Chapter Fifteen

By the time they took Z back to Daniel’s place, the dog was exhausted and panting from a playtime that had included chasing the mini tennis ball, barking at a squirrel, peeing on every available surface, and sniffing the butts of the other dogs at the park. He fell asleep in Lacy’s lap before Daniel had even pulled the SUV out onto Main Street for the ride back home.

Lacy felt that she’d had almost as much fun as Zzyzx.

Someone in the dog’s past had taught him to fetch, and he’d brought the little ball back countless times, breathlessly plopping it at Lacy’s feet and waiting with trembling anticipation for her to throw it again. The dog’s joy was infectious, and Lacy had found herself aglow with contentment as she and Daniel had played with Z, talked, and shared easy companionship.

Now, as they headed back toward Daniel’s place, she didn’t want the day to end. It had to, though. Being with Daniel was making her head fuzzy—full of visions of what it would be like to kiss him and how he would look with his shirt off—and none of that was doing her any good. She knew the proper thing to do was to retreat into the safe burrow of her trailer and lick her wounds post-Brandon.

But right now, she really wanted to lick other things.

She gently stroked the dog in her lap and stole a glance at Daniel as he drove. God, he was beautiful. He had a pure masculinity about him, with his rugged features, his broad shoulders, and his day’s worth of stubble, that made her want to curl up on his lap the way Z had curled up on hers.

It was ridiculous, though. Who broke up with her fiancé only to curl up in another man’s lap two days later? Well, lots of people, probably, now that she thought about it. That didn’t mean it would be smart.

They pulled up in front of Daniel’s house, and he parked next to Lacy’s car. She told herself that she was going to get out of his car, hand over the dog, and then leave. So she was proud of herself when he invited her in, and she said she had to get going. She was still mentally patting herself on the back when he let Zzyzx into the house and then returned to walk her the twenty feet to her car.

“I really had a good time today,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck in a way that made her wonder if he was nervous. About what? About her?

“Me too,” she said. “I think Z’s going to need a long nap now.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “He really wore himself out.” The sun was just above the western horizon, and a light breeze ruffled his hair.

Daniel tucked his hands under his arms and said, “Hey, listen. It’s getting to be pretty close to dinnertime. Did you want to …”

Be strong, Lacy, she told herself. Be strong, be strong, be strong.

“I would, but I really need to get back,” she said, scrambling for some kind of excuse. “I … uh … I told my mom I’d be home for dinner. My sisters are coming over, so …” She had no idea if it was true. It might have been. Her sisters came over a lot.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Some other time, maybe.”

“Yeah. Sure. Some other time. For sure.” She was babbling. She needed to just shut up and drive away.

But somehow, the shut up and drive away plan was derailed when she unlocked her car, turned to him to say a friendly and casual goodbye, and found him standing so close to her that she could smell him.

Oh, holy God, his smell, all warm man and sandalwood soap, and maybe a hint of some heady cologne.

She forgot what she’d been doing, and her mind blanked.

He put his hands on her shoulders, gently, and her body said, Yes.

“Lacy? I’d really like to kiss you.” His voice was a low rumble that she felt all the way down in some of her favorite body parts. “Would that be okay?”

She didn’t answer, but instead found herself tilting her face toward his, her eyes closing, her lips parting.

He put his hand on the side of her face, his thumb slowly caressing the line of her jaw.

The kiss, when it came, was gentle at first, tentative. A feather-like touch of his lips to hers. And then, in response to her sigh, he moved in closer, fitting his mouth to hers as though they’d been made for that purpose. Just a moment of his tongue caressing hers, and then he pulled back with a gentle tug of her lower lip.

It was like time had stopped. She stood there, unmoving, her eyes still closed, her lips still slightly parted in memory of his touch.

When she roused herself, when her senses came back to her, she opened her eyes and found him so close, looking at her so intently that it was tempting to simply melt into him, to simply disappear into his eyes.

“I … uh … I should go,” she said.

He nodded and took a step back. “Okay.” He rubbed the back of his neck again. The fact that he was nervous was cute. So goddamned cute.

“Well … okay,” she said.

Before she could change her mind, she opened her car door and got in. He stood watching her as she put the car in reverse, turned around, and started down the dirt road that led back to Highway 1.

With him standing there looking at her like that, it was a wonder she didn’t plow into a tree.

 

The thing about it was, it wasn’t a real date. Or maybe it was. They hadn’t said the word date, and no food had been eaten—the usual standard for date vs. non-date. But there had been the kiss. For some reason, it was very important to Lacy to know how to classify this encounter in her mind. Because if it wasn’t a date, then what the hell was it? And if it was, then what the hell was she thinking?

“I’d have said no, not a date,” Rose weighed in later that night as they discussed it on the phone. “But then, when you factor in the kiss, it does sound datelike.”

Lacy was lying on the bed in her trailer, her cell phone to her ear, miserable with longing for a guy she shouldn’t even have been seeing, if she was, in fact, seeing him.

“Right? It’s the kiss that throws the whole thing off. Until then, it was two friends getting together. But after, it took on all of these datelike overtones! What the hell is going on? Are we friends, or are we dating? And if we’re dating …”

“Would that be so bad?” Rose asked.

“Yes. Yes, it would. Because … he’s Chunky Monkey.”

She could almost hear Rose’s quizzical expression over the phone. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t buy Chunky Monkey ice cream anymore,” Lacy patiently explained. “Because when I do, I don’t just get out a bowl and scoop out a reasonable portion, and enjoy that portion, and then get on with my life.”

“Ah. You eat the whole carton,” Rose said, catching on.

“Yes. I do. I eat the whole carton, and then I feel all sick and full, and I vow over and over again that I’ll never make that same mistake again. But then, the next time …”

“You eat the whole damn thing.”

“There you go,” Lacy said with satisfaction. “I can’t help myself! I don’t have any self-control!”

“Huh,” Rose said. “So, what flavor do you usually get?”

“I get something bland, like vanilla or … or Neapolitan. Something that tastes okay, but that I know I can stop eating.”

Following Lacy’s train of thought, Rose observed, “Brandon was Neapolitan.”

Lacy’s brow furrowed. “What? No, no. I’m just talking about Daniel here.”

“But it’s not just about Daniel,” Rose said. “It’s about more than that. It’s about how you want to feel like you’re in control of things, so you chose a Neapolitan man to marry instead of a Chunky Monkey one. And you were miserable, and you ended up not even eating the Neapolitan. And now you’re tasting the Chunky Monkey and realizing what you were missing.”

“That’s not—”

“Honey,” Rose said, more gently now. “Falling for a guy so hard that you feel like you can’t control your emotions is scary. Believe me, I get that. When I fell in love with Will I was so freaked out that I tried to push him away about a million times.”

“I remember.”

“But choosing Neapolitan is not the answer. Nobody likes Neapolitan. It’s boring, and the orgasms suck. If there even are orgasms.”

The sudden clash of the metaphor with orgasms was too jarring, and Lacy rubbed at her eyes. “You’re missing the point. I don’t want the Chunky Monkey hangover, with all of that bloating and regret.”

“Okay, let’s switch gears for a minute,” Rose said. “Back to your original question, I’d say it definitely was a date. Because when I hang out with my friends, we usually don’t kiss.”

“This is true,” Lacy said.

“And speaking of the kiss … how was it?”

“Oh, God,” Lacy said.

“Really,” Rose said with interest. “Go on.”

“I wanted to eat the whole carton, Rose. I really, really did.”

“Well,” Rose said, “I have double fudge brownie every night, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s pretty goddamned delicious.”

“Will is double fudge brownie?”

“My version of Chunky Monkey.”

“Ah.”

It was all so confusing. If Lacy was dating Daniel—and it seemed like that was a real possibility—then she was in way over her head with all of the lust and the longing and the … the feelings. And all of this so soon after her unsatisfying bowl of Neapolitan. But after today, and the kiss, it increasingly seemed as though it might be out of her hands. She might not be able to put down the damned spoon.