Page 55 of Dallas

A decade apart didn’t change how we relate to each other. We were a mess then, we’re a mess now. We don’t know how to be without each other, and we’re territorial, but we don’t know what to do with each other either. Sure, when we were kids, we didn’t fight. I’ve never fought with Dallas before. But there was always this sharp-edged intensity.

“I’m really not an expert on this kind of thing,” Allison says.

“Well, nobody is, because Dallas and I aren’t an established normal thing.”

“He’s not your only friend,” Allison says. “I’m your friend.”

I try to hold back a smile. I still feel all kinds of difficult about last night, but it’s amazing to hear somebody say that. That I’m her friend.

“Having said that,” she continues. “I get that he’s more than that.”

I take a sharp breath. “He’s… Dallas.”

I’m not sure how to explain it any better. I’m not sure that I can.

Tension and nerves tighten my stomach as soon as we pull up to the cabin. “Thank you,” I say. “For everything.”

“Of course.”

I trudge up the steps slowly and give Allison a waveright before knocking on the door. I haven’t been knocking, because I lived there once. But it feels weird to just walk in now.

It takes a couple of minutes, but the door opens, and I’m greeted by Dallas, who isn’t hung over, but is shirtless, wearing only a pair of blue jeans, his hair sticking up at odd angles, his jaw covered in stubble.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” he says, regarding me closely. He’s probably trying to figure out if I’m about to launch myself at him and tear his throat out with my teeth. Fair, honestly.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he says.

I’m shocked. Personally, I thought that I was going to have to grovel. Because I did throw something at him. Instead, he looks tired, unhappy, and he’s done the apologizing first.

“Oh, I…”

“I shouldn’t have said that to you. About consent. That was really fucked up. I don’t have any right to bring up things in your past and act like I’m trying to protect you. I… I’m trying to protect you. But I also got angry, and none of that is fair.”

“Can I come in?”

“Oh,” he says, pushing his fingers through his hair. “Sure.”

He steps away from the door, and I squeeze past him. My breath catches. He smells good. Like some kind of spicy soap, and him. His body is hard, sculpted, and I am far more fascinated by the shape of him, by the hard cut lines of muscle on his torso, than I should be.

“I made you that cake,” he says.

“You did.”

“I bought you that present. But you danced with him.”

I blink slowly. “I… Yeah. He asked me to.”

“You don’t like being touched or anything. So, it never occurred to me to ask you to dance.”

If I’m not totally crazy, he’s upset I was paying attention to another man when he went to all that trouble for my party. When he says it likethat, it makes me feel bad, actually. It doesn’t mean that he wasn’t out-of-pocket, he was, but I was too.

“Yeah, I know.” I look away. “But if you had asked me to dance, I would have danced with you.”

“Maybe next time I’ll ask.”

“I’m very sorry that I threw the present at your head.”

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