania or pyromania. People with impulse control issues often think about what they’re going to do and then go through some form of anxiety attack—like I just did.”
Smiling at him, he smiles back and nods.
“Most often, people with impulse control issues don’t have the ability to resist urges. You’re not that person. If you were, frankly, I couldn’t trust you the way I do.”
“You trust me?” His eyes light up.
“Seth, I’m a woman who plans what color underwear I’m going to wear tomorrow—and writes it in my agenda book.”
