Page 35 of Finding You

“That sounds,” Grace said, then cupped her hand around her lips and mouthed, ‘like a sex thing.’

Kylen rolled his eyes. “Your garbage views are the reason good men like Dallas get treated like crap.”

Grace rolled her eyes and turned away from him, so Kylen took the opportunity to slip out the door and head over to Dallas’s place. It wasn’t far from where he lived, which shouldn’t have given him ideas, but God, it did.

Apart from Dallas’s drunken ramblings the week before, he had no proof that the man wasn’t anything but straight and a good sport. In fact, Dallas had been a little weird with him all week. He returned Kylen’s dad joke texts with laughing emojis, but he didn’t strike up conversation, and when Kylen attempted it, he got short answers.

Kylen took the hint and stopped, so when Dallas asked him to meet that weekend, he was a little surprised. He pulled up to the house and told himself he wouldn’t react with anything other than kindness if Dallas decided to call this off.

He planned to stick to that too. He’d fall apart in private and hope that they could at least be friends. He still had Frey’s invite to the dad group, so at least he could socialize with people who understood what it was like having a kid.

He’d get over his crush eventually. He had to.

Walking up to the door, he knocked softly, and a moment later, Dallas appeared with a sleeping baby on his shoulder. Kylen had known him a while, but it was the first time he’d ever seen Audra in person. His entire body softened at the sight of the larger man cradling something so small.

“Sorry,” Dallas whispered. “She just went down. I was about to put her in her crib.”

Kylen nodded and crept inside the dim room. All the shades were drawn, so he carefully made his way around baby toys to sit on the long, plush couch. There were indents on each of the cushions that told Kylen that Dallas slept there quite a few nights.

His heart hurt for the man. He’d gone through plenty of phases where his bed was just too big and too empty, and he felt loneliness scratching at every pore. He knew Dallas had been divorced for a while now, but that didn’t mean the man wasn’t still grieving the loss. Which was another reason Kylen had to pull it together and stop looking for signs the man was into him.

Dallas appeared a few moments later with a small smile. He leaned over the small side table, and Kylen heard the familiar sounds of a baby monitor switching on. “Okay. We should be good for about an hour and a half.”

“Really?” Kylen couldn’t help it. Flora had been the worst sleeper. Hell, she still was. He’d long since forgotten what solid sleep felt like.

Dallas chuckled softly and shrugged. “I got lucky. It probably won’t last.” Then his face fell, and he let out a trembling breath, glancing away. “Do you mind if we not talk baby stuff?”

“Of course, but…is everything okay? Is Audra okay?”

At that, Dallas smiled as he looked back over. “She’s amazing. You know, I really didn’t think I wanted to do this whole dad thing. When my ex took off and refused to let me be part of anything in the beginning, my brother asked me if it was the universe giving me a gift.”

Kylen understood that. He’d been faced with that choice when Dani said she was pregnant. Except Kylen had always wanted to be a dad, so there wasn’t an actual decision to be made. But plenty of his friends berated him for not taking the out when she’d given him one.

“The moment I looked at that weird little alien on the ultrasound scan, I was in love with her,” Dallas said quietly. “And Katie knows that. She’s using it to hurt me right now, and I’m…” He trailed off and shook his head. “It’s a whole thing involving an attorney that I can’t afford and a fight I don’t know if I have the energy for.”

Kylen reached for him, unable to stop himself. He linked his fingers over Dallas’s and smiled when Dallas squeezed back instead of pulling away. “How can I help? I don’t have a lot of money, but I have some, and?—”

“No,” Dallas said quickly. “My friends are helping me take care of the cost, and the guy I’m seeing has decided to reduce his fee dramatically. Decent dude,” Dallas added with a small smile. “He’s new in town, so I’m only his second client, but he seems like the kind of guy who won’t take shit.”

“The best kind of lawyer,” Kylen said, not that he had any experience, but it made him think of Montez because he seemed like that kind of guy. He had half a mind to mention him, but what if Dallas wasn’t straight? What if Montez charmed him the way he’d attempted to charm Kylen on the plane?

And what if Dallas said yes?

He swallowed heavily, then stroked his fingers over the tops of Dallas’s before pulling away. “So. You wanna talk about how we met and fell in love?”

Dallas made a soft choking noise, then cleared his throat. “I…had an idea.”

“Yeah?”

Dallas nodded. “I was on a plane.”

Kylen’s brows shot up.

“I was really scared, and this gorgeous guy ended up sitting next to me. He could see I was anxious, so he told me terrible dad jokes to calm me down. I…I was pretty sure it was love at first sight. He almost got away from me when we disembarked,” Dallas went on.

Kylen’s heart was thudding so fast, so loud, he could barely hear Dallas speaking.

“He was a pilot, so he stopped to chat with some friends, and I had to leave. He caught up to me at baggage claim though. And he…he kissed me. Then gave me his number.”

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