Pulse

Chapter 5

Dahlia

“This is not great for my hair.” I adjust my sunglasses and hit the gas. “But screw it. YOLO, baby.”

The wind blows through my window and out the other side of the car, using the cab as a makeshift tunnel. The dice hanging off my rearview mirror dance in the breeze as dust particles twinkle around me.

The morning is bright. Traffic is light. My coffee is strong. And it’s Tuesday, so I could sleep in an extra two hours because Ford Landry is kind like that. We get five personal hours a week to do with what we see fit—and we get paid for them. I use two on Tuesdays for sleep.

I crank up the radio”s volume and perform the best concert my commuter buddies in the cars around me have ever seen. Tone on pitch … ish. Hair in proper nineties wildness and more passion than the song probably warrants. But just before we’re to the part where I get to rap about waterfalls, my phone rings through the speakers.

“Every time,” I mutter, returning the volume to a respectable level. I answer the call as the windows slide back to their starting position. “Hello?”

“Dahlia?”

I smile at the warmth in his tone. “Why do you sound surprised? Didn’t you call me?”

“You sound out of breath,” Troy says.

“I just got done running ten miles. Set my new personal record.”

He pauses. “Seriously?”

“Hell, no.” I laugh. “But I was performing an excellent rendition of a nineties classic on my way to the office. Why? What’s up?”

“I’ve been texting you for the last ten minutes.”

I pull my sunglasses on top of my head. “First of all, I’m under no obligation to text you back within a ten-minute or sixty-minute or whatever-minute span. Second of all, George Strait was the first act of today’s concert, and you don’t interrupt the king, sir. Not for anyone.”

He mumbles something I can’t hear. That’s probably for the best.

“Do you actually need something?” I ask. “Or did you text me a sweet good morning, and I didn’t respond, so you got butt hurt?”

“Right.” I can practically hear him rolling his eyes. “I’m sitting at the shop. They’re telling me it will be this afternoon when they finish, and they don’t have any loaner cars available.”

“Sucks to be you.”

“Doll.”

I shift in my seat, happy he can’t see the way I swoon. “Troy.”

“Fine. I’ll call Becca and have her pick me up.”

“You will do no such thing,” I say before I can catch myself. I clear my throat. “She’s busy today.”

“How busy can she possibly be? Theo is in a meeting with Ford. I’m sure she can spare a few minutes to help me out.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

“If you insist.”

The amusement in his tone—wonderfully thick and rich—would be foreplay if it wasn’t at my expense. But it’s my fault. I played right into his hands and handed him a victory.

I click the button on my steering wheel and end the call.

“I wasn’t prepared for this,” I say, groaning as I hit the brake at a red light. My vanity mirror is clean, thank God, and I use it to pull my hair into a messy bun.

It takes three lights until I’m properly powdered, lipstick’d, and put together. I’m straightening my shirt when I roll up to the curb outside the auto shop. Light bounces off the glass door as it opens.

Oh fuck.

My mouth hangs wide open.

If he didn’t wake up this morning, look in the mirror, and wonder how he should dress to drive me absolutely out of my freaking mind, I’d be shocked.

Dark denim hugs his thick thighs. A tight black shirt skims his barrel chest, and a blazer hangs open in the front. He moves gracefully—confidently—with so much swagger that a man and a woman stop independently and stare.

Pull yourself together, Dahlia.

He reaches for the door when my phone rings through the car. I jump, hitting the button to answer it accidentally.

Troy climbs in, looking at me over the rim of his sunglasses before removing them altogether.

The slate gray of his eyes and the spicy, almost tobacco-y scent of his cologne team up to ruin me.

“Dahlia? Are you there?” a voice rings from my speakers.

Troy’s brows pull together.

Focus.“Yes. Sorry. Hi. Who is this?”

“Hey. It’s Theo.”

Troy sits back and latches his seat belt. His lips press into a tight line.

“Hey, Theo,” I say with a touch too much cheer and pull away from the curb. “What’s going on?”

“I just got out of a meeting with Ford. It looks like I’ll be working from the office for the next six weeks.”

Troy bristles at my side.

“Oh really?” I ask, smiling. I like Theo and all, but I really couldn’t care less where he works. What I do care about, and thoroughly enjoy, is Troy’s annoyance with this piece of information. I win this one, buddy. “Why?”

“Our contract ran out in New York and they didn’t renew. Ford asked if I wanted to work with Lincoln and his family when they move to Tennessee. Apparently, Lincoln is set to manage the Arrows baseball team.”

“Cool! Maybe he can get us tickets.”

“That’s what I said.” Theo laughs. “But they don’t leave for a couple of months, and there isn’t a short contract for me in the meantime.”

Troy mumbles something under his breath that I can’t make out.

“Sign up for snacks with Becca,” I say, hitting my turn signal and pulling onto the main road leading to the office.

“Snacks?” He laughs. “What for?”

“Um, the office. We’re snack-y. You have to pull your own weight around there.”

“What is this? Kindergarten?”

I laugh, too. “I’ll have you know that when we implemented a snack protocol in the office, our efficiency increased tenfold.”

“How does it work?”

“Every Wednesday, someone brings in a snack. There’s a sign-up form and list of allergies in Becca’s office. Here’s a tip. Only bring in homemade stuff if you can actually cook or bake. If not, prepackaged works just fine.”

“Sounds like you had a bad experience at some point,” he says.

“More than one.”

Troy sits up, his arm brushing against mine. “Hey, Theo, something came up. She’ll have to discuss snacks with you later.”

“What?” he asks just before Troy ends the call on my dash.

“Hey,” I say, looking at him over my shoulder. “What the heck was that?”

He stares straight ahead.

“That was rude, Troy.”

“Oh, give me a break,” he says. “He was wasting your time.”

I snort. “No, he wasn’t. We were having a friendly chat about work. And, even if he was wasting my time, it would be just that. My time.”

“You aren’t that dense, Dahlia.”

“Excuse me?”

“He was flirting with you.”

“He wasn’t flirting with me.”

Troy’s head tilts to the side, nonplussed.

“Whatever,” I say, sitting taller. Troy cares that Theo was flirting with me? Huh. “It was still rude.”

“Well then, please forgive me.”

I shake my head. “If you could say it like you meant it even a little, I might.”

He shrugs, clearly unbothered.

“You know, I was having a damn good day until you got in my car,” I say, slowing as a light changes to yellow.

“I was having a pretty decent day until I got in here, too.”

I look at him, fully intending to glare. But when our eyes connect, my intentions fall to the wayside. Our gazes lock, and an entire conversation takes place within a handful of seconds—and neither of us utters a word.

My stomach flutters as my body heat rises. I suck in a hasty breath, fighting not to lose myself in his eyes.

“You can go,” he says, his words soft.

A horn blares at me from behind, waking me from my momentary haze.

I face the road and hit the gas, exhaling slowly.

“Sorry for ruining your day.” He’s probably fighting a grin, but I refuse to look. “I mean the apology this time.”

“I’ll accept it then.”

Out of my peripheral vision, I catch his fingers flexing against his jeans.

“What do you have going on today?” I ask.

“Working on a security plan for a gala Ford’s parents are throwing in a few months. They have the same party every year. So it’s more about updating protocol than starting from scratch.” He flexes his fingers again. “And I need to talk to him about a few things.”

“Did you decide what you’re doing next?”

“Nope.”

I hum. “I’m still leaning toward vacation.”

“You and Travis. He tried to talk me into it last night.”

“I knew I liked your brother.”

“I do, too. Most of the time.”

We exchange a quick grin.

“He came over last night,” Troy says, hesitating. “Asked about you, actually.”

“Why?”

He takes a long, deep breath. “We watched the news, and they did a piece on your father.”

Oh. My shoulders stiffen. “I see. That wasn’t where I thought you were going with that, but okay.”

“Where’d you think I was going with it?”

I don’t know where I thought he was going, but the turn to my father’s legal issues gave me whiplash.

“Doll, if you don’t want to talk about this, we won’t.”

“It’s … fine,” I say, forcing a swallow down my throat. “It’s just awkward going from not having a father at all to having one. And then not being able to talk about him openly. Then with the few people you can talk to about it, things like money laundering and fraud come up. Kinda hard to make those adjustments on the fly, you know?”

Troy shifts in his seat. “I don’t give a fuck about your father, to be honest. I only wondered how you were doing.”

His genuine concern slays me. It hits me smack dab in the middle of my heart.

“It’s too much to process in one car ride, that’s for sure,” I say, widening my eyes to keep tears from spilling down my cheeks.

We sit quietly while I drive through the beautiful streets of Savannah. Troy doesn’t push me to talk, and I’m grateful for that—just like I’m grateful he asked. It’s such a weird position to be in. On the one hand, knowing someone sees you and cares about you is wonderful. On the other hand, being seen pricks a person’s vulnerability. And if there’s one thing that makes me antsy these days, it’s being vulnerable.

I turn onto the road leading to Landry Security when a text cuts through the air. Freddy’s name is printed across my dash for everyone, for Troy, to see.

“You’re popular today,” he says, unamused.

I swiftly swipe the notification away.

Another one pops up.

Troy stares holes into the side of my face.

I swipe Freddy’s second and third texts off the screen. “He thinks he left his sunglasses at my house.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.”

I sigh. “Yeah. I know it.”

We pull into the parking lot, and I back the car into my spot. The engine stops, but we don’t move. We sit together in the comfortable silence.

The safety of the space—of the car, parked next to Ford, and sitting next to Troy—allows me to let my guard down and breathe.

Troy didn’t have to ask how I was doing, but he did. He could’ve talked shop or sat in silence, but he chose to inquire on a personal level. That matters to me. There’s a sweetness under those heavy brows and that mass of muscle. I wish I could see it more.

“Thank you,” I say.

“For what?”

I shrug, looking straight ahead at the block building. “I don’t want to say you care because God knows you’d have an aneurysm if anyone labeled you as having emotions.” I glance at him and grin. “But despite your rudeness to my friends …”

His eyes narrow, making me laugh.

“And your assumption that I’m going to text you right back … and the way you intentionally irritate the hell out of me, you carefully go beyond being my co-worker in a way that means a lot to me.” I lean toward him, then regret that move immediately. He smells divine. Why can’t he be an overbearing, decrepit, stinks-to-high-heaven ogre? “You aren’t creepy. That’s what that means.”

“Good to know.”

“Now, you’re going to buy me lunch today, or I’m going to tell everyone in the office you’re nice.”

He groans and opens his door.

“I want a good lunch, too,” I say, climbing out of the car. “There’s that little deli two streets over with the monster chocolate chip cookies that they serve warm. Do you know the one I mean?”

He holds the door to the building open for me. “I thought you wanted lunch?”

“I do.”

“Then why are we talking about cookies?”

I hit the fob and my car horn goes off once, twice, and then three times. Troy shakes his head, muttering something about overkill, and follows me inside.

“Because cookies are dessert,” I say. “And dessert is the biggest part of lunch. You can have a little before the meal as a reward for making it halfway through the day. Then you eat for sustenance. Then you finish it with another piece of dessert to get you through the rest of your day.”

“You don’t need a reward for everything in life, you know.”

“Why do people keep saying that to me?”

He stops at my office door and faces me. Flecks of gold sparkle in his eyes. “Do you want ham and provolone, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickle? Honey mustard and light mayo?”

My smile splits my cheeks. “And two cookies.”

“Of course.” He heads down the hallway. “And two cookies.”

I laugh and get to work with the promise of lunch as a motivator.

Who am I trying to kid?

Seeing Troy again is the real dessert … and, thank God, he doesn’t even know it.