Chapter Eleven Dane
Let it never be said that Dane Clarke isn’t a good brother and friend.
The best , even.
Because I’ve cancelled a date tonight in favour of sitting at Cash and Bailey’s kitchen table, stuffing invitations into envelopes.
To be fair to them, I probably would’ve cancelled the date, anyway.
I arranged it more out of habit than anything else – I think it’s been literally years since I spent a Friday night alone – but I’m happy to use the wedding invitations as an excuse.
We’ve been at it for the last two hours, and the pile Bailey unceremoniously dumped in front of me the second I sat down hasn’t seemed to decrease in the slightest.
‘There’s no way you guys know this many people,’ I grumble as I seal up an envelope addressed to a Patrick and Joan Clarke . ‘And who the hell are these two?’
Bailey glances at the invitation. ‘I think Patrick is one of Dad’s cousins. Maybe a great uncle? I’m not too sure.’
I can confidently say I’ve never met cousin/maybe-uncle Patrick in my life. And if I haven’t, I doubt Bailey has either. ‘But you’re inviting them to the wedding?’
She shrugs. ‘It’s more about keeping the peace. We’re not expecting everyone to come.’
‘Banking on it, actually,’ Cash adds with a wry grin.
‘They won’t,’ Bailey says confidently. ‘Patrick and Joan aren’t going to fly from Canada to Italy for a four-day weekend.’ She gestures to my pile. ‘Most of those are for family who live abroad. They’re just getting invited to keep Mum, Dad and Cash’s mum happy. They won’t actually come.’
Everything I learn about wedding planning turns me further and further off the idea. That and the fact that the whole ‘ falling so deeply in love with someone that you actively want to spend the rest of your life with them ’ thing is still fundamentally incomprehensible in my mind.
‘If I ever get married, don’t expect any of this,’ I say, reaching for the next invitation and envelope. ‘Actually, I might just turn up with a wife one day, and that’ll be it. Still send gifts though.’
Bailey snorts. ‘If you ever get married, I think Mum’ll have a heart attack on the spot.’
‘Why?’ I ask, pretending to be offended. ‘I could get married.’
I don’t particularly want to. But I could.
‘Getting married means you’ll have to stick with someone for more than three weeks,’ Bailey says pointedly.
‘My record is six weeks, actually.’
I force a smirk as Bailey rolls her eyes.
Six weeks isn’t strictly true, anyway. I have had two long-term relationships, and neither ended particularly well.
But Bailey doesn’t know about them. The only person who does is Cash.
When they first started dating, I briefly wondered if Cash might suddenly start sharing all my deepest secrets with Bailey but, given her response right now, it’s safe to say he hasn’t.
I glance over at him and he meets my gaze with an almost imperceptible lift of the brows. It’s a silent question.
You good?
I give him a small nod in response. It’s been a long time since I let myself wallow in the memories of my failed attempts at love, and I’m not eager to restart now. Some people – the Cash and Baileys of the world – are meant for love. They’re meant for weddings and fairy tale happily ever afters.
And then there’s the rest of us.
I’m not mad at it. It’s just an immutable fact of life.
Love is not for me.
Bailey’s phone suddenly lights up and she reaches for it with a grin. ‘Nice. Eliott’s just sent over her invoice for the deposit payment.’
Eliott.
Love may not be for me, but a little fun? Yeah, that’s definitely something I can handle. Especially with someone like Eliott.
It’s taken a few years of trial and error, but I’ve pretty much got it down to a science at this point. A couple of weeks exploring the flame we first lit two years ago before we go our separate ways. No hard feelings. No awkward goodbyes.
Just the way I like it.
Eliott and I could be enjoying each other’s company right now, if she hadn’t so spectacularly shut me down.
There’d been a moment back at the restaurant when I thought she was about to agree.
When I was sure our impromptu night together was most definitely going to end in us heading back to my place for round two.
And then she went ahead and did simultaneously the most frustrating and sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Or should that be felt?
Because, even a full week later, I can still feel the feather-light pressure of her lips ghosting against mine. Every time I close my eyes I see the little smirk she gave me as she pulled away, and— Fucking hell.
Just the thought of it sends heat rushing straight to my dick.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone as badly as I want Eliott Rayne.
I don’t sleep with the same person twice.
A completely irrational twinge of anger hits me. What bastard is responsible for that rule? Because it’s obvious that she’s been hurt. That someone – someone she probably cared for – has filled her head with the worst kind of bullshit and forced her to put up these boundaries around herself.
A shame. A real shame.
I let myself enjoy the memory of Eliott’s half-lidded eyes and that full, sultry smirk one last time before I push it away, banishing it to the recesses of my mind. There’s no point in dwelling on what could have been.
Though it definitely would’ve been fun.
The whole ‘ Forget about Eliott ’ thing isn’t going as well as I’d like it to.
For one, Bailey can’t stop singing her praises.
At dinner with our parents on Sunday, Bailey and Mum spend most of it fawning over the engagement party photos.
They are, to be fair, pretty amazing. But hearing her name every five seconds doesn’t really help with the whole pushing Eliott from my mind thing.
And secondly, and I guess this is the most pressing issue right now, she’s standing right in front of me.
I’ve never been one for believing in karma, but I decide that I must have done something to rack up some positive points with someone somewhere. Because Eliott has been playing on my mind non-stop since the engagement party and somehow, here she is.
She hasn’t noticed me yet, so I get a few seconds of unashamed ogling as she slowly pushes a trolley down the aisle.
Her brows are furrowed as she squints at something on her phone.
Whatever it is makes her roll her eyes and shake her head before she grabs something off the shelf and tosses it into her trolley.
Even under the almost fluorescent lighting in this supermarket, Eliott makes me stop in my tracks. It’s like I’ve got tunnel vision and she’s the light at the end of it all.
Her dark curls are pulled into a bun with a silk scarf loosely wrapped around the front, and the leggings she’s wearing are practically a second skin, showing off delicious, soft curves.
Curves I’d very much love to have pressed up against me right now.
She chooses that moment to look up. Her eyes widen as she spots me down the aisle, and her perfect lips drop open in surprise.
For a second I think she’s about to turn and run, but then she seems to remember the promise she made back at the restaurant and the look of surprise makes way for something else.
It’s a weird mix of delight and irritation and I wonder which of the two is going to win.
‘Let me guess,’ she drawls as she rolls the trolley to a stop beside me. ‘You were hoping to bump into me?’
Well.
Yeah, actually. I’d be a terrible liar if I couldn’t admit to myself that I’ve spent the last week trying and failing to come up with an excuse to message her again. If I’d have known all it took was to just rush out to the supermarket for some emergency snacks, I would’ve done this days ago.
I flash her an easy grin. ‘Am I that easy to read?’
Eliott hums and looks me up and down. When she meets my gaze again, she’s smiling and I swear my heart forgets how to beat. ‘An open book.’
Tension I hadn’t realised was thrumming through my body suddenly evaporates.
Delight, it is.
I lean across her trolley and drop my voice just a little. ‘So, tell me. What else are you picking up on?’
Eliott’s got the kind of face where, every time you look at her – really look at her – you notice something new. Like the smattering of dark, tiny moles that crest along her cheekbones. Or the way she bites her bottom lip slightly when she’s holding back a laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ I ask.
‘Nothing,’ she says, eyes twinkling. ‘I just… I was just wondering.’
‘Wondering what?’
‘Do you ever switch it off?’
I blink. ‘Huh?’
Eliott leans against the trolley. ‘You know…’ She gestures in the general area surrounding me. ‘This whole shtick .’
Another blink. Another, ‘Huh?’
She looks at me curiously for a few long moments before she shakes her head. ‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it.’ She starts pushing her trolley back in the direction she came from and I follow without hesitation.
‘Do you live round here?’ I ask, praying I’ve managed to keep the blatant hopefulness out of my voice.
Judging from the amused look she gives me, I’ve failed. But she doesn’t mention it. Instead, she shakes her head again. ‘I don’t. I’m closer to where we met that one time…’ She clears her throat and pointedly looks away. ‘The warehouse? Remember?’
That’s right. She’d only been a fifteen-minute Uber ride from the party two years ago.
‘So, what’re you doing here?’ I ask. We’re a good thirty minutes away from her place, and I’m sure there are closer supermarkets around.
‘My grandmother lives down the road from here,’ she says, after a brief moment of hesitation. ‘I’m heading over to hers now, and she asked if I could grab her a couple of things on my way.’
I glance at the trolley. It’s packed to the brim with groceries. Definitely not what I’d call ‘a couple of things’.
‘What about you?’ she asks. ‘Do you live close by?’
We’ve fallen in step with each other as we meander through the aisles. Our arms brush against each other every so often, but neither of us makes any move to put any more space between us.
‘Not far from here.’ My brain must be running on autopilot, because I don’t even have to think about the words that come out of my mouth next. ‘Why? You looking for an invitation?’
Because she can have one. An open invite, even. I’d gladly give one to her. All she has to do is ask.
Eliott rolls her eyes. She looks almost disappointed. ‘And there it is again.’
‘There what is?’
‘The shtick .’
We’ve stopped in the cereal aisle, and Eliott whips out her phone again to check her grandmother’s list.
‘I already told you,’ she mutters as she glances up and down the aisle for whatever it is that’s on her list. ‘I don’t go back for seconds. So you can stop whatever this is. You’re just wasting your time.’
I frown. There’s an edge to her voice that definitely wasn’t there before, and I don’t like it. ‘Whatever what is?’
Eliott sighs like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. ‘We’re not going to fuck, Dane.’
Later, I’ll revisit this moment and wonder why her bluntness is turning me on like this. But right now, all I can do is gape.
‘I wasn’t—’
She gives me a sardonic grin. ‘Open book. Remember?’
Well, fuck .
I guess I am easier to reader than I’d like to think. I smile sheepishly, and it seems to melt away some of the sudden ire she’s feeling. ‘My bad. But we can be friends, right?’
I don’t know why I’m clinging onto anything in the first place. Eliott knows, just as well as I do, that my interest in her is purely physical. Without sex on the table, there’s no reason for us to have any kind of lingering communication with each other.
Eliott snorts. ‘Right. Sure.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You don’t seem like the kind of guy who keeps a lot of girlfriends. Platonic girlfriends. And I’ll be honest with you, Dane,’ she shrugs, ‘I don’t really need you around if all you’re going to do is try to get into my pants.’
There it is again. That bluntness that I can’t help but find strangely attractive. Thinking back on it, this is what attracted me to Eliott two years ago as well. Aside from the whole she’s gorgeous thing. It was the confidence she approached me with, and it’s back again now.
Although it’s definitely not going in my favour this time.
She’s giving me an out and every rational part of me knows that I should take it. Just admit that she’s right and we can both go our separate ways. At the wedding we’ll be like two ships passing in the night. Nothing more. Nothing less.
But I want more.
‘I can do friends,’ I tell her.
Disbelief is painted over her face, and I can’t exactly blame her.
‘I’m serious,’ I say. I stick out my hand and she eyes it warily. ‘Friends. Just friends. I can do that.’
She hesitates for a second or two, and then grips my hand and gives it a squeeze. ‘Friends.’
I grin as we shake on it, and I try my best not to think about how nicely her hand slots in with mine.
I fail.
Miserably.