Page 46 of Renegade Roomie

“No!” I protest quickly. “Dorky is great! In fact… What are we waiting for? Let’s go find this magical bird.”

“You want to come along?” Now Dash is disbelieving.

“Sure, why not?” I declare, more curious than ever. “I’ll take fluffy birds over the alligators back in the country club, any day.”

Dash links his arm through mine. “Well, where we’re going, you won’t have to choose.”

10

Callie

Dash drives us to a wildlife preserve about twenty miles outside of town, where we rent a little motorboat, with barely enough room to stash a cooler of drinks and sunscreen before leaving the dock behind.

“It’s a John boat,” Dash explains, as we motor up the waterway. It’s swampy, with cloudy water and thickly overgrown bushes and trees creeping over the water’s edge. “The engine is quieter.”

“All the better to sneak up on this rare bird that has you so riled up,” I tease.

He grins, clearly excited. “I’ll have you know, a Purple Gallinule is a prize find,” he informs me, teasing. “I’ll be the toast of the club if I can get a clear picture.”

“Dash Dashford, bird watcher extraordinaire…” I lean back in my seat, watching him steer us around marshes and low-hanging trees. “I never would have guessed it.”

“I don’t exactly go bragging about it,” Dash says, “I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Right, the whole cocky playboy thing,” I laugh. “You should give it a shot. Who knows, you could make bird-peeping cool for a whole generation.”

“Birding,” he corrects me, and I laugh.

It’s just so unexpected, seeing Dash in a new light like this. He helms the steering wheel, motoring us through the swampy marshland, with one eye peeled, a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck over his tennis whites. There’s a whole classic Indiana Jones vibe to the expedition, that I have to admit is kind of hot.

Scratch that, very hot.

“So, there has to be a story behind this,” I prompt him. “Or did you just wake up one morning with lesser-spotted geese-hen on your mind?”

Dash smiles. “My dad was big into birding, we used to go out together when I was younger. He gave me this set of binoculars for my thirteenth birthday,” he adds, “And we’d have lists of birds to try and spot… Go to group scouting trips, the whole nine yards.”

“And here you are, carrying on the legacy,” I say, understanding more.

Dash grins. “I’d like to pretend that I stuck with it solely to keep my dad’s memory alive… But I just love it. There’s nothing like the excitement of a good spotting session, finally getting a glimpse of a breed that’s eluded you for so long.”

“Like this Purple Gallipot.” I say.

“Gallinule,” he corrects me. “It’s known as a swamp hen. Keep an eye out. It has long yellow legs, and a red-and-yellow bill. Like this,”

He shows me a pic on his phone, and I see there’s a ranking system, with stars, and potential sightings and everything.

“Does New Entrepreneur magazine know about this passion of yours?”

“Nobody does,” Dash says firmly. “Except Austin, but only because he walked in on me watching a birding live-feed and thought it was a weird fetish.”

I laugh. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. You know how the saying goes: What happens in Palm Beach, stays in Palm Beach.”

I only mean it as a joke, but the signals must get crossed somewhere between my brain and vocal cords because when the words tumble out of my mouth, they sound husky to my own ears.

Suggestive.

Dash’s gaze seems to darken. “Is that so?”

His eyes drop to my lips, and the temperature on the boat climbs about a zillion degrees.

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