“He fucking what?” He shakes his head. “He’s an asshole, Dylan. Didn’t deserve you.”
“Yeah, well, what’s done is done.” I shrug. “And I’m tired of competing for people’s affection.”
Peck considers this. “Well, I always wanted a family of my own.”
“So why don’t you have one?”
He looks down and fiddles with his fingernail. There’s a long pause. I don’t think he’s going to answer me when he finally lifts his gaze.
“Kind of like you, I guess. I’m not sure I can manage it,” he says.
“You’re built for something like that,” I tell him. “I’ve seen you with your nana. You’re a family guy.”
He grins. “Well, that’s the thing. I am a family guy. If I were to get married, I’d be married forever. But people …” He blows out a breath. “You know, people come and go these days. They don’t commit to anything. It’s like they’re married because a big party sounds fun and then they get a wild hair up their ass, and they’re on to the next thing six months later.”
“Not if it’s love,” I say. “If you love someone, you can’t live without them. That’s what they say, anyway. That’s what I told myself when Charlie left me. He loved her first, and that’s where his love was always rooted. I can’t fight that. True love always … finds a way.”
His brows rise, and I think he’s going to laugh, but he doesn’t. Instead, he leans forward. “Does it, though? Does love always find a way? Or does it sometimes go unanswered?”
The question is fired in the tenderest of ways. It’s not a rhetorical thought; he wants an answer.
I lean forward too. Across the small square table, we look at each other. His eyes are so blue, so pure, that I could fall into them and never find my way back out.
“Can you really, truly love someone who doesn’t love you back?” I ask softly.
He raises his shoulders but doesn’t answer as if he’s expecting me to continue with my thought.
“Love should be based on mutual respect. A healthy love, anyway,” I say, thinking as I go. “I’m not sure you can be in love with someone who doesn’t open themselves up to you in the same way. Maybe you can love them, but not be in love with them. Those are two different things.”
He rises slowly, tightening his towel as he stands. I get to my feet too. We stand face to face, which is entirely too close considering he’s wearing practically nothing and looking delicious. The playfulness I usually see in his eyes vanishes, and an intensity takes its place. It steals my breath.
I want to kiss him. I want to reach up and take his stubbled face in my hands and touch my lips to his, pressing my body against his.
He steps toward me, his body angling ever so slightly to mine. I think he’s going to reach for me.
His weight shifts, his fingers flexing. At the last second, he runs a hand down his cheek.
My body falls. I exhale with more force than necessary, but the breath I’ve been holding burns.
“I’m going to head to bed,” he says. “Feel free to watch television or whatever. I sleep like a rock. It won’t bother me.”
“Thanks,” I say, forcing a swallow down my throat. I feel as though I’ve been dismissed, yet not. His stare stays on my face, not once moving down my body.
He walks by me but stops at the door. He looks at me over his shoulder, but there isn’t enough light to read his expression.
I stand in the middle of his kitchen, holding my breath. I don’t know what I want him to say, but he doesn’t say anything. He just gives me a smile and disappears into the night.
Twelve
Peck
“Went by Nana’s this morning,” Walker says. He blows across the top of his coffee.
The early morning sun floods the open bay of Crank. I turn my back to the light and try to focus on the truck in front of me. It’s futile. I know it. And by the look on Walker’s face, he knows it too.
Fucker.
“Oh, yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah. Sienna made her some blueberry muffins, so I dropped ’em off.”
“Send me any?”
His hand drops to his side. Coffee sloshes to the dirty garage floor. “For fuck’s sake, Peck.”
“But she knows I love them.”
He shoots me a glare. “Anyway, Nana said you brought your girlfriend over last night.”
The wrench I’m holding drops to the floor. It sends a pinging sound through the bay.
“So Nana’s not crazy. Got it,” Walker jokes. “Anything you wanna share?”
“There’s nothing to share. I told Nana that.” I pick up the wrench. “Can’t I just take someone by for dinner?”
“No.”
It’s my turn to glare.
I go back to the fuel filter in front of me. It’s an easy job that I’ve done ten million times in my life. But for some strange, green-eyed reason, it’s taking me a lot longer than necessary today.