Never Been Nerdy(63)

“Everyone laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Guys I thought were my friends didn’t say anything. They just stood there,” Dean says, voice rough. I tighten my hold on him and squeeze my eyes shut, but I need to hear this.

“And I didn’t think you’d do it. I knew you were pissed off at me, I knew you wanted to break things off, but I knew I could be better, I could do better. I was such a stupid kid. It’s a miracle I turned out as well-adjusted as I am.”

A quick smile spreads across my face then falls away. “What can I do to make it up to you? Please, I’ll do anything.”

I lean back and stare up at Dean’s beautiful, sweet face. His jaw is set, and that muscle is ticking time off at the edges. His green eyes are dangerous and humiliated with bad memories that I put there.

He stares at me, eyes bouncing off my nose to eyes to mouth to eyes and doing it all over again. “I want you to stay away from me. I never want to see you again.”

I let go like I’ve been burned, and step away from him. I give Potter over to Dean, and turn on my heel to leave. You’re doing the right thing, you’re doing the right thing.

“Wait!” Dean calls me back, running after me; the dogs bark as if they’re trying to get me to stop, too. “Shit, Kat. Just gimme a second. This is a lot to process. And I don’t know why you look so gorgeous and it scrambles my brain and now I’m rambling,” he half-grins down at me, coming to stand before me.

“I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want. I said I’d do anything. I meant it.”

All three dogs leap around my legs and end up bumping me closer to Dean. Wait, I’ve seen this sort of thing before, in an animated movie.

“I want to try something,” he says, and gently presses a kiss to my mouth. “Shit. Well, I guess we’re going to have to stay friends,” he shrugs, and I have no idea what was just decided.

“Friends?”

“Yeah, don’t you have dude-bro friends? Although, let’s face it, I’m going to be the greatest of them all,” he says and flexes.

“You can come meet the guys, if you want. I’ll set something up; I haven’t seen the assholes in a couple of months.”

Dean frowns. “How come a couple of months?”

“Well, I have this thing called a very demanding job and I put in crazy hours to get as many promotions before I’m 30 as I can.”

Dean nods as if this makes some sort of deluded sense. It’s my turn to frown, now.

“Will Sera be there? Besides you, she’s gonna be the only one I’ll know.”

“Yeah. I mean... yeah, she’ll be there.” Whatever it takes. It’s easy talking with Dean, it’s easy to make the words come out, easy to talk about my parents in a way I never discussed with the boys.

Dean nods, then looks to the sky. “Race you to the top?” he yells over his shoulder as he sprints away from me, leaving me totally confused. I wait another two seconds before I go off sprinting after him.

I’m twenty-five years old and I’m running after a grown man for kicks.

Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.



***



My phone buzzes and I stare hard down at the Caller ID.

The only time I received a call from him was when he was grovelling and begging me to set the whole shebang up at Tripoli all those weeks ago. Ah, how time flies.

“MacLaine,” I say. I’m half-scared he’s going to threaten to kill me because of all those awful shit things I said to Sera, and half-elated because Sera’s stubborn and maybe Hunter wants to know what’s got her in hysterics.

“Hey, Katie. How are you?” he asks, and the whole friendly greeting thing has thrown me off. MacLaine and I aren’t really friends. I see him from time to time when he’s with Sera, usually when they mack out and my vagina wakes up and wants a piece of that with any guy available, but that’s about it.

We don’t relate on a personal level. The guy’s a Dad and me being on his list of priorities is not only not in the cards.

“Gooooooooddddd. You?” Yup, totally just waiting for the bomb to drop.

“I was wondering if you could meet me at Rockland today, say around two-ish? I’ll buy you coffee, or whatever you like to eat or drink.”

“I never say no to free coffee but can I ask what this is about?” It’s not like he’s actually going to tell you he’s going to kill you over the phone, DiNovro.

“Ah, I don’t want to get into it right now. So you can meet me, then?” I look over at Dean who’s preparing us lunch after he destroyed me in our race to the top of the mountain. There’s a baguette in the oven and he’s staring down at the lit thing waiting for the perfect amount of crunchiness - his words not mine.