Page 111 of Dallas

The front door slammed shut and Poppy jingled over to the entryway. He looked out the window and saw Sam’s van parked out front, covered in snow. Oh, so that was why she’d been barking. Fair enough.

He stayed at the counter in the kitchen, cursing his own cowardice. He was avoiding her for the next thirty seconds. It seemed the thing to do. And if that made him chicken shit, then fine. He was. He owned it. But he was extending the moment between now and the awkward silence for as long as possible.

Then Sam walked into the kitchen, holding a cake and wearing a huge grin on her face. “Hi! How was your day? Have cheese sandwiches for lunch?”

“Leftover chili,” he said, feeling a little stunned.

“Oh. Well, you know, ’cuz of the nostalgia and whatever.” She laughed, a weird, high-pitched sound, and set the cake on the little table by the window. “I brought cake!”

“You’re going to make me fat. It’s going to go straight to my hips,” he said, his tone dry.

Her cheeks flushed pink. “Ha!” Her fake laugh was as overenthusiastic as her fake smile. “Funny. Jace, that’s...funny. Because you’re a man and things don’t uh...they don’t go to your hips.”

“Yeah, Sam, that was the joke. Thanks for explaining it.”

“I’m going to make dinner.”

“What the hell, Sam?”

“What the hell what?”

“You’re fluttering around here chattering like a deranged chipmunk and trying to pretend everything is okay when you know damn well things aren’t okay. You’re trying so hard to act like everything is normal that you’re acting like a nut job.”

“I...I’m not.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, then fidgeted and cocked her hip out to the side, uncrossing her arms and putting a hand on her hip instead. “I’m...fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because of last night.”

“What?” she said, her voice reaching heights that were almost only audible to Poppy. “That was...nothing. We made out.”

He crossed his arms in return. “We made out?”

“Yeah, we kissed. So...so what? No big deal. I’ve kissed guys that I’ve only known for, like, twenty minutes. It’s really only surprising that we’ve never kissed before. We’veknown each other forever. Not really a huge shock that we’d test the waters. Ha. Waters. See what I did there?”

He reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her toward him. “Stop,” he said, anger pooling in his gut. “Stop making it a joke.”

“We kissed, Jace. Stop making a huge deal out of it. We don’t need a postmortem. There’s not even a body.”

“Just a kiss?”

“Yeah.”

He swore and released his hold on her, pushing his fingers through his hair. “Just a kiss? That’s what that was to you? That’s why you were digging your nails into my back like that? Do you kiss all your dates that way, baby? Because if so, I’ve been missing out.”

Her whole face turned red. “Stop it.”

“Why? You’re determined to act like nothing happened! You’re lying about it, to me, to yourself...”

“Because this is the alternative!” she shouted. “Screaming about it and freaking out about it because...because suddenly this bomb went off between us and neither of us could do anything about it. Because it scares the hell out of me, Jace. Because we went from best friends to having a mutual orgasm in a bathtub in about three minutes flat.”

“Actually, Sam, it took fourteen years to get into the bathtub, but I get your point.”

“Aren’t you freaked out?”

“Hell yes.”

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