Dylan (Bachelors of the Ridge #1) (9 page)

For a second, he looked at me like he was going to answer. But then he just shook his head and pushed up off the futon. “I’m your manager. And far too old for you.”

“That is true,” I said while I took the hand he’d offered to help me up. “You’re
very
old.”

He shook his head, giving me a look that I’d been on the receiving end of more than I cared to count, like he didn’t know what to do with me. So I grinned up him, and took no small bit of pleasure in the fact that he groaned up at the ceiling.

“It’s more than that though,” he said as we walked toward the door. I gave him a questioning look while I hooked my purse over my shoulder. “I don’t know what I want right now, Kat. Everything here is new for me, and beyond the work issue, I just don’t want to be in a relationship right now.” I opened my mouth to tell him that we could just use each other for our bodies when he lifted my chin with his pointer finger, tracing along the edge of my jaw. The drag of his calloused skin over mine pretty much shut me up. “And I don’t know what
you’re
ready for, but I do know that you deserve more than me gambling our friendship on my uncertainty.”

That humbled me, the fact that he cared enough to say that, and I slumped back against the door. “That’s perfectly logical.”

My voice sounded so glum to my own ears, but maybe it was just me. When I dared a look at him, his lips were fighting a smile. When mine spread, he laughed, pulling me in for a hug. With his strong, muscled arms wrapped completely around me, I could breathe with a freedom that I’d rarely felt with another person. Then he dropped a kiss on the top of my head.

“What am I going to do with you, Sprite?”

I closed my eyes and inhaled his man-crack scent.
Just don’t get rid of me
, I begged silently in my head, hoping he couldn’t feel it in the tight grasp of my arms.

I
’d barely let
myself stop to think about what kissing Kat could possibly mean, if we let it mean anything. But being faced with a day off was not the best thing for my avoidance of what had happened. So when Michael sent me a text the next morning asking if I wanted to go hike Red Rocks with him and his brother, Tristan, I said yes immediately. I hadn’t been out to Red Rocks yet, and it was one of the things I wanted to do most after moving to Colorado.

After I put Leonidas in his crate, I decided to jog the two streets over to Michael and Tristan’s place. They were waiting in the driveway by Tristan’s Jeep, and we hopped in. Because he had the top down, we couldn’t really do much talking on the forty-ish minute drive out to Golden. But that was perfectly fine with me. The sun hit my skin, warming me to my core and I stared out at the jagged green peaks of the mountains with unbridled excitement.

The cornflower blue of the sky didn’t hold a single cloud as far as I could see, and the closer we got to the foothills, the more intense the heat felt. I reached down into my backpack and pulled out my Tigers hat, slipping it over my head. Michael shook his head, diehard Rockies fan that he was, and tossed me a tube of sunscreen.

I’d just finished rubbing the lotion into the back of my neck and over my shoulders when Tristan pulled into the park. They both grinned at me, eerily similar smiles, when I unhooked my seat belt and stood up in the back of the Jeep, gripping the roll bar and staring up at the cragged, jutting red pillars of rock that came up from the ground.

Tristan swung the Jeep into a spot in a small parking lot by an outpost building and gift shop and while they got out, I just stood in place, staring up at the towering red slabs.

“Come on,” Michael called out where they were ascending some stairs leading towards an entrance. “Your Midwest-bumpkin is coming out.”

I lifted my middle finger at him, which made Tristan smile. Once I’d caught up with them, we walked in silence until we entered the main area of the amphitheater.

“Wow,” I breathed. The main rocks surged up on either side of the naturally formed stadium, and the rows below were filled with milling people. Some walking, some running up the steps, some doing yoga on brightly colored mats within the wide rows that served as seats during a concert. And beyond the stage at the bottom where more red rocks curved behind it, there was a view that almost knocked the breath out of my lungs. The foothills, covered in green grass and red rock formations sloped down to the view of Denver, the buildings like tiny specks of dust in comparison to the massive formations around me.

“Never gets old,” Tristan said from next to me. I shook my head in awe and turned to follow them toward the hiking trail.

We made our way up, and I was happy to keep pace with them, considering that the altitude was still pretty rough on my flat-land lungs. After about twenty minutes of silence between us, Tristan stopped against a rock to tighten the laces on his hiking boots and to grab some water.

I leaned up against the sun-warmed surface behind me and took a long drag from the water bottled hooked to my backpack.

“Saw Kat’s car in your driveway last night,” Michael said with a horrible imitation of nonchalance.

I didn’t answer right away, just took another drink of water before giving him a level look. “Is there a question buried somewhere in that statement?”

“Just curious what’s going on there.”

“You’re worse than Garrett.”

Tristan laughed, which was the first time I’d ever heard that from him, he was usually so serious. Michael paid no mind to his brother, just shrugged at me. “I think he’s rubbed off on me the last four years.”

“You guys dating?” Tristan asked, pinning me with his intense eyes, which were the same dark green as Michael’s.

“No,” I said easily. But then I lifted the bill of my hat and swiped at the sweat on my forehead and I felt like it was exposing much more than my face, so I went for honesty. “I like her. She’s nice and she’s funny, maybe the first woman friend I’ve ever had.”

They both watched me while I struggled with what to say next. Honestly, I couldn’t figure why women liked talking about this shit with their friends. I was one confession away from breaking into hives.

“We kissed last night, and I didn’t see it coming.”

“Nice,” Michael said, holding a fist for me. I bumped mine against it and chuckled.

“There was something there. No doubt. But I’m not in a place to have a girlfriend. I’m not sure where her head’s at though.”

“One word of advice,” Tristan said after a moment of quiet. “Tread carefully with someone who doesn’t trust easily.”

I rolled my head on my neck, something about his statement rankled. Like he’d pegged something about Kat that I hadn’t. “Sounds like you’re the expert. You learn that from experience?”

Michael lifted a hand. “If he did, he’ll never tell you. I’m convinced Tristan has had entire relationships without any of us knowing.”

We both ignored him, though Tristan gave the smallest, most subtle eye roll I’d ever seen. “I just mean if you break her trust, she’ll slam down walls so thick and so tall that you’ll never see the top, never find a seam.”

“I’m not going to break her trust,” I ground out, letting the truth of Tristan’s statement seep past the immediate defensiveness that I felt in response. “She’s my friend. We’re just … friends.”

There wasn’t much they could say to that, so they traded a look and we started hiking again.

* * *

B
y the time
Tristan pulled his Jeep back into their driveway a couple hours later, I was tired, hot and covered in sweat and dust from the hiking trails. But as much as I wanted to fall into a hot shower, I felt a more pressing need to text Kat. Tomorrow was one of the nights she worked at the bar, and despite the fact that she’d left smiling from my place last night, Tristan’s words tumbled through my brain.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t noticed the way she held herself back, but I guess until he said something, it hadn’t occurred to me that her taking the initiative to kiss me was huge. Really damn huge. She was young— much too young for me— but it shook me to my core when I thought about the fact that the hugeness, for lack of a better word, hadn’t registered.

It didn’t take her long to respond. I’d barely cleared my front door before my phone chimed again. I didn’t look right away so I could let a wiggling Leonidas out of his crate. His completely dry crate.

“Well, who’s the best puppy in the entire world?” I scooped him up and walked out into the backyard through the slider in the family room. While he did his lop-sided gallop around the bright green grass, I grinned and pulled my phone back out. Right at the same time that I heard the knock on my front door.

I whistled and Leonidas scampered over to me after he’d finished squatting in the grass.

“So,” I asked him while he followed me to the door, “will you lift your leg once they strap your bionic paw on?”

In answer, he rammed into the back of my legs when he didn’t see me stop to open the front door. Kat had turned around like she was about to leave, but whipped in a fast circle at the sound of the door. My eyes had intended to be on her face, but stalled somewhere around the bright pink fuzzy skirt that showed almost all of her slender legs.

“Hi,” she chirped, giving me a wide, welcoming smile. Like I was at her home and not the other way around.

“Uh,” I said, sounding quite intelligent, and held my hand out for her to come in. I couldn’t tear my eyes off the skirt. It was awful. Like someone had dip-dyed a roadkill pelt into magenta paint. “Hi.”

“You don’t like my skirt?”

I snapped my face up, attempting a normal smile, but failed miserably. “What
is
it?”

From where she’d kneeled down to greet Leonidas, she smiled up at me, eyes flicking briefly to my chest, where I knew I had a damp spot from the sweat of my hike. Then she swallowed and I had to walk past her. This might be harder than I’d anticipated.

“It was a gift from a client at the clinic.”

“Did one of them
die
? It looks like a dead cat.”

She laughed, delight at my reaction clear on her face. “It’s not an animal, Dylan. The owner of a pot-belly pig that comes in makes them, and she thought the pink would look lovely with my complexion. Or something. I’m giving it a test run today.”

I met her eyes, then shook my head slowly. Her face fell a little.

“That bad?”

“Only if you don’t want people to speak to you ever again.”

Instead of laughing like I’d expected her to, she quirked a dark eyebrow, looking pretty unamused. “Maybe I love it.”

I braced my hands on the cold granite of the kitchen island, not breaking her stare. “Do you?”

We held that way for five long seconds before her lips spread in a slow smile. She shook her head in the exact same way that I had just a few minutes before.

“Punk.”

“Old man,” she tossed back. “You just have no fashion sense.”

“Now that’s something I’ve heard once or twice in my life. Mainly from my sister Casey.”

“Does she look like you?”

I dug my phone out. “Want to see a picture?”

Kat nodded eagerly, skirting around the island until she stood next to me. We weren’t touching, but the fine, blonde hairs on her arms stood on end, goosebumps pebbling her skin when I shifted next to her. I took a deep breath, catching the scent of vanilla cake when I did so. After a few swipes of my thumb, I held my phone out to her. It was a picture of Casey and me at her wedding.

With a quick movement, Kat snatched the phone from my hand so she could zoom in on the picture. She gave me an incredulous look.

“What?”

“She’s so pretty! What do your parents look like?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. Like my parents. Normal.”

Kat grumbled something under her breath and handed the phone back.

“What was that?”

The breath that she pulled in through her nose was slow. “You weren’t supposed to hear.”

“Well, that’s not very nice.”

“Why do you have so much
dirt
on you?”

I blinked a couple times at the subject change. “Why do you sound so annoyed about it?”

She huffed, slowly looking down the length of my body, which tightened in response. “I’m not annoyed, it’s just not
fair
.” Her hands waved down toward her skirt. “I’m wearing a fluorescent animal pelt and you like you just crawled out of some outdoor men’s magazine.”

“Awesome,” I replied easily, plucking my shirt away from my chest with two fingers. “That’s exactly the look I was going for this morning. Rubbed some dirt into my skin just for the occasion.”

When she snorted, I laughed.

“So you needed to talk to me?”

“Yeah.” I scratched the back of my neck and leaned up against the edge of the counter. Her fingers knit together in front of her and color crept up her high cheekbones.

“Are you breaking up with me or something?” She asked it on a laugh, but I heard the forced humor. Her big, dark eyes stared over at me like she’d already heard the words of rejection out of my mouth.
What happened to you?
It’s what I wanted to ask, but I knew I couldn’t. Not yet, at least.

“You’re the most pleasantly surprising part of my move here. Did you know that?” Her lips rolled in and she worked them between her teeth, shaking her head in answer. “You are. I figured I’d meet some of Garrett’s friends. Hopefully they’d like me. But I thought it might take me a bit of time to make some of my own friends outside of the bar. I didn’t expect you.”

“Oh.” She blinked rapidly, then pursed her mouth to the side. “You’re welcome?”

With a laugh, I shook my head. “I guess what I mean is, I’m not sure where that kiss really puts us now.” I heard her breath catch, and I could see the flutter of her pulse in the side her exposed neck. Absently, I wondered if it tasted like frosting, like the way she smelled. “Would you take it back if you could?”

“What?” She’d been staring at my mouth, but at my words, she started.

“The kiss. Do you want to take it back?”