Chapter 3 – Grace
“Dean!” Piper threw herself into his arms the moment she spotted him on the couch. I had already prepared myself for this moment. His Audi was parked in my brother’s driveway.
“Piper, my friend!” He hugged her before setting her down next to him on the couch and hugging her to his side. He knew I was standing there watching, but he gave her his full attention. It was only what I deserved. I did the same thing to him all the time.
He had this annoying habit of always wearing a silicone bracelet on his wrist, and tonight was no exception. Piper stole it from him and put it on her own wrist, flipping it around and then tracing over the letters with her finger. THE LOVE IS IN THE DETAILS . That’s what it said all the way around. He had to have a drawer full of them somewhere, because he never made her give them back, but he’d have a new one on the next time we saw him.
“Are you staying here, Dean?” Piper asked. “Are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Carmen babysitting you, too?”
Dean laughed. “I wish. I have boring grown-up plans. Like your mom does.” He glanced up at me then, and it took every ounce of poker-face mojo to keep from giving him any kind of reaction, even when his eyes took in my outfit and a slow smile broke out over his face. Yes, I was dressed up, and I’d taken extra care with my makeup. No, I was not going to be self-conscious about it. At least not outwardly.
He had to assume I was the world’s biggest ice queen. But that was better than the truth. Dean Kinney could never know how much I fantasized about him in the one place where it was safe to do so—inside my head. Usually late at night, when my mind wouldn’t turn off.
I had a cheesy romance movie addiction. But my fantasies about Dean were a bit more, um, passionate than the one-kiss endings between medium-attractive actors on the Hallmark Channel. This was because Dean was way beyond medium attractive, and I had years of being single to craft a killer storyline.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my question sounding way more accusatory than it needed to be. Probably because it was aimed at both the Dean on the couch and the one in my head.
“Isaac and I had work stuff to discuss. How’s your shop?” He ran a hand through his honey-brown hair, and I did my best not to think about how he was days away from cutting it again. I liked the way it curled around his ears and up against his neck, especially when he had on a backwards baseball cap. Not that he was wearing one now. He was as dressed up as me: a pressed button-down shirt, slacks, expensive shoes. His dark socks had Coke bottles on them. Dean and his funky sock collection.
I looked down at my own deep violet dress and cute black peep-toe heels. I’d just added red highlights to the ends of my dark hair. I’d even managed to create beach waves after watching a YouTube video. For once, I didn’t look like my appearance was an afterthought. “The shop is fine. ”
“Hmm.” He studied me, parsing out all the hidden meaning behind my bland answer, or at least, trying to. “Come sit and tell me about it.”
He patted the seat next to him and smiled when Piper added her approval. “Yes, Mommy. Come sit with us.”
I walked over and sat down near where Dean had patted with his hand, adjusting my dress so it almost covered my knees. Shoot, there was one spot I’d missed in shaving. I put my hand over it.
“Did you survive Valentine’s Day?” he asked. “How did you guys do?”
“We had great sales, actually. Thanks to Natalie, social media made a big difference this year. Lots of first-time customers came in for flowers and mentioned seeing her reels.”
“And I sold lots and lots of Valentine’s Day cards,” Piper added. She designed them herself, and they were really cute.
“Do I hear a Piper?” Carmen called out from down the hall. “Uncle Isaac is picking up pizza for us. Come help me get this box out of my closet. It has all my toys from when I was a kid. Do you like Polly Pockets?”
“I love Polly Pockets!” Piper ran off to find Carmen, leaving the two of us sitting together on the couch. Well, not together, together. There was a good six inches between us.
I had not always been this obsessive about my proximity to Dean. Heck, when I met him, I thought he was a shrimpy know-it-all rich kid who talked way too confidently for a fifteen-year-old. I, of course, was so much more mature at seventeen. Our parents had been dating at the time, and the thought of gaining a step-brother was horrifying. But then they broke up and Dean became my little brother’s annoying best friend instead. We gained a godfather in his dad.
And that was the family-friendly box Dean stayed in until… well, until he didn’t fit there anymore. My divorce changed me in so many big ways, but it caused small changes, too. Like how Dean saw me, and how I saw him. On his end, I think he saw someone to worry about .
There had to be a way to let Dean know I was fine now. That I’d moved on from my ex’s rejection of me, and I did not need him to flirt with me as some sort of misguided self-esteem-building exercise.
My mind flitted to Knead against my will. Perfect. Now I was fantasizing about a neck and arm. Tonight had to go well. It just had to. Dean was not an option for me. I could not think of him as boyfriend material. That was just weird.
Plus, charm was just Dean’s default setting. He used it at work, and here, and everywhere else. I would not let him use it on me, even if he couldn’t help himself.
“You look nice, by the way,” Dean murmured.
“Thanks. Where are you headed to?”
“I have a date. I heard you have one, too.”
“It’s a group activity.”
“Well, mine’s a date.” He gazed at me like it was my turn to read into his answer. Nope. Eye contact was a very bad idea with him unless we were glaring at each other.
I smoothed out the hem of my dress instead. “I’m happy for you, Dean. I hope you have an excellent time.”
“What are you doing for your group activity?” he asked.
GoWithFriends had hooked us up with a small dance studio for the night, and Jackson had volunteered to be our DJ. We were basically going clubbing at the most exclusive club ever. The one where you could see everyone in the room, nobody would be drunk and sweaty, and the night ended promptly at ten p.m. Sometimes it scared me how well the algorithm knew me.
“Um, I’m going dancing.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Yep.” I pulled my phone out of my purse to check the time. “I should get going.”
“Me too.”
He stood and held out a hand to help me up. The second our skin touched, I knew I’d have a hard time not thinking about him tonight. I’d love to say my attraction to Dean had developed gradually, but I knew the exact moment things changed for me. He probably barely remembered that night. And thank goodness.
“Bye, Dean.” I reclaimed my hand and hurried around the couch and down the hall to find Carmen and thank her and Isaac for babysitting. Thankfully, by the time I’d given Piper hugs goodbye and walked out, Dean was nowhere in sight.