Fawn
“Hey, Fawn, hold up!”
Dax climbed off his motorcycle and followed me up to my door while I fished my keys out of my purse. I took a deep breath. I knew what was coming. My nerves had been anticipating this conversation all day at work. It had been my first day working in Charleston, and I had the jitters because of what had happened with my childhood best friend the night before. Not to mention, I was feeling sluggish from having too many drinks with him back at the clubhouse.
Dammit, Dax, this wasn’t what I wanted to happen when I came home.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in and let me see the new place?”
I laughed and looked down at my feet. I felt myself blushing, but it had nothing to do with inviting him inside; it was because I knew what he was doing. He wasn’t asking to be let in because he wanted to see the condo – well, maybe he did, but it wasn’t the only reason. He wanted in so we could talk about what happened.
“Maybe we could break it in a little bit,” he added when I didn’t reply right away.
“It’s not really company-ready yet. I’ve still got a lot of unpacking and stuff to do.” There wasn’t much unpacking left, but there was still a mess of mostly unpacked boxes left lying around. Carson had taken a bunch off my hands before we went to the clubhouse the day before, but, honestly, that wasn’t the problem.
My heart raced, pounding hard and fast in my chest. I wanted him to accept the excuse and move on. I wanted the conversation to be over without having to face him over what we did at the clubhouse. Regardless of the state of my house, I wasn’t ready to take the conversation – or anything else, for that matter – inside.
I’d been thinking about how to address it since he’d taken me to get my car that morning, but I hadn’t been able to come up with anything. I knew we couldn’t pretend nothing happened and expect it to go away; we weren’t kids anymore. But I needed some time to process it. Unlike Dax, I wasn’t good with going with the flow, no matter how much I tried to play that part in front of the guys from the MC.
“Fawn, this is me you’re talking to. Do you really think I care about a few boxes strewn across your floor or anything like that? I mean, c’mon. We’re closer than that.” He looked at me with those sparkling eyes and that daring smile, the same face that got us in trouble so many times as kids, and my knees damn near buckled underneath me.
“It’s not that, Dax.” And I took the wind out of my own sails. I’d opened the door to talk about what happened, and it felt like I’d been holding my breath all day, trying to keep it back. Well, now it was safe to talk about it, and I knew he was bound to take the bait. He wasn’t about to drop it and walk away.
“I know.” He nodded, and I could see the disappointment in his eyes.
What are you doing, Fawn? Enjoy this moment with him. I admonished myself for letting him down, but what else was I going to do? Neither one of us was ready for a relationship. There was no way anything between us would have worked out, not then at least.
“I’m sorry about last night.” It was obvious he wasn’t in the same place I was about it. He’d been pretty excited about what had happened between us, and I had taken that away from him. Where I saw a problem and nothing but conflict ahead, he saw promise apparently.
He turned to walk away, but stopped as he took the first step down. He looked back over his shoulder at me. He didn’t quite make eye contact, but I could tell he was looking in my direction.
“I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you, Fawn. That was wrong, and I’m sorry.” He looked like a sad puppy dog as he started to walk away again.
“Dax, no. It’s not like that.” I stepped to the edge of my porch and stood at the top of the steps. Part of me wanted to run down and grab him, to take him in my arms and cry out an apology on his chest while I begged him to forget everything I’d said. I hated myself for letting him make me feel that way. I had to stand my ground and not back down, not let him make me feel guilty for the way I felt.
“Then how is it?” He looked up at me, his eyes looking as defeated as his tone sounded.
“We got caught up in the moment. No one was in the wrong.” Why did I feel like I was pleading with him? Why did it feel like I was apologizing for the way I felt?
“So what are you saying?” He came back up to stand in front of me.
I lowered my voice, not wanting to air out our business in front of all of my new neighbors. “I’m saying you didn’t take advantage of me. I was as willing as you were, but we should leave things as they are now.”
He nodded while I talked. “Okay. Message received. I’ll make sure there are a couple of guys keeping an eye on the condo while you’re home, and I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Dax, don’t shut me out. You’re my best friend.”
“Well, which is it, Fawn? Do you want to keep me at arm’s length, or do you want to risk letting our feelings getting the best of us again?” He looked down at me, his words equally soft and forceful at the same time.
I didn’t feel like that was a decision I could make at the time. He knew I was coming back home to get away from my failed relationship – I’d told him as much. And when he mentioned his ex, I could tell there was still a lot of pain there.
“I think we need to remember that we’re friends first and foremost. I think last night we were overwhelmed by seeing each other for the first time in eight years. I mean, your dad’s funeral doesn’t count.”
“Yeah, that was in passing. We spoke and hugged, and you were gone.” He laughed like it genuinely amused him how briefly we saw each other then.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t handle it then,” I admitted. “Losing him, watching my dad’s reaction, seeing you – it was all too much.”
“Yeah, I get it. I knew you were busy and had to get back to your life. Is that what’s happening now?” He put his hands on my shoulders and started to pull me close to him. It wasn’t a romantic embrace; he was hugging me as a friend, comforting me and assuring me that we were fine.
“I don’t know what’s happening now. I’m not running back out of state or anything like that. I’m going to be right here, and you’re in this with me.” I jabbed him in the gut. “Unless, of course, you’re going to abandon your post altogether, but what would my dad think?”
“No thank you. That’s not a conversation I look forward to having with him anytime soon.” He laughed and released me from his embrace.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Dax. Give me some time. Give us some time, okay? It’s great that we were there for each other yesterday, and I wouldn’t take it back if I could, but I think we need to keep things platonic.”
“Again, I’m sorry, but okay. We can play it straight for a while, keep it as just friends.” He put a fist to my shoulder and gave me a little shove.
I wished it didn’t have to be the way it was, but I wasn’t going to share that thought with him. We were both damaged goods. I knew that if I allowed myself to get involved too deeply with Dax, he would only wind up leaving me the same way Frank did. My career would take me away from him, and he wouldn’t wait around, not when he could have his pick of girls in the area. I was sure he’d been with plenty of them over the years, too. Someone as charming as Dax? There was no way he would pass up what was right in front of him for something that would make him wait.
“I’m gonna head out then and let you get back to cleaning and unpacking. Call me if you need anything.”
I nodded. “Sure thing, and thanks for being here.”
We stood and stared at each other a moment. The memory of what we’d done weighed on us, making the moment awkward. We both felt like there was something missing – a hug, a kiss, or possibly something we should have said.
“Alright, so tomorrow?”
“You got it.” I grinned as he took to my steps again and walked to his bike. He fired it up, and the engine roared through my neighborhood as he pulled away.
The ride home on his bike from the clubhouse that morning had been horrifying. I had never liked motorcycles, and I’d always had a rule about dating bikers. They were too much for me. I wanted someone who could settle down, raise a family. I didn’t want someone running off every time I turned my back.
Even if Dax hadn’t been that kind of person, even if he hadn’t grown up among the Carolina Devils, living their lifestyle, his own experience with loss made him a flight risk. There was no point in even trying with him. I knew that once we got close, he would probably freak out and hit the road. Hell, I knew even I was likely to do it.
“That’s enough,” I told myself. “You’ve got stuff to do.”
I turned back toward my door and unlocked it. Before walking in, I checked over my shoulder again, looking for the guys Dax had assigned to watch the condo while he was gone. I actually expected to see him standing at the bottom of the steps again, ready to come up.
The Dax I had known growing up wouldn’t have taken no as an answer so easily. He would have insisted until I let him inside, regardless of what happened after that, though I knew exactly what would have happened if he’d come into the new place. It would have been the same thing, which I felt should have told me something about our friendship, but I refused to believe it. We needed to leave things alone, to leave them as they were.
I closed the door and let myself breathe. Everything on the other side of that door, outside my home, could wait until later. It didn’t have to follow me inside. What I needed was a shower, a glass of wine, a good night’s rest, pretty much in that order. The wine and shower could be rearranged, but both had to happen before sleep.
“From one mess you made to another, huh?” I looked around at the boxes that were left to be unpacked and the cleaning that still needed to be done. I didn’t have it in me to work on it. I set my purse on the couch and went straight to the kitchen.
The shower was definitely going to have to wait until after the glass of wine.