Page 47 of Meant to be More

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dean

Nine Years Earlier

Dean scooped food into the last bowl and set it inside Gilligan’s cage, giving the boxer mix a pat on the head and scratching behind his ear before closing the front gate. “Come on, Jilly, it is basically tradition by now, so you have to go with me.”

She cuddled the small kitten she’d been playing with close one more time before gingerly replacing her in the cage and tossing in a handful of treats. “But it’s your senior prom. The one you’ll always remember. Don’t you want to at least try to find a girlfriend to go with?”

“Girls are overrated.” He dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand. “And besides, I’m going to have sorority chicks climbing all over me when I start college. I could use some time to rest up first.”

Their weekly volunteer obligations at the humane society were usually a lot more fun, but Jillian had been giving him shit about what he thought was a no-brainer date to the prom. Ever since the homecoming dance last year that he had to take her to when Erica dumped his ass only a few weeks before the event, they’d simply gone to every school function at each of their schools together.

It was an unspoken pact that wasn’t ever really discussed until this year, their senior year.

Jillian laid her hand across her abdomen, laughing loud enough to startle Gilligan and elicit a short bark before he returned his attention to the bowl in front of him. “Sorry, bud.” She directed the comment to the dog before turning her full attention to Dean. “You too, if you’re really that delusional.”

Dean straightened himself to his full height that, as it always had, dwarfed her by nearly an entire foot. He straightened his arms and flexed a little. “Who wouldn’t want a piece of this fine specimen of a man?” He threw her a wink. “Plus I am an expert on all that romantic bullshit girls like thanks to years of training from my best friend and trashy reality TV.”

She plastered a sympathetic expression on her face. “Oh, I will gladly take all the credit for teaching you how to date two dozen women at a time equipped with nothing but red roses and an endless production budget.”

“So, whaddaya say? Will you be my date for the senior prom?”

Jillian’s gaze drifted around the room and she clasped her hands together, holding them close to her heart. “With an exceptionally romantic proposal like that, how could I possibly resist?”

He drew his brows together and stared at her for a long time, then scratched his head. “Is…that some weird way of saying yes?”

With a heaving sigh, she closed the few feet between them and patted his shoulder. “Yes, Sparky, that is a yes. And you’re probably the densest human being ever.”

“Hey, I resemble that remark.”

They both said goodbye to the staff members at the shelter before they walked out the front door and headed to Dean’s hand-me-down car that Connor passed on when he left for college. Freshman year he couldn’t have a car on campus anyway and he’d been saving for a Jeep to take back with him for his second year.

He pulled open the passenger door for her as much out of the respect his mother had ingrained in all her boys as he did out of habit. “Up for some ice cream?”

Her emerald eyes glittered with excitement. “Do I ever turn down food?”

“No, never.” He closed the door and jogged around the back of the car before climbing in the driver’s seat and bringing the engine to life. “You need to marry a chef. No, wait, better yet, a farmer.”

She laughed, snapping her belt into place. “Why’s that, Sparky?”

“Because you always, always require food.” He shifted into gear and slid seamlessly onto the highway. “And since you don’t eat meat, a farmer would be absolutely perfect. All the vegetables you can eat, always ready.”

She tilted her head and stared at him silently for several moments. “Figured your plans out yet?”

It was a question he’d heard enough times—from Jillian, from his parents, from his brothers; hell, he was pretty sure the mailman had asked once or twice—that he should be immune to its effects. But still his stomach tightened. The simple answer was no.

The more complex answer was hell no and it was terrifying. All of his brothers were born with their futures clearly in view. His father built his own company from the ground up with no help just because it was his passion and he had a knack for it.

But Dean had no plan, no gifts, no overwhelming desire. He was certain most of the time that something was wrong with him because he didn’t experience that all-consuming need to do one particular thing. How could he possibly be the only one of the entire Carlisle clan to be completely without a vision?

And Jillian’s unwavering hunger to strike out for third world countries as soon as she graduated college only intensified the feelings of inferiority that plagued him when he tossed and turned in bed at nights. Thoughts he couldn’t bring himself to tell anyone, not even Jillian.

“I’m going to declare something pretty basic to start with and get my crap classes out of the way. Like business administration or whatever. Then I’ll figure out what I really want to do once I get there.” It was the closest to a plan he could come up with.

He pulled into one of the parking spaces right in front of the small ice cream stand. Before they got out, Jillian laid a hand on top of his where it rested on the gearshift. He forced his gaze to meet hers, slightly fearful the judgment and condemnation he heaped on himself would be reflected back at him.

But he really should have trusted her more.

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