Page 27 of You Again
He twisted the lid off and took a drink before shrugging his shoulder and saying, “There’s not much to tell.” His grey eyes held no anger or resentment as he spoke. “The night I met you, I had just come from Whitney’s apartment, where I had caught her in bed with her gym trainer.”Holy shit. “I kicked his ass, said some choice words to her, and walked into the first bar I came across.”
“And tonight?”
Dash shook his head. “She accidentally got pregnant and tried to pawn the disaster on me. Glen dumped her when she told him, and she thought I was the best option to clean up her mess.”
“After three months?” I asked, but then something gut-wrenching crossed my mind. “I mean…unless you’ve been-”
He put his hand up to stop me. “No. I haven’t been,” he corrected me. “I haven’t seen or spoken to her since that night.” Dash placed his water on the stand next to the couch. “I never even went back to get whatever I may have left at her apartment over the months.”
“How long were you guys together?”
“About a year.” My stomach rolled at that. For some reason, I didn’t like hearing that they were that serious, even if I had been ready to marry Arnold.
“On the phone, you said you neglected her. Is that true?” I wasn’t taking Whitney’s side, but I wanted to know what I was getting into.
Dash nodded. “I tend to get lost in my work,” he said truthfully. “When I’m working on a new idea, I’ll forget what day it is sometimes.”
“Wow.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve always been like that. It’s a miracle I graduated from college with my degree. But Scott had a good way of keeping me on track. Still does.”
“So…if we do this, I can expect bouts of neglect if you’re working on a new project?” I wasn’t clingy, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about being forgotten, even if it was for a legitimate reason.
Dash cocked his head and regarded me thoughtfully. His grey eyes were looking right through me as if he could see everything I’ve never told him about me yet. I yelped when he reached over, grabbed my hips, and positioned me over his lap.
I was straddling him and that wasn’t good for my mental focus.
He brushed the random hairs that had escaped my messy bun from my face, and just stared at me. Then his hands ran down over my shoulders, arms, waist, and finally landed on my hips.
He squeezed and I clenched.
“I don’t think so,” he said, and it took me a second to remember what we were talking about.
“No?”
Dash shook his head. “Since the night I met you, work has…well, as my brother so rudely pointed out last week, I’m usually eyeballs-deep in at least five or six different projects, but since you…”
My heart was beating a mile a minute. “Since me?”
“I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind, Henley,” he said, his voice clear and honest. “At first, I wasn’t sure if it was because I thought I’d never see you again, but then, I began to worry that I might.”
“Why?” My voice was a mere whisper. I knew this moment was important.
“Because I knew being with you would make nothing else in the world matter,” he replied. “What would become of the company Scott and I worked so hard for if I no longer cared about it? Because one night with you was enough to make me think of nothing else these past three months, Henley. And that’s some scary shit.”
His honesty deserved my honesty. “I thought about you, too.”
His lip twitched. “Not like this.”
I was falling fast.
“So…we’re really going to do this, huh?”
He grinned. “You bet that sweet, thick, juicy ass of yours we are.” He playfully reached back and slapped a cheek. “But we need to discuss something first.”
I cocked my head, my hands playing with the buttons on his shirt. “What?”
“What did that fuckface, Arnold, want?”
I’d forgotten all about Arnold. “Oh, that,” I snorted. “He just wanted to tell me he wanted me back.”
“What?”
