Chapter 12
DEX
Ichanged my shirt three times before I left the house.
Three times.
Christ, my palms were sweating. This was getting ridiculous.
I hadn’t been this nervous since I was seventeen and getting ready for prom. This was entirely different. I was just a thirty-four-year-old man picking up a woman for dinner.
But this wasn’t just any woman. This was Leigh. And this wasn’t just dinner. This was... everything I’d been trying not to want for the past two weeks.
I settled on a dark blue button-down, jeans that were nice but not too formal, boots. Casual but put-together. The kind of outfit that said I’d made an effort without trying too hard.
Then I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered what the hell I was doing.
Starting something that couldn’t last. Getting involved with my best friends’ sister. Making a decision that could blow up in my face and destroy the only family I had.
But when I thought about not showing up, about texting her some excuse, my chest tightened with something that felt like panic.
I wanted this. Wanted her. More than I’d wanted anything in a long time.
So I grabbed my keys, my wallet, and headed out the door before I could second-guess myself into staying home.
The drive to her house was torture to start with, but then the closer I got, the more the anticipation started to build. This didn’t have to be a big thing. This wasn’t a betrayal. It was two adults, pursuing something with each other that was no one else’s business.
When I finally pulled up, my rampaging thoughts had settled. Jasper’s house looked warm and welcoming in the early evening light. I sat in my truck for a moment, hands on the steering wheel, taking a breath.
This was happening. We were doing this.
Before I could get out, the front door opened. Leigh stepped out, and every thought in my head evaporated.
She wore a simple sundress in a deep green that made her eyes look impossibly bright. Her hair was down, falling in soft waves around her shoulders. She looked beautiful and nervous and perfect.
I was out of the truck before I realized I’d moved.
“Hey,” I said, meeting her halfway up the walk.
“Hey.” Her smile was shy, uncertain. “You look nice.”
“So do you.” The words felt inadequate. She looked like every dream I’d had since that first night at the bar. “You look incredible.”
Color rose in her cheeks. “Thanks.”
We stood there for a moment, suddenly awkward now that this was real.
Now that we were actually doing this. The weight of what was happening settled on me.
Even though we’d decided this was only for the summer, this felt like one of the most significant moments of my life.
A beginning to something I’d never forget.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready.”
I walked her to my truck, opening the passenger door for her. As she slid in, the scent of her perfume hit me as she passed. That same scent that had been driving me crazy for weeks.
Focus, I told myself. Don’t mess this up.
I got in the driver’s side, started the engine, and pulled out of the driveway.
“Where are we going?” she asked after a moment.
“Riverside. There’s a restaurant there I think you’ll like. Italian place, family-owned, not too fancy but the food’s incredible.”
“Sounds perfect.” She paused. “Far enough away that we won’t run into anyone from Willowbrook.”
I glanced at her. “Yeah. That too.”
The words hung between us. An acknowledgment of what we were doing. Keeping this secret. Hiding.
“Is this crazy?” she asked quietly. “What we’re doing?”
“Probably.”
“But we’re doing it anyway.”
“Yeah.” I reached across the console, found her hand. Laced our fingers together. “We’re doing it anyway.”
She squeezed my hand, and something in my chest settled. This was right. Maybe it was temporary, maybe it was complicated, but it was right. It had to be, because I couldn’t accept that anything about Leigh or what we wanted could possibly be wrong.
We drove in comfortable silence, her hand in mine, the radio playing softly.
The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold, and for the first time in months I felt like I could breathe.
All of the feelings that had been clouding me over the past couple of months were just… not that important any more.
When we arrived at the restaurant it was exactly as I remembered.
Small, intimate, the kind of place where they knew the regulars by name but made newcomers feel welcome.
We got a table in the back corner, away from the main dining area, and I was grateful for the privacy, especially when Leigh took the table next to mine and I found myself hooking my hand under her seat and pulling it just a fraction closer.
She smiled softly, biting her bottom lip before the waiter interrupted us to pass us the menus.
Leigh looked around, taking it in. “This is nice. How’d you find this place?”
“I came here a few times years ago. Before...” I trailed off.
“Before what?”
“Before I decided I was better off alone.”
She looked at me, something soft in her expression. “What changed?”
You, I wanted to say. You changed everything.
But instead I said, “I got tired of being alone.”
The waiter appeared, saving me from having to elaborate. We ordered wine for her, water for me, pasta dishes that sounded too complicated but the waiter promised were amazing.
When we were alone again, Leigh leaned forward. “So. First date conversation. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“That’s a dangerous question.”
“I’ll risk it.”
I thought about it. About all the things I kept locked away, all the truths I never shared. And somehow, with her, I wanted to.
“I’m terrified of heights,” I finally said.
She blinked. “Really?”
“Really. Have been since I was a kid. I once decided that I could work through it if I pushed myself hard enough and it turned into this whole situation where I dared Xander to jump of the barn roof at Booker’s ranch.
” I laughed at the thought of all the stupid stuff we used to do as kids.
“He nearly did it too. Apparently we weren’t that smart until we got older. ”
“I bet you have a lot of stories like that about them.”
“Yeah. We’ve spent a lot of time together.
They had it rough growing up. Regina was a tyrant and even back when I was a kid I knew they needed someone to help them escape.
Even if it was just for the afternoon and with some crazy idea that we could break our fall if the mud was thick enough at the bottom.
I guess, we did that for each other though.
They saw how alone I was a kid. How much I needed.
..” I stopped myself. This was getting too real too fast.
But Leigh just watched me, no judgment in her eyes. “You think they only love you because of what you can give them?”
“I never said that.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I looked away, uncomfortable with how clearly she saw me. “Maybe. Yeah. Maybe I do think that.”
“Dex.” She reached across the table, covered my hand with hers. “They love you because you’re family. Not because you’re useful. Not because you’re a distraction.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually. Because that’s how they love me. And I’ve contributed nothing. I’m just the secret half-sister who showed up and complicated everything. But they’re still trying. They’re including me, trying to get to know me.”
“You’re not…”
“I know,” she said gently. “I know I’m not. And you need to know you’re not just the useful one. You’re their brother. Period.”
The certainty in her voice made something crack open in my chest. I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe her.
“Your turn,” I said, changing the subject before I said something I’d regret. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
She smiled, accepting the deflection. “I’m terrified of deep water. I can swim, but if I can’t see the bottom, I panic.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. When we were in High School someone I knew got caught in a rip tide. They never found her body.” She took a sip of wine. “I haven’t been comfortable in water since.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah. It’s the problem with living by the sea, I guess. A lot of people probably have a similar story.” Her smile turned playful. “This got super depressing really fast, didn’t it?”
I laughed because she wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t even sure how such a simple question had gotten us to this point.
Then I realized that I did know, it was because she was so easy to talk, and she saw me in ways that no one had ever been able to see me before.
Right through the barriers, the bullshit, right to the center of me.
And it didn’t make me want to run and hide.
It made me want to hold her close and treasure her like the precious gift she was.
The food arrived, and we ate and talked.
Real conversation, the kind I hadn’t had with anyone in years.
She told me about Blue Point Bay, about growing up with Wren and all her other cousins, about her photography business and the clients she loved and the ones she tolerated.
I told her about the garage, about the brothers when they were kids, about learning to rebuild engines from my grandfather.
We talked about books and movies and the stupidest things we’d ever done. We laughed until we were breathless, and somewhere in there I forgot to be nervous.
This was easy. Being with her was easy in a way nothing had been easy for a long time.
When the waiter brought the check, I realized three hours had passed. Three hours that felt like thirty minutes.
“I don’t want this to end,” Leigh said softly, reading my mind.
“Neither do I.”
“So what do we do?”
I paid the bill, stood, offered her my hand. “Come with me. I know a place.”
And then the nerves hit me full force again.