Page 31 of Eight Seconds to Fly

Dylan’s hand had started stroking again, and I looked up at him. “Does it weird you out that I slept with Beau? Because it's not too late to back out. I don’t expect anything from you and we can go back to being friends and co-workers. No obligation.”

Dylan frowned, but shook his head. “Nah. I told you Tessa, you weren’t just a one night stand to me. If I have to deal with the fact that you slept with the pretty boy, so be it. As long as I get another opportunity to taste you again soon,” he whispered the last part, and my eyes hooded. I hadn’t been able to look at the back seat of my truck for a month without having vivid flashbacks of Dylan there, grinding beneath my body.

Branch arrived with four beers clutched in his fingers, and he plopped them on the table top, eyeing us all warily. I needed to get him alone. Needed to suss him out, to get to the bottom of why he suddenly wanted in on a group wooing.

I gulped down my drink, and looked at him. “Want to dance?”

His jaw tensed, but he nodded. Beau grinned at us both and shook his head. “Wanna watch me show you lazy ass bull riders how it's done?” he teased Dylan.

I left them to ride the mechanical bull as Branch guided me to the dancefloor, his hand on my lower back. The dance floor was already packed with people two-stepping to the song on the jukebox. Branch dragged me closer to his body, wrapping my smaller hand in his, fitting us together like two puzzle pieces.

I sighed and just let myself melt against his chest. It had always been this way with me and Branch. We had a confusing history of push and pull, of love and hate. Of want and need. Even when we were teenagers, he’d do this thing where he’d look at me like he’d want to kiss me, then say something absolutely loathsome. Me though? I loved him as much as I hated him. Maybe I loved him more because I hated him. But despite it, I’d always felt completely safe with Branch. Like I could just give him my life, my safety, and he would never fumble it. Never drop it. It was why I let him push me down a damn hill to teach me to ride a bike. I had so much faith in him that it bordered on hero worship.

In this moment, our history felt like just that. The past. But that sense of safety? It curled around my body and nestled against my heart, and that didn’t feel safe at all. He tucked me under his chin as he two-stepped us around the room. Dancing with Branch was different to dancing with Frankie. Dancing with Frankie was like a prelude to sex, even when we weren’t interested in each other. That was just the way Frankie danced; with barely contained passion that promised to set you on fire, if only you’d light the match.

Dancing with Branch was like being wrapped in Kevlar. It was still a promise, a statement that his arms were a safe harbor to rest in. I let out a shuddery sigh and laid my head on his chest. My brain shouted to be careful. Branch was like quicksand.

“Branch?”

I felt more than heard his answering, “Mmm?”

“Why’d you punch Beau?”

He stiffened slightly beneath my cheek, but his steps didn’t falter. “He deserved it.”

I frowned. “No he didn’t. What Beau and I did was completely consensual, you know that. You know Beau.” The idea that Beau would even consider coercing me into sex was insane. Beau was a lover. Sexy as hell, physically imposing, but the dude was a marshmallow. I remembered when he defied both my Daddy and his parents by sneaking the pregnant barn cat into his room at home, hiding her in there until she gave birth, in his bed, while he slept on the floor.

Branch’s arm tightened around my back. “Of course he wouldn’t have taken anything that wasn’t freely offered. If he’d done that to you or any woman, Nugget, he’d have more than a black eye.”

I had no doubt. Branch was very black and white. He didn’t believe in the guy-code when it came to this shit. He had old school values in that way; chivalry and honor above all else. It had been simultaneously one of the things I’d loved and loathed about him when he was my highschool crush. “Then why?”

“I punched him because he knew.”

Jesus, this was like pulling teeth, but for some reason, my heart was starting to pound harder. “Knew what?”

“Knew that you were meant to be mine. You were always meant to be mine, Tessa May. From the moment I saw you, I knew.”

My feet stilled, but Branch just bundled me tighter, leading me around the dancefloor. “What are you talking about, Branch? You hated me.”

Now it was Branch’s turn to stop dancing. “Hated you? Nugget, no.” He shook his head and continued to move. “I loved you, back when we were kids. Sure, I probably sucked at showing it, because to be honest, I resented the fuck out of it for a long time.”

I was too stunned to reply, but he continued. “I vividly remember the moment I fell in love with you. You were five and I was six. You were wearing a yellow dress that my Mom had bought you, but it was filthy because we’d been rolling down that little hill behind your house. You had dried grass in your hair and a grin on your face, and you twirled around and your gold hair spun in the air and I remember standing there with Beau and saying, ‘Imma marry Nugget one day. I call dibs.’” He let out a low chuckle. “Beau looked fucking crushed, even at six. He’d just sighed and said, ‘I wanted to marry her, but I guess we can all be best friends and that’s kinda the same thing, right?’. I’d nodded and that was it, Nugget. I was six and I knew you were the girl for me. That is why I hit Beau. Because he knew it too.”

Well, what the hell did I do with that? When I stepped onto the dancefloor, this is not the answer I could have ever contemplated. I opened and closed my mouth a dozen times to try and reply, but I was speechless.

Branch chuckled low, the sound honestly making my panties damp, and he loosened his arms. He was giving me the opportunity to escape, even though his forearms are like tight bands of muscle around me. The push and the pull. Always.

“I had no idea…” I whispered, and I wasn’t sure he heard until his arms tightened again.

I felt the puff of his breath against my curls. “Of course not. You’re Nugget. Beautifully oblivious to everything except bulls and proving us all wrong.”

Why did everyone keep saying that?

I frowned up at him. “And you’re Branch, standing on the sidelines, telling me what I was about to do was dangerous, even though you and the guys had done the same thing seconds earlier. Always so damn chauvinistic.”

The rude noise he made had my body tensing, until he stroked his palm down my spine, the way you might soothe a horse. But I’d be damned if it didn’t have the same effect. “It was because I was about to watch the girl I loved jump off a cliff into a lagoon with god knows what lurking below. Or climb on an eight hundred pound bull that could crush you. Or climb on the back of Jack Hefferson’s motorcycle when I knew he smoked too much pot and was probably drunk.”

I let out a little surprised breath. I remembered that night. Jack had taken me on my first real date. A date where he asked me as Tessa May and not Nugget. I wore a dress and did my hair. I felt special, at least until Branch and Beau met me on my porch and forbid me to go. It was the first time I’d ever had a real screaming fight with Branch. I’d told him I hated him, and I still remember the flash of hurt on his face. I remembered Beau’s sad eyes as I tore out of my front yard on the back of Jack’s bike.

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