Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Dawson smiled sadly. “This is already the most adult conversation I’ve ever had with a woman, and our relationship is only forty-eight hours old. So you might need to be patient with me while I learn how to communicate rather than getting pissed off.”
I smiled. “I can do that.”
Dawson crooked his finger. “Come here.”
All the little hairs on my arms stood up. Two words. That was a pretty good trick for a man to keep in his bag. I walked toward him slowly. “Okay. But we’re only doing a quick kiss-and-make-up. Sex in the office is still off limits.”
Dawson’s eyes sparkled. “For now…”
He stood and wrapped his arms around me, locking his hands behind my back. It made my pulse slow and my racing thoughts disappear.
“I’m sorry I was an asshole,” Dawson said.
“And I’m sorry for projecting my fears onto us.”
He ducked his head and brushed his lips with mine.
“But I’m not sorry about steering you away from Will Archer. The guy is not what you think.”
“I never had any interest in him. How could I when I have you?”
Dawson’s eyes jumped back and forth between mine. “You do, you know.”
“Do what?”
“Have me. I have no idea how the fuck it happened so fast, but you do.”
Chapter 27
* * *
DAWSON
Lily’s eyes lit up as Naomi and I made our way over to their table the following Friday night.
“I love having couple best friends!” She clapped and smiled from ear to ear.
I pulled out the chair across from Lily and shook my head as Naomi took her seat. “Why do I feel like we aren’t going to get a word in edgewise tonight?”
Ben lifted a highball glass. “Good whiskey and good-looking women. Yapping makes my wife happy, and that means I’ll get to be happy when we get home. I don’t need to talk to you at dinner.”
Lily rolled her eyes, yet the smile never left her face. I settled in across from Ben, and our dates immediately dove into a two-person conversation.
Lily leaned in. “You look…relaxed.”
Naomi picked up her napkin and draped it across her lap. “Did I look tense recently?”
“It’s the only way you’ve looked in the last year. Even over FaceTime, before you moved to New York, you looked stressed.”
“I had a lot going on. I was unemployed.”
Lily wiggled her brows. “I don’t think the new job is what got rid of the tension.” Her eyes shifted from Naomi to me and back again. “Anything you two want to share?”
Naomi pursed her lips. It looked like she was debating what to say. I thought I’d make things easier, so I leaned in and lowered my voice. “We’re fucking. I’m happy. She’s happy. Don’t overanalyze it. We’re taking it day by day.”
Lily’s eyes sparkled. “The couple that owns the brownstone next to us is retiring to Florida and selling. You two should buy it so Naomi and I can be neighbors when we give birth to Apple and Olive. We’re going to look so chic pushing matching prams.”
I dropped my head, shaking it. “What are the boys going to be named? Pear and Lime?”
“Actually, I’ve always had my heart set on Keanu.” Naomi looked over and winked. “He was my crush when I saw my first Matrix movie.”
I smiled and rested a hand on her thigh under the table. It wasn’t sexual, but it made me warm in other ways. Normally feelings like that left me unsettled, but with Naomi it was just the opposite. I felt content for the first time in as long as I could remember—maybe ever.
Over dinner, Ben told some story about a defendant’s sixteen-year-old son who was arrested for stealing expensive racing bikes and storing them in the garage of his girlfriend’s parents’ house. Apparently, the kid tried to blame the theft on his girlfriend when he got caught, and now he had cases against both father and son.
“I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Ben said. “The father put all the money he embezzled from his employer in an account in his wife’s name and tried to let her take the fall.” He scooped a mound of red velvet cake into his mouth and pointed his fork at me. “Speaking of bikes, remember when we built that ramp?”
“Remember?” I groaned. “My balls still hurt whenever I walk past one of those stupid Citibike racks.”
Ben chuckled. “When Dawson and I were maybe about thirteen, we decided to build a bike ramp, sort of like an Evil Knievel jump. We had no idea what the hell we were doing, so the thing wound up being way higher than it should have. The part you jumped off was probably more than three feet tall. We weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, so we set it up out front on the concrete street, rather than on the grass.” He looked at me. “We built the damn thing on the grass. Why the hell did we drag it all the way out front instead of trying it in the yard where we would’ve had a softer landing?”