Chapter 7
Dash
I hover next to the round table where my friends have ordered a pitcher of beer and have already finished half of it. Lucas hands me a full pint glass and toasts it with his.
“Just when I thought you couldn’t outdo yourself, you managed to be lip-to-lip with a lady within two minutes of entering the place. I thought you weren’t seeing anyone. You holding out on us?”
Just like that, three pairs of eyes size me up, and each friend sits eager to give me shit or congratulate me or both. Lucas nudges the fourth chair away from the table with his foot and nods for me to sit.
“Not holding out on you, but I’ll be back in a minute, and you can ask me whatever you want. Not saying I’ll answer, but you can ask.”
I take my beer and walk in the direction Mallory went.
People have their opinions about me—some call me a playboy, lady-killer, man-slut, while others think I’m as lazy as they come—but whatever their assessment, most would probably agree that I mind my own business.
I can’t speak to people’s opinions because they tend to be formed based on rumors and old reputations, so I mostly ignore what people think and go about my affairs. No sense in encouraging the irony of putting in a lot of work to convince people I’m not lazy.
Minding my own business seems like good sense, and it’s one of the few lessons I recall my dad instilling in me when I was a kid. “Stay out of other people’s way and don’t go looking for a fight,” he said one afternoon while I sat at our kitchen table trying to scrub the word ‘loser’ out of the fabric of my school backpack.
With two older brothers, I rarely got picked on, but that particular year, I was still in elementary school, and both of my brothers had graduated. So there was no one to defend my scrawny ass against a group of kids in the grade ahead of me when they decided I was ‘too small and too stupid’ to join their game of kickball on the schoolyard.
I made the mistake of sticking up for myself, which is what I told my dad. “I wasn’t looking for a fight. I was trying to avoid one.”
My dad stirred milk into a cup of coffee and watched me scrub the black ink so hard that it formed a muddled gray patch on the fabric. He didn’t offer to help, but from the way his sharp blue-eyed stare assessed me, I had the feeling he knew a better method for removing ink. He just wasn’t about to tell me.
“There’s power in observation.” He leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his cheeks and chin as though checking to make sure his clean shave hadn’t missed a spot. “You don’t need to be the loudest one in the room. You need to be the smartest. And sometimes you can do that best by being unseen and unheard until the time is right.”
At the time, I didn’t understand his meaning because I wanted to unleash ants into the lunchboxes of every one of those kids. It took me several more years before his wisdom started to make sense to me.
My dad was rarely unseen or unheard. His loud voice bellowed through our house and put the fear of God into employees at Buttercup Hill. Sometimes I wondered if he forgot to take his own advice.
But I digress. The point is that I normally mind my own business. I observe. I plot my moves and execute them when the time is right. It allows me to work under the radar and avoid a lot of drama.
However, walking into the Dark Horse and finding some asshole trying to shove his tongue down Mallory’s throat obliterated my bystander instincts. Okay, his tongue wasn’t actually involved, but still. He was in her face and in her space, and I could tell she was uncomfortable—partly because she looked just as pissed off as she did after taking down the pickle display last month.
Seeing that expression directed at some other dude could mean that she always looks annoyed, but I chose to trust my powers of observation. She didn’t want him anywhere near her, and as soon as I intervened, she seemed relieved.
So relieved, apparently, that she concocted a lie of mammoth proportions. Well, fine. I’ve been with enough women for enough years that I knew how to bring it home. Now, I want a little payback in the form of an explanation.
In case Mallory plans on slipping out the back door of the bar without coming to find me, I plant myself in the hallway where the restrooms are.
“You the bloody stalker, now?” The clipped British accent throws me at first, and I’m not sure it’s directed at me. When I turn, I find Mallory’s friend staring me down. She’s a good foot shorter than me and wears no makeup. Her brown hair is tied in a ponytail, and she’s drowning in a baggy beige sweater. But there’s no mistaking the sharpness of her stare, which could wilt a pot of daisies in one go. Based on that, I can see why she and Mallory are friends.
“I didn’t catch your name. I’m Dash.”
She huffs a laugh. “I didn’t tell you my name so there was nothing to catch.” Salty, this one.
“You want to tell it to me now, English?”
Her eyebrow notches up. I lean against the dark wood-paneled wall and glance toward the restrooms, wondering if it’s possible that Mallory has already slipped out a back door. I tend to doubt it, given that her ex could still be lingering outside.
“Mary. Nice to meet you.” She looks me over from head to toe and matches my stance. “That was…interesting back there.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t start it.” I hold up my hands like a caught thief.
“Nope, but you sure ended it. I didn’t think there was any kind of repellant for that wanker, but it turns out, you’re it.” The sound of an electric hand dryer hums behind us.
I laugh because her surly demeanor is a strange mix with the compliment. “You know him well?”
She shrugs. “Not really. I’ve only been in town for a bit, but he’s come around a few times trying to get Mallory to talk with him. She shuts him down every time. Easy when you have a front door to slam in his face. Harder here.”
“True. But not impossible.”
She nods slowly. “So you’ve proven.” Mary perks her head up at the sound of a toilet flush behind us. She gestures toward the restrooms with a tip of her head. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Send her back with fresh pints when you’re done talking.”
She leaves before I can ask what kind of beer they’re drinking, but I assume Mallory knows. A moment later, I hear the pop of a lock and accompanying shoulder against a door. Waving her hands to finish drying them, Mallory looks surprised to see me there.
“Oh. Hi. Were you waiting for that?” She gestures behind her, and I watch the mask of confident nonchalance return to her face. It’s exactly how she’s looked every time I’ve seen her in the past, which is why I had the impression of her as a manipulative socialite. Her demeanor always seemed practiced and polished to a sheen designed to get her what she wanted—usually a man.
But now I’ve caught glimpses of what lies behind that mask—vulnerability, disappointment, maybe even unease—I’m intrigued to know more.
I’m the last person who should be forming assumptions about a person when I know how few of the perceptions of me are actually true. That would be zero. Maybe I should wipe the slate clean when it comes to her, but I can’t until I understand her better.
“No, I was waiting for you.”
That seems to surprise her. “Oh. Okay.” She crosses her arms and hits me with a broad smile.
“Don’t do that.”
Her smile falters only slightly. She’s good at keeping this shit going. “Do what?”
“Pretend to be happy to see me. Or smile when you’d rather not.”
She doesn’t relent. The smile stays, and she assesses me in a way she didn’t have time to earlier. Her glance runs from my face to my shoes, then back to my face, where her gaze lingers.
“You wear glasses.”
Not what I’m expecting her to say. “Yeah. It helps when I want to see things.”
“You didn’t have them on at Sunshine Foods that day.” She looks away and snaps her lips shut. Like a confession slipped out. I tuck that nugget of information away, interested that she remembers something from a month ago so clearly. It would be like me remembering the color of her sweater that day.
Red. Crimson red like a fucking fire truck.
I shrug. “Probably why I didn’t recognize you at first in the store. Sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. I think we’re even now.”
I can’t help the canary-eating cat grin that’s spreading across my face. “Oh, we are so not even. First of all, I want details. Lots of details. And second, is this the only time you’ll be requiring my services as fake fiancé?”
A tiny bit of the facade drops, and her practiced smile fades into one of actual amusement. “You’re serious.”
“Damn straight.”
“No thanks. This was a one-time, get me out of a bind thing. And I appreciate it. I’ll buy you a beer, okay? Good enough?”
I hold up the one in my hand, which I’ve barely sipped. “Don’t need a beer.”
“What, then?”
“I want answers. What happens when word gets out we’re engaged? What if you need my help getting rid of the douche nozzle in the future? Why was he bothering you, anyway?”
I get only a shrug, so I ask the question that suddenly seems most important.
“Why’d you marry such an ass hat in the first place?”
“Long, not-very-interesting story. You’d be better off with the beer.” The plastic smile is back. Does she really think she can dissuade me from getting what I want with that? Now that I’ve glimpsed a peek at a different side of Mallory Rutherford, I’ll be damned if I’m going to settle for what she gives everyone else.
I shake my head. “No way. You asked me for a date. And granted, I’m a bit calendar-challenged and waited a week to respond?—”
“Two weeks,” she corrects.
I hold up a hand, then lower it to where hers are balled into fists. Taking one of them in mine, I straighten out her fingers and see an almost imperceptible drop in her shoulders. “Two weeks. I apologize even more. But this is me saying yes.”
She takes a step backward. “You can’t say yes. The offer isn’t on the table anymore.”
“Mallory, please. I’m sorry. I’m an attention-compromised individual who forgets a text the minute the next new shiny thing beeps on my phone.”
I take a step forward. Now we’re closer than we were a moment ago. She lets out a long exhale. I know I can be frustrating as hell sometimes, but it’s hard to stop when I’m having fun.
“Can you forgive me?”
“No.” Her response is a bit less forceful.
I put a hand over my heart and give her my most earnest, serious expression. “Please?”
She rolls her eyes. “Two weeks, Dash. Two weeks.”
I laugh because I’m enjoying this night far more than I planned and it has everything to do with her. “Fine. Then I’m asking you out instead. Dinner. Tomorrow night or whenever you’re free.”
She shakes her head and takes another step back. I step forward.
She steps back again. I step forward again. “We could do this all the way to the door, and I’ll take you to dinner right now if you want.”
Mallory glares at me. Finally, the fake smile is gone, and I see a glimmer of the woman at the grocery store who’s frustrated as hell. Even though I’m the one frustrating her, I like the look of it. Maybe because I’m the one frustrating her.
“Come on, let me take you to dinner.”
Without asking, she reaches for my beer and takes it from my hand. She drinks several gulps and hands it back. “Thank you. It’s hot in here.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“About dinner.”
“You didn’t ask a question. You just told me to let you take me to dinner. Rude.” But I catch the faintest hint of a smile, a real one this time. It’s barely there, but it’s so much better than the plastic shit she wears for everyone else, and I feel gratified to have earned some honesty.
“Will you have dinner with me Mallory?”
“Will you drop all discussion of my ex and promise that we’re even-Steven if I do?”
“Your odds are infinitely better if you eat food with me.”
Letting out a long, exasperated breath, she shakes her head and mutters, “Needed a fiancé, and I got a debate captain.”
She extends her hand, and we shake. There’s no mistaking it—the zing of electricity at the contact with her skin that tells me this is no ordinary interaction with another person. And even though I just implied we’d be even after one dinner, a big part of me feels certain I won’t stick to my end of the deal.
She’s the most interesting woman I’ve come across in a long time.