how or the amount of details we would give Simon about our time together. They’d been best friends for years. I didn’t want to be the one to destroy such a lasting bond.
“So, you and Keats are finished?”
“What? I, um, I, what?” I knocked my coffee over in surprise, then quickly snatched my white linen napkin off the table and began sopping up the cooling brown liquid.
“ Simon says you can’t keep secrets from a guy like me, Dani.” He chuckled and took another drink. Smaller this time. “I’m his go-to guy for everything. Plus, Joss is my sister and I don’t want to see her get hurt, so I asked him.”
“Oh.” My hands stilled as the waitress wiped our table clean, then left to get me another drink. She’d probably put it in a sippy cup. “I should have figured Keaton already told you.” These weren’t guys who kept things from each other. “But yeah, we’re over. To be honest, we never really began. He loves her too much to be with anybody else.”
“Is your little boy his?”
I’d been keeping this secret for so long I almost spilled it right there behind the fake vines hiding us from the other customers. Since he had a vested interest in knowing what I knew, I should have told, but I didn’t. I couldn’t tell him now. He was happy with someone else, and Kieran and I had almost ruined one relationship already. “I don’t want to talk about Kieran’s daddy.”
“Why?”
“Because you have your life and I have mine, and we don’t share our secrets anymore.” I looked down at the table. “So, sheriff, huh?”
He chuckled. All serious points of conversation came to a screeching halt. Instead, we chatted about Arizona’s dry air, his mom’s rekindling of her marriage to Alex Rogers, his move into Gatlin’s apartment, my dad’s new horses--everything except the one thing I wanted to discuss--us. Three hours and a couple pots of coffee later, he drove me back to my mom’s and pulled up in front of the house. “This reminds me of the old days.”
Me too . How many nights had we sat out in front of the house, steaming up the windows to his car? Just the thought of air-fogging activities with Simon had my blood pressure climbing. “Yeah.”
My body without any encouragement from my brain, maybe responding to the nostalgia, or maybe responding to Simon, leaned closer and our lips touched. Every pent-up feeling and emotion I’d ever suppressed washed over me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, losing myself in him.
The kiss lasted forever and ended too quickly as he jerked away from me. “Dani, I can’t do this.”
An ache throbbed in my chest.
“I have a girlfriend.”
I nodded. “I know.” My eyelids fluttered shut, and I dug my fingernails into my palms.
“It’s not fair to her. No matter how much I want to sit out here and kiss you, I can’t do that to her.”
Okay, already. No need to beat me over the head with it . “I have to go in.” I hopped out of his Jeep and counted the thirty-nine steps up the walk to keep from running, my pride insisting I not look back as he drove away.
Three days later, Simon walked into a bank in the middle of a robbery.
Chapter 8
I knew the chances of being allowed in with Simon at the hospital hovered in the low-to-not-happening range, but I had to go. Knowing I might never see him again, drew me to the parking lot. It took ten minutes to talk myself into getting out of the car. Somewhere in the hospital, Simon lay broken, probably dying. My head pounded from the hours I’d spent crying. My heart ached at the thought the world-- I --might never see his smile again.
I rode to the fourth floor with no idea how I would be able to manage the walk into his room. As the doors whooshed open, I inhaled the smell of antiseptic and death. A sob tore from my throat, and the doors started to close while I breathed in and out through my nose, trying to get my shit together. The last thing I wanted was to fall apart here, in
“So, you and Keats are finished?”
“What? I, um, I, what?” I knocked my coffee over in surprise, then quickly snatched my white linen napkin off the table and began sopping up the cooling brown liquid.
“ Simon says you can’t keep secrets from a guy like me, Dani.” He chuckled and took another drink. Smaller this time. “I’m his go-to guy for everything. Plus, Joss is my sister and I don’t want to see her get hurt, so I asked him.”
“Oh.” My hands stilled as the waitress wiped our table clean, then left to get me another drink. She’d probably put it in a sippy cup. “I should have figured Keaton already told you.” These weren’t guys who kept things from each other. “But yeah, we’re over. To be honest, we never really began. He loves her too much to be with anybody else.”
“Is your little boy his?”
I’d been keeping this secret for so long I almost spilled it right there behind the fake vines hiding us from the other customers. Since he had a vested interest in knowing what I knew, I should have told, but I didn’t. I couldn’t tell him now. He was happy with someone else, and Kieran and I had almost ruined one relationship already. “I don’t want to talk about Kieran’s daddy.”
“Why?”
“Because you have your life and I have mine, and we don’t share our secrets anymore.” I looked down at the table. “So, sheriff, huh?”
He chuckled. All serious points of conversation came to a screeching halt. Instead, we chatted about Arizona’s dry air, his mom’s rekindling of her marriage to Alex Rogers, his move into Gatlin’s apartment, my dad’s new horses--everything except the one thing I wanted to discuss--us. Three hours and a couple pots of coffee later, he drove me back to my mom’s and pulled up in front of the house. “This reminds me of the old days.”
Me too . How many nights had we sat out in front of the house, steaming up the windows to his car? Just the thought of air-fogging activities with Simon had my blood pressure climbing. “Yeah.”
My body without any encouragement from my brain, maybe responding to the nostalgia, or maybe responding to Simon, leaned closer and our lips touched. Every pent-up feeling and emotion I’d ever suppressed washed over me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, losing myself in him.
The kiss lasted forever and ended too quickly as he jerked away from me. “Dani, I can’t do this.”
An ache throbbed in my chest.
“I have a girlfriend.”
I nodded. “I know.” My eyelids fluttered shut, and I dug my fingernails into my palms.
“It’s not fair to her. No matter how much I want to sit out here and kiss you, I can’t do that to her.”
Okay, already. No need to beat me over the head with it . “I have to go in.” I hopped out of his Jeep and counted the thirty-nine steps up the walk to keep from running, my pride insisting I not look back as he drove away.
Three days later, Simon walked into a bank in the middle of a robbery.
Chapter 8
I knew the chances of being allowed in with Simon at the hospital hovered in the low-to-not-happening range, but I had to go. Knowing I might never see him again, drew me to the parking lot. It took ten minutes to talk myself into getting out of the car. Somewhere in the hospital, Simon lay broken, probably dying. My head pounded from the hours I’d spent crying. My heart ached at the thought the world-- I --might never see his smile again.
I rode to the fourth floor with no idea how I would be able to manage the walk into his room. As the doors whooshed open, I inhaled the smell of antiseptic and death. A sob tore from my throat, and the doors started to close while I breathed in and out through my nose, trying to get my shit together. The last thing I wanted was to fall apart here, in
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