Another Friday, another date night.

Except, this time, I’m not so annoyed at having to enjoy a meal with Dean. In fact, everything from the car ride here to our appetizers has been … lovely.

“This place is insane.” I laugh when the gigantic tower of food is set down on our table.

“It’s called Glutton for a reason. I think my stomach is going to explode each time I walk out of here, but it’s so good I keep coming back.” He grabs a ring of calamari off the monstrous seafood steeple before us.

“Good thing I’m not one of your model types, because then all of this would go to waste.” I start to pile food onto my appetizer plate.

“I always loved that about you.” There was that word again, and although I could brush it off without addressing it, the goose bumps on my skin could not.

“So how has the studio been going?” I try to change the subject.

Dean pops a fried oyster in his mouth. “Pretty good actually, I’m taking a longer break between albums this time, which I kind of like. Gives me more time to write, flesh out ideas. How is your residency?”

He’s been very interested in my work. “While I was skeptical about coming out here in the first place, it’s actually great for my career. I’m learning things lightyears above my office in New Jersey.”

It was true, I was seriously kicking some major dermatology ass out here. The procedures they knew and trained for, the different technologies and lasers that I never could have gotten my hands on back home … it was worth it just for them.

“Who knew you would be so into pimples?” He smirks.

“Don’t you remember how rigid I was about my skincare in high school?” I bite into a juicy piece of crab and sigh, it is amazing.

“Do I remember? The nights you would sneak out and sleep over, we couldn’t go to bed for half an hour until you’d used at least four products and exfoliated or whatever that shit is called.” He shook his head, the memory making us both grin.

“God, I was ballsy back then, huh? My parents had to have known I was spending nights at your house and not Heidi’s.”

“Maybe they were just so in love with me, they didn’t care.” He brushed fake dirt off of his shoulders.

“That Dean Jacobs charm, it always pissed me off when it came to my parents.” I roll my eyes. “They thought you could do no wrong. Still do, considering their daughter ran off and got engaged in the matter of months and they aren’t questioning a thing!”

Even saying it now peeved me a little. Yes, I was glad they weren’t prying too much, because I would most definitely break down and tell them about my fake engagement. It was bad enough that Heidi knew, not that she would tell anyone, and Dean wasn’t aware of her level of knowledge.

“I knew I always liked them.” He pops a piece of crab cake in his mouth, and I watch his tongue do devilish things as a spot of remoulade lands on his lip.

Now that I’m trying to let bygones be bygones, it’s like Dean’s sex appeal has ratcheted up seven notches from where it sat at a twenty out of ten before. Everything he does, every step, each flex of a bicep or the way he uses manners with waitstaff or drivers, makes me swoon. I feel like I’m a walking lady boner at all times, and I have to tamp down my sexual frustration. Since that kiss, it’s like my arousal button is always turned to the on position.

One of his tattoos catches my eyes, and I have to spill the question I’ve been biting back. “What do they all mean?”

I point my fork to his arms, and he follows the motions, studying his arms. “Some are meaningful, some are complete crap.”

“They’re … beautiful.” I breathe, because I can’t help it.

So intricate, wrapping around the muscles and veins of his arms. As a person who worshipped clean, healthy skin, it was probably against the rules that I was captivated by a man who had put needles and ink to his flesh. But I did.

His eyes were a dark blue over the flicker of the candle on the table. Dean pointed to one in particular. “These are roman numerals with the date of my father’s death. You asked me the other day why I never returned to Elm Hill? It was because, on this date, I finally felt the lead weight drop from my shoulders. The anvil I’d worn around my neck for so many years had finally been taken off. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of lightness that passed over my body when I heard of his death, Kara. And so I want to remind myself of it every day.”

His explanation takes my breath away, and wasn’t what I expected when I got into this conversation.

Dean doesn’t give me a break though, but barrels on. He points to one on the opposite arm, a necklace looking scroll of ink whose illustrated chain winds around his wrist. “This … this is the locket I gave you for your sixteenth birthday. Had to search high and low for a picture of it for my tattoo artist. I wanted it around my wrist, because I was always bound to you and I wore my heart on my sleeve when I was with you.”

At this description, I choke up, not able to contain the errant tear that slides down my cheek. Dean wears the stories of his life all over his skin. I’d forgotten about that locket, the one that sat at the bottom of a bag full of Dean related items buried under my bed so I would never have to look at them.

Seeing my emotional outbreak, Dean smiles and winks at me. “Then this one, it’s a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. I thought it would be so metaphorical, but in reality, it looks idiotic. But it makes me laugh.”

I laugh through the lump in my throat. “How about that one?”

“Oh this, a drunken dare from Neil. He bet me a thousand dollars that I wouldn’t tattoo Bon Jovi’s face on my arm, so I did. Thing is, I don’t even really like Bon Jovi … but don’t tell the media that. He’s a nice guy, just not too into his music.”

I have to giggle at that one. “You’re from New Jersey, you’re pre-programmed to love Bon Jovi.”

Dean takes a sip of his beer. “False. I’m pre-programmed to love Bruce Springsteen and flipping people the middle finger in traffic being from the Garden State. No one said that ‘Living on a Prayer’ was a requirement.”

I hold my hands up, our banter making me feel giddy. This feels like … us again. “Okay, I give up. You win.”

Dean’s eyes sparkle from across the table, and I know he feels it too. Something has changed over the past couple of months. It’s like all of that resentment has dropped off my shoulders, the same way he described his father’s death.

For the first time in seven years, I look back on that time and thank my younger self and Dean for splitting us up. Even before the did he/didn’t he cheat scandal, we weren’t in a good place. I was lonely, and causing fights over stupid things only because we were in a long-distance relationship. We both needed time to grow, individually as people and in our separate careers.

It may be unconventional the way we found ourselves here, and I still wasn’t sure I was ready to give this a real shot, but I had to admit it to myself.

I was falling for my fake fiancé.