Chapter 7 #2
Anyway, dating was one of the things she’d missed out on by marrying so early. This was perfect. No expectations, no plan, an expiration date already stamped on the thing. A chance to finally get that wild high school kiss out of their systems.
Which sounded perfect right up until someone got their heart broken.
Uneasy, Gabi checked the label on the wine for the third time, a California Cabernet.
The owner of The Pour House, the new store on Main Street, had suggested it.
She glanced at her watch, ten minutes before seven, then settled onto the porch swing.
No need to arrive early and throw off the culinary rhythm.
She’d been swinging for five minutes when he found her.
The door opened, and Dallas filled the doorway.
His hair was growing back, as dark as she remembered—not completely black, but close—and starting to curl around his ears.
He paused, his vivid green gaze dropping to her cowboy boots, then traveling upward to linger where the hem of her sundress hit her thighs.
The neckline dipped below her collarbone, a detail she’d debated for longer than she cared to admit.
It was what she’d call a “flirty” outfit, and the extra hour of agonizing became worthwhile when he swallowed hard before meeting her eyes.
He gestured with the wooden spoon in his hand. “The invitation included coming inside.”
She laughed, aware she was being silly, and surprised how easy it was to admit it to him. “I’m preparing.”
He tilted his head, adorably puzzled. “For what?”
“First date in, oh, eleven years.”
Biting his cheek to hide a smile, he nodded. “Hang tight.” Then he was gone, the screen door slamming behind him. He was back in less than a minute with a glass of rosé.
When she started to rise, he held out a hand. “Relax,” he said, taking the bottle of Cabernet from her. “You’re preparing. I’m cooking.”
Dallas didn’t understand how rare this was, how generous his offer, giving her the chance to be Gabi for ten seconds instead of Mom.
No math homework to agonize over, no missing sock to find, no cupcakes to bake for the baseball team.
So she followed orders, loosening up to the sound of Radiohead, a hot guy’s surprisingly good voice chiming in now and again.
The hum of katydids and a soft breeze stirring the limbs of the live oaks in the yard.
And when she was ready, she went inside.
Dallas didn’t make a show of her entrance, simply glanced over his shoulder, his smile easy.
Like he understood, and maybe he did. He let her nose around, the open floor plan giving him full view of her flipping through the books on the coffee table—a wide variety, from history to poetry—pecking out the word hello on the gorgeous mint-green typewriter, a Hermes 3000, he said in an offhand way, then wandering back to the kitchen and the photograph tacked to the refrigerator.
It was a shot of three teenage boys, Ransom, Justin, and Dallas, their arms slung carelessly around each other’s shoulders.
Justin was laughing, a full grin showing his teeth, his hand held out like he was saying, stop, don’t take it.
Dallas was as thin as she recalled, gangly, but so handsome even then she wondered how she’d missed it.
She guessed Campbell was the photographer, a hobby that had turned into a successful career.
She leaned in to get a better look and heard him sigh behind her.
There was so much love in the photo, so much boyish ease and cavalier affection, but there was also something in Dallas’s face, a guarded, slightly haunted expression.
She took a sip of wine, deciding to hold the probing questions for later. “Word is, you saved those kids the other night from getting caught by Promise’s version of Barney Fife.”
“Word from whom?” he murmured, tipping a bowl of sliced cherry tomatoes into the skillet. They hit the oil with a bright hiss, bursting against the garlic and browned chicken. Whatever he was cooking smelled like paradise.
Gabi shrugged, not about to tell him his editor at the Dispatch had given her the full rundown, complete with the gleeful implication that Dallas himself had triggered the alarm. He’d only said, “Something that boy would do,” without explaining why he thought so.
Dallas grunted, chopping a handful of parsley with more focus than parsley required. So, he wasn’t one of those guys who turned every good deed into a story about himself.
“Good rosé,” she said, lifting the glass.
“I know the family.” He arranged the parsley in a neat circle with the side of the knife. “Or knew them for one week in Mendoza when I was twenty-three and pretending to write a serious piece about vineyard labor.”
“Pretending?”
He tapped the blade against the cutting board. “Mostly I got lectured by a sixty-year-old grower who thought journalists were parasites.”
Gabi laughed, easing onto one of the stools at the island. “Were you?”
“Absolutely.” He added a knob of butter to the skillet, swirling it through the tomatoes and garlic as it melted. “But I was a parasite with a strong back and good manners, so they gave me a story in exchange for a week’s work in the fields. I got my first Reuters gig because of that article.”
This guy was definitely smokin’, if there’d been any question, Gabi decided as she watched him move around the kitchen with surprising ease.
He didn’t take any of it too seriously, laughing when a tomato escaped the skillet and rolled across the stove like it was making a break for freedom.
And he was so different from anyone she knew, a little nerdy in a way that somehow felt artistic.
It was a trite word—cool—but it described him perfectly.
She’d been cool once, too, back in high school, though she’d peaked at the worst possible time, before she even knew who she was.
How was he still single? Chaotic schedule. That had to be it.
“Do you want to eat in here?” he asked, beginning to plate the food, unaware she was debating weighty relationship issues. “It’s just skillet chicken, à la True, which means I used half a recipe and made the rest up.”
“Sure,” she said, because the kitchen was warm and he was there. She didn’t want to leave this spot and risk losing the rosy glow of wine and watching. “This is perfect.”
He glanced at the overhead light, then switched it off, leaving only the low pendant over the island and the moonlight slipping through the window over the sink.
The kitchen changed immediately, ordinary things made softer—the glimmer of wine in the glasses, the steam rising from the skillet, Dallas with his short hair rumpled from the heat, the light catching in his lenses, his green eyes bright behind them.
“Better?” he asked, giving them a casual nudge along the bridge of his nose that, for some magic reason, curled her toes inside her boots.
“Yes,” she answered, though she wasn’t sure what she was saying yes to. “Much.”
He set her plate in front of her, then reached for napkins and silverware from a drawer beside the stove.
“I can get it.” She was already sliding off the stool, used to waiting on everyone.
“I know.” He handed her a fork, as if that settled the matter, then topped off her glass before taking the seat beside her.
Gabi gestured to the small CD player on the counter. “Is this a new album?”
“Just released.” He sat, stretching his injured leg out, his boot brushing hers. “OK Computer.”
“Should I know it?”
“Probably not. It was released in Europe first.” His mouth curved, his eyes catching hers. “Which means I get to be the one who shows it to you.”
For a second, neither of them moved. What else could he show her?
The song shifted behind them, into lonely, beautiful tones, and the space around them seemed to shrink around the accidental touch of his foot against hers.
Gabi looked at his mouth before she could stop herself, and there it was again—the storage room, the hot press of his hand, the way her body had answered him before her brain caught up.
She would never forget shivering in his arms, pleasure skating through her as her teeth sank into his cotton shirt to hold back her moans.
Dallas’s smile faded, as if he’d remembered the same thing.
“Well,” he said, reaching for his wine with unnecessary focus. “Before I make a gorgeous woman listen to me explain the genius of Radiohead, we should probably eat.”
He thought she was gorgeous. Gabi laughed to cover her delight, grateful for the break but not nearly as grateful as she ought to be. She’d had a mad urge to grab his hand and lead him to the closest bedroom. “Is your obsession that bad?” she asked instead.
“Worse. I would have totally used the phrase ‘postmodern anxiety.’”
She sputtered her wine. “O-kay.”
“Witness my restraint.” He cut into his chicken, his smile returning. “A lesser man would already be quoting lyrics.”
Dinner was better than she’d dreamed it would be, the tomatoes soft and sweet, the sauce rich enough that Gabi gave up pretending she wasn’t going to drag every bite through it.
Outside, rain began to tick softly against the windowpanes, turning the moonlit glass silver while the dim light held them in its warm circle.
They drank more wine, opening her bottle, and talked about easy things—Sam’s latest campaign for a puppy, the progress with Wilder Grounds, Dallas’s half-finished book, whether music sounded better if you were slightly brooding or burdened with a sunny disposition, which described the two of them fairly well.
Gabi laughed more than she thought she would, and Dallas did, too, leaning back occasionally to stretch his ankle, looking less like a man passing through and more like someone who, for one dangerous second, might belong right here.
Or maybe that was her covert hope.