“Oh, she is not.”
My stomach clenches. I open the refrigerator and pretend to look for something just so my cousins don’t see my face.
Dylan isn’t smitten with me. Is she? What does smitten even mean, anyway?
Her face pops up in my memories—her head thrown back, mouth forming a sexy little ‘o’ as she dropped all her reservations and gave herself to me.
As if she can read my mind, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out and look at the screen.
Dylan: I’m heading out with Navie for a while today. I made some lunch. Leftovers in fridge if you want some although I’m sure you won’t want any given you’re at Nana’s. Say hi from me.
I close the door and look up at my family. They’re laughing as Machlan peels a bag of potatoes and Vincent tells Lance about some encounter he had with a woman on a boat. Walker sips a glass of tea, leaning against the cabinets, taking it all in. The only thing missing from this scene is Dylan.
I wish she were here.
He catches my eye. The joking from earlier has subsided and in its place is a knowing look. It wasn’t that long ago that Walker was in my place and trying to decide how to deal with things with Sienna. I wasn’t sure he’d figure it out. But he did.
Maybe there’s hope for me.
For us.
Twenty-Two
Dylan
Navie gasps.
I knew she would. She has some kind of Spidey sense about things like this … things that have to do with sex or things that include me being embarrassed.
This one is a double or nothing.
“Dylan,” she squeals as I come through the door.
“I’m not even fully in your house yet, and you’re already squealing.”
“You’re glowing,” she says.
“I’m not pregnant, Navie.”
“No. Maybe not. But if I’m guessing, I’m going to say that you’ve been partaking in activities that could result in a little baby Ward.”
I don’t mean to laugh, but I do. “That’s not funny,” I say, despite the chuckle.
She plops down on her sofa. She’s downright smug.
I sit in the chair and try to maneuver the conversation to other things … before we come back to my glow. There’s no doubt we’ll discuss it. And I kind of want to. I need a sounding board.
“That new movie I was telling you about—the one with the strippers—it’s playing in Merom. I saw it on the sign yesterday,” I say.
“Mhmm.”
Redirection might be harder than I thought.
I just need a minute to get my bearings. My plan was to figure things out in my head before seeing Navie, but that proved to be difficult—if not impossible.
“Want to get some dessert?” I ask. “I’ve been wanting to check out Carlson’s Bakery.”
“Mhmm.”
“Navie …”
She laughs. “What I want is for you to tell me what put that look on your face. You want to do that in a movie theater? Cool. At Carlson’s over a Reuben sandwich? Awesome. I don’t care. Pick whatever venue you want, but we’re discussing this.”
Plucking my favorite blue pillow from beside Navie, I tuck it next to me on the chair. Might as well get comfortable. This may take a while.
“Okay. Where do I start?” I ask.
“Just answer this first, and then you can go wherever you want with it: is he as amazing in bed as I imagine?”
My skin heats as I recall Peck’s firm yet gentle touches. My lips part as memories of him taking control with his mouth flood me. My thighs squeeze as I remember what it’s like to have his head, his hands, his cock between them.
Dear lord. I might never be okay again.
“That’s a yes,” she chirps. “I knew it. I can tell.”
“Well, it’s not like it was hard to guess correctly. You’ve seen the man move.”
“And you’ve felt it.” She scoots around in her seat. “So give me the details. Are you guys a thing now?”
I force a smile to hide my uncertainty. Truth be told, I know we aren’t a thing. I’m not messed up about that. But I don’t know what we are.
Friends? Friends with benefits? Lovers? Two people who made a mistake?
When we curled up together and fell asleep moments before dawn, I had one opinion. And when I woke up alone this morning with a note that he went to Nana’s, I had another.
It wasn’t as if I expected anything to change because we’d been intimate. But it does make me feel a little off-balance that he left me in his bed when I’d met Nana before.
“I’m overthinking everything,” I tell Navie.
“Of course you are. I’m here to help break all that down.”
I bite a fingernail, mulling everything over.
“Dylan. Stop it.”
“I just …” I drop my hand. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
She wiggles her eyebrows. “But could you wrap your hand around it?”