Tempting Her Best Friend(50)

“Why don’t you tell me now?”

…

Dillon had to assume he was sleepwalking, but with the deafening buzz of his swarming thoughts and the piercing headache punishing his skull, he’d doubted even a bed at The Ritz could have lulled him to sleep. However, when he considered the scene in front of him, dreaming was the only logical explanation. Either that or he was being Punk’d.

A small group of people—Correction. A strange group of people, half in airline uniforms with the other half in costumes, stood in the empty terminal. An older gentleman had his arm around the waist of a mostly naked showgirl standing on one leg. A dude too good-looking to be anything other than a model or one of those actors you see in a dozen movies but never know their names was arm in arm with a baby-faced ringmaster wearing a tux puked up by the hotel that was puked up by Mardi Gras. The rest of the ensemble consisted of Salma Hayek, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty White, celebrities that ranged from young to dead to, well, almost dead.

And in the center of it all, still wearing the regal white gown from earlier, Alyssa held court like a queen over her oddly random subjects.

“Why aren’t you on the plane?”

Because the thought of not having you in my life terrifies me. Because even if it makes me the biggest pussy in the world, I planned to beg you for a chance to show you how happy I can make you. Dillon locked those thoughts down. If he’d learned anything in Vegas, it was to hold his cards a lot closer to his chest. So he offered her a half shrug and said, “My horoscope said I should stay away from pressurized metal tubes today.”

“Dillon…” She exhaled his name as though the very sound was a balm to her soul. It sure as hell worked on his. Next to her shouting it when he made her come, saying his name with love on her lips was the best thing he’d ever heard.

Unlike everything he’d heard from her earlier.

He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his face, the sound giving life to the scratches her cold words had etched onto his heart. “Why are you here, Alyssa?”

“I, um, wanted to apologize for the things I said earlier.”

Dillon raised an eyebrow and glanced at their eclectic audience. “You came all the way here…with them…to apologize?”

“Yes. Wait, no. I mean—” Alyssa huffed out a frustrated breath. Taking a step toward him, she tried again. “You were right earlier. I am in love with you, Dillon. Crazy, hopelessly in love. I’ve known for a long time, but I was too afraid to tell you.”

Despite he’d just heard the words he’d been waiting for Alyssa to say, he couldn’t bring himself to swing her around in his arms like they were in a Taylor Swift music video. Back at the hotel she’d cut his chest wide open. He needed major surgery, not a butterfly bandage.

Seeing Alyssa act so completely out of character had skepticism and cynicism perching on his shoulders. He needed to press her for more. He needed to understand how she’d suddenly pulled a one eighty from an hour ago.

“So what’s changed?” he asked. “I know you, Aly. You take days to analyze the pros and cons before committing to a new toaster. How can I trust that over the next week, or even month, you’re not going to reevaluate things and tell me you made a mistake?”

Alyssa’s hands clenched at her sides, her shoulders pressed back the slightest bit, and she took a commanding step forward. “Because I realized something, and it sent my entire process into hyperdrive.” She furrowed her brow and bit her lip for a second. “No, scratch that,” she said, shaking her head. “My process went right out the window. There was no process and yet I can tell you with absolute certainty that I’ve never been more sure of myself.”

Dillon balled his fists inside the pockets of his tux pants, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself grounded, but his pulse jackhammered in his ears as his hope began to swell despite his efforts to tamp it down. “What did you realize?”

“That the very thing that’s kept us from being together all these years is the same thing that will keep us together.”

Maybe he was too exhausted to use his brain properly, but he couldn’t think of anything that could fit both roles as she claimed. “And that thing is…” he said, dragging out the last word.

Without hesitation, she answered, “Fear.”

Mentally, he reared back. He didn’t know what he’d expected her to say, but it sure as hell wasn’t that. “Fear,” he parroted.

“Yes.” She took another step forward, her eyes lighting up with excitement like she’d discovered the answer to an age-old mystery. “Our entire lives we’ve been afraid of failing at relationships, and not only that, but for lack of a better term, our fears complemented each other. You were afraid you wouldn’t be able to commit long-term, and I was afraid of loving someone who wouldn’t love me enough to stick around.”