CHAPTER 14
“Thanks for the dance?” Brynn repeated Axel’s parting comment after he walked her to the door and then left.
He left.
After the dancing, the almost kissing, the “accidental” arm brushes on the walk home (okay, those were mostly her). But still, after all of that…he left.
She stared down at the keys in her hand that had been shaking when she’d unlocked her door and walked in, thinking he’d follow right behind her. Thinking tonight was going to be the night that she’d be able to think back on as she toasted her friends to “good sex.” Thinking that her self-imposed celibacy was finally going to come to an end (pun intended).
But that’s what she got for thinking. Because instead of any of that happening, he’d thanked her for the dance and walked around the side of the house to the garage. She’d stood in her doorway in stunned disbelief and listened as his feet climbed the old wooden steps leading to his apartment before she’d shut her door.
She was in shock.
She’d spent the walk home trying to remember if she’d shaved her legs this morning and whether or not her bra and underwear matched. She’d been absolutely certain that her five-year dry spell was about to be broken and that certainty equally terrified and excited her.
But it turned out, it wasn’t so certain.
It seemed that at every turn she was judging the situation with Axel all wrong. Each time she thought things were headed in a certain direction with him, he’d make a sharp U-turn and take her completely by surprise. From the first night they’d met until tonight, that man didn’t do anything that she expected. And it was making her begin to wonder if it was her, if she’d been out of the game so long that she was really that bad at picking up on vibes—or was it that he was sending mixed signals.
Tonight did not bode well for her decision to start dating again. Maybe the saying was true that if you don’t use it you lose it. She’d been so concentrated on her education, career, and most importantly being the best mom to Ryder that she may have sacrificed her mojo.
That depressing thought hovered over her like a dark cloud as she made her way down the hall toward her bedroom. She untied her shirt and slid the material off of her shoulders. Her heart was still beating a mile a minute as adrenaline raced through her.
“I guess ‘do you want to go home’ doesn’t mean what it used to,” she mumbled to herself as her hand searched the wall for the light switch.
When she found it and flipped it on she heard Lucy let out a frustrated sigh. Her pug was clearly upset that her darkened slumber had been interrupted.
“Sorry, your highness,” she said sarcastically. “But believe me, things could’ve been much worse for you tonight. You could’ve ended up sleeping on the couch.”
Her princess pug responded with an even louder sigh than the first before nuzzling her head into the pillows.
“I still can’t believe he left.” Brynn heard herself continuing. “I really thought he was going to come in.”
Lucy opened one eye and glared at Brynn, begging her to stop talking.
“I’m not crazy,” she insisted, immediately recognizing the irony of explaining this to a dog. “We almost kissed.” She flopped on the edge of the bed and unbuckled her shoes and slipped them off. “I might’ve been out of the game for a while, but I know what almost kissing is.”
Brynn stood and sucked in her stomach as she unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied out of them, tossing them in the hamper as she continued to rant about her night.
“We were dancing, under the stars.” Brynn opened her top drawer and grabbed a pair of cutoff sweats and a comfy T-shirt. “He asked me to dance. I didn’t ask him.”
Her mind continued to play the night over and over again as she went to the bathroom and washed off her makeup. When she finished and sank into bed, she grabbed her Kindle and pulled up Wait for Me by Samantha Chase. It was her go-to reread when she was agitated, and this was DEFCON 1 agitation.
As she read about Emma and Lucas, she tried to lose herself in the story, but her mind kept replaying the dance in her head.
She sat up with pillows propped behind her, then she lay down and turned on her side. Then sat up again with less pillows. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get comfortable. She would get under the blankets only to push them off seconds later. She adjusted her pillows a half-dozen times, and even thought about getting a glass of wine but realized that probably wasn’t the best idea since she’d had three drinks at the bar.
Finally, she gave up the illusion of reading, curled up beside Lucy, and scratched her behind the ears. Lucy nuzzled her soft head into Brynn’s palm. As she stared at her adorable dog she tried to reconcile the fact that she was in bed with her instead of Axel. Snuggling with her pug was not what she’d thought she’d be doing in bed when she and Axel left Lanterns.
Her mind was like a broken record that kept skipping back to the same song over and over.
“Our mouths were less than an inch apart.” Brynn told an uninterested Lucy. “We were lip to lip. When he asked if I wanted to go home, his bottom lip brushed against mine. That’s a kiss!”
On cue, Lucy lifted her head and licked Brynn across the face. Lucy didn’t do very many things on command. Basically, only two things: sit and kiss.
About five years ago, right after she and Ryder adopted her, Lucy was asked to participate in the Valentine’s Day Festival. Whisper Lake was known for its over-the-top festivals. And one of the staples of the festival was having a kissing booth that was “manned” by a dog. Being the pup in the booth was an honor. When Lucy was chosen as that year’s special pup, Brynn had worked with her for weeks to get her to kiss on command.
Brynn wished Axel kissed on command.
He might.
The voice in her head sounded suspiciously like Jess’s.
She shook that thought out of her head. If Axel had wanted to kiss Brynn, he would’ve. She didn’t need to read He’s Just Not That Into You to know that. What she needed to do was face reality and move on. No more daydreaming, no more wishing and hoping that something would transpire between her and Axel.
Brynn had indulged in the fantasy of what could be for far too long. It was time to get back to the reality of her life. A reality that didn’t include having affairs with hot, mysterious men that showed up in town out of the blue.
“Come on.” She stood up and picked up her twenty-pound puppy who refused to walk once she’d gone to bed. So each night Brynn carried her pug outside for her last bathroom break of the day. “Potty time.”
As Brynn opened the back door, she had to admit that these nightly trips had been a lot more exciting since Axel had moved into the apartment. She told herself each night that she wasn’t going to look up to see if his light was on, but each night that’s exactly what she did. It was a game of self-control that she lost every time.
Tonight, she didn’t even try to pretend that she wasn’t going to sneak a peek. She boldly gazed up at the window that overlooked the small patch of grass that Lucy was doing her business on. There was a light on, but she didn’t see any movement.
Despite her resolve to return to her regular scheduled programming, questions about their nonexistent relationship filled her mind.
Had they almost kissed on that dance floor?
Was the attraction she had for him one-sided?
Did he feel anything when he looked at her?
Was it even close to what she felt when she looked at him?
Basically, she just wanted to know what was going on between them. Or if anything was going on at all.
And the answers were just up those stairs.
Would it be so bad if she knocked on his door and cleared the air?
People did that if there was any kind of misunderstanding…right?
It sounded like a reasonable thing to do. Mature, even.
At least then, she’d know where she stood. Her mind wouldn’t try to fill in the blanks. There’d be no more confusion. No more sleepless nights tossing and turning and wondering if he was thinking about her, too.
Feeling good about her proactive decision, Brynn picked Lucy up to put her back inside the main house and tripped over her own feet as she walked up the steps of her deck.
Shoot. The thought hit her that maybe this idea sounded so good because of her liquid courage, and tomorrow morning she’d regret it.
She paused and thought about chickening out.
Screw it. She’d played it safe for thirteen years. She was due for a little morning-after regret.