Page 23 of Peak of Love
“Might maybe consider? Wow, Cel, you’re really jumping into this with both feet.” Tori’s sarcasm filled the SUV, too.
“Forget it. You’re no help at all.”
“I’m plenty of help,” her older sister contested. “I’m sorry I teased you. One hundred percent support whatever you want, Celina. It’s not as if I’ve had a lot of luck since the divorce. Still, I know my way around a dating profile. I’ll help you set it up, hon.”
“Dane said the same thing. That online is the way to go,” Celina commented.
“You told Dane you were gonna start dating?” Tori’s voice turned to a whisper. “How did he take it?”
Celina’s breath caught. He took it so well, he left last night to prevent them from going further tillwe figure this out. Whatever that meant.
“He supports me. We had kind of a… a moment.” Celina wasn’t ready to talk about the extent of her physical attraction to Dane. She basically threw herself at him. And although he didn’t exactly reject her, he wasn’t as willing to throw caution to the wind. It was fine. The last thing she wanted was to pressure someone to sleep with her.
Still, watching him walk out the door last night really, really stung.
“What kind of moment?” The vagueness of her answer only awakened her sister’s keen interest.
“I never thought about it before, Tori. Dane’skind ofhot, right?”
The cackle over the phone made her jump. Celina lowered the Bluetooth volume.
“What’s so funny?”
“Calling Danekind ofhot is like saying Chris Evans makes a decent Captain America. It is a glaring understatement.”
“Fine. Dane’s hot.”
“Truer words have never been spoken. I need to get clear on something, though. He thinks you should date in general, or he thinks you should date him specifically?”
“General,” she blurted too quickly. “Definitely general.”
“Hmm, that’s surprising.”
“What is?”
“Nevermind. I guess I always saw Dane as super protective of you and the kids.”
“He is.” Ugh, she hated keeping things from Tori but what would she say? Celina was way over her head in terms of processing the complexity of Dane’s statements.
He wants her and he won’t let himself want her. That didn’t even make sense! He advised Celina to date and explore but is that whatshewanted? In theory, yes, but that was before she spontaneously combusted every time he touched her. Like mature adults, Dane and Celina were supposed tofigure this out.Well, hell, if she knew what that meant, she’d start right now. Could this be any more confusing?
“Celina, are you still there?” Tori asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. Listen, traffic’s beginning to move faster. I’ll let you know when I get home. We can video chat before Kat and Max leave for Phoenix.”
“You never said what it was. The moment you had with Dane. It sounds like a lot more than encouraging you to date.”
Her sister’s perceptiveness was usually welcome. Not at the moment, though. “It isn’t. He’s just being Dane, you know. Over the top.”
“If you say so.”
***
Celina’s days were a tight-knit fabric of duties stitched together by parent teacher conferences and soccer tournament traffic and an ever-diminishing pantry. Feeding her boys was like shoveling food into a bottomless pit. Add to that her growing business as an editor and you had a woman whose ideas about dating now seemed like someone else’s whimsy.
Or, more accurately, her sisters’ source of entertainment. Although three hours ahead in DC, Tori arranged the video call through which Kat was screen sharing Celina’s dating profile. When had this endeavor turned into one of Kat’s sales pitches? Celina had no idea.
All she knew was that at ten on a Saturday night, glass of wine in hand and a melatonin tablet by her bedside, Celina’s dating profile was under her sisters’ intense scrutiny.
