Chapter 35 Grace
GRACE
Strawberry Springs Neighborhood Watch
Kerry Winsor: @Mollie Wilson, look at this video of chickens on a trampoline! Do you think yours would like this?
Comments:
Mollie Wilson: Um, I’ve never seen chickens move like that. Idk if that’s real . . .
Jade Clark: It’s definitely not, lol.
Kerry Winsor: WHAT! But it’s so cute! Who doesn’t love a little bouncing???
Atticus Thompson: Most animals don’t . . . Humans are the weird ones here.
Kerry Winsor: You could train them!
Mollie Wilson: How about YOU train them? You can train Hennifer. She’s our most . . . opinionated chicken.
Jade Clark: You’ll take a video of that, right?
Mollie Wilson: Absolutely.
“Mollie, I swear to fuck, if you’re coming in to show off another baby onesie, I’ll scream.”
I loved the woman, but she’d taken to crochet way too well. Just a week later and she was miles ahead of me, even as I tried my hardest to figure it out. I even had yarn in my hands when the door opened, and I couldn’t make a chain to save my life.
“I’m not Mollie,” a deeper voice said. “And I feel like I missed out on some things.”
My gaze snapped up, and standing in front of me was a too-familiar figure with a cowboy hat and unfairly buff arms. God, he looked good. And I missed him. “Dean. You’re back.”
“I am. Did you miss me?”
I had, but seeing him again twisted the knife that had been lodged in my chest ever since he’d gone.
I hadn’t known what he was up to or who he was with.
I’d pushed the feeling away. I had no right to feel this way after I was the one who’d set them up.
Of all the things I’d ever done, that might have been the dumbest one yet.
“A little. I’ve been busy losing my mind, though.” I held up yarn.
“My mom crochets. Maybe she could—”
“Teach me? Yeah, she tried. I fear I’m incompetent.”
“She’s been here?”
“Yeah, she was here a few days ago. She said she wanted to hang out with someone.”
He nodded, but his face fell. “I need to call her. I was pretty busy.”
“Was it fun?”
“Was what fun?”
“Whatever you were up to.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but it came out forced.
“Nothing to worry about. How are you feeling?”
I felt like I’d been stomped on. Mostly because of his vagueness about everything. I wanted—no, needed—to know what he was up to. But I didn’t have the right to know.
“I’m fine. Mollie’s a bit jealous that I’m not suffering more, but it’s not a huge deal.”
“It’s going by fast,” he said.
“It is. And we have a lot to figure out.”
“That we do.” He muttered it, eyes cast downward. He seemed to be lost in thought. He also barely looked me in the eye.
I needed to say something. I couldn’t put it off.
“About that setup. If I offended you in any way or hurt your feelings, I’m really sorry about it.”
His head shot up. “How the absolute hell did you figure that out?”
“You seem off, and sometimes I can read you. It’s either that, or you think I’m ugly after being next to April for a while.”
His eyes narrowed. “That second one is not likely.”
“That’s why I apologized first. I do have self-esteem, you know.”
“It was the wording you used when you said you knew what kind of guy I was. Someone also said that a very long time ago, and it wasn’t so nice.”
My heart sank into my ass. “Oh, God, I didn’t mean it in any type of way. Seriously, I don’t care what you get up to when you’re not around me. It didn’t come from a place of judgment.”
“I get it. But recently, I haven’t loved the kind of guy I’ve been seen as.”
That could mean two things. One, he didn’t like the idea of being a father or the idea of being responsible. But I knew Dean. I knew that was highly unlikely.
And the other option? He didn’t like being known as the playboy.
I wanted the second one so bad, but people didn’t change. I wasn’t this lucky.
“Fuck, I guess I’m doing this,” he muttered to himself.
He took a shaky breath before he spoke. “I like you. A lot. And that’s terrifying because you could turn me down, and it would crush me.
But I still want you to know that. I want you to know that it’s you.
It’s been you since the day we met. Even when I didn’t know what was happening. ”
I should have said something intelligent back, but he was saying the very thing that I thought would never happen. So my answer was, “Uh, bu—wha?”
“I know this is out of character for me, or at least the version that I’ve shown people.
I used to want this, but someone told me that I would never have it, and that I wasn’t the kind of guy for it, and I let that go.
Mostly to protect myself. Somewhere along the way, protecting myself became less important than . . . you.”
There was no way this was real. There was no way that Dean had walked into my shop and confessed that he liked me. This was supposed to be off the table. This was never supposed to happen.
Slowly, I reached my hand over to my forearm and pinched hard.
Dean watched and his eyebrows furrowed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m making sure that I’m actually awake right now.”
“Because you wanna wake up or because . . .” He trailed off. Dean couldn’t sit still. Since I’d lived with him, I learned to read him pretty well. But I was sure that even Hugh could see how nervous he was.
I shook myself out of it. “Because I feel the same way. And I thought I was ridiculous for feeling that way because you told me from the beginning that you didn’t do relationships. So this has to be a dream. And if I wake up, I’m gonna be pissed.”
He lit up like a kid on Christmas. “You feel the same way?”
I didn’t give that an answer. Mostly because if this was a dream, then I was gonna take full advantage of every second I had. I darted out from behind the counter and strode to him, putting my lips on his before I could stop myself.
Dean let out a long breath before his hand cupped my cheek, and he pulled me closer.
“To be clear,” he murmured against my lips, “if one of us was dreaming, it would be me.”
“Nope. Me. Definitely me.”
He laughed as I pulled him back to me.
“You taste better than I remember,” he groaned. My hands tightened on his shirt just as he pulled away. “But we’re stopping.”
“What? Why?” I nearly whined. “If you instigate a no sex on the first date rule, I might cry.”
“I . . . might be.”
“Do you know how horny I am? Do you know what pregnancy is doing to me?” My voice rose in pitch as I spoke.
“I just don’t wanna only focus on sex. Especially not after how we started things.”
“It’s not like I can get more pregnant.”
“I know it’s inconvenient, but I wanna see if I can remember how to be the guy I used to be.”
I closed my eyes even though I wanted to argue further. I would need my dildo tonight. “That’s a very good point, but I’m not happy about it.”
“I may be terrible at this. You’ll have to bear with me.”
“I once dated a guy who fell asleep on the first date. Trust me, the bar is low.”
Dean laughed and shook his head. “You need to raise it a little higher than that.”
“I’m just saying. I’ll be happy with your piercing and you paying attention to me.”
He winced. “Don’t say things like that to me right now. It’s been almost four months without any, and I’m suffering.”
“Orgasms. Cock. Inside me.”
“Grace,” he growled.
“I said you had a good point. I never said I would make it easy.”
“A date. Tomorrow. Let’s start there.”
“Fine. I do owe you coffee, and the flowers are blooming. We can go on a walk.”
“You don’t owe me anything. I’ll be paying for our date.”
“You’ll be paying when you have all the questions the next day. The town will see this.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know. You’re worth it, though.”
I couldn’t stop the smile that made its way onto my face. It still didn’t feel real. Sometimes things worked out exactly as they should.
Maybe this was one of those times.