Kids start to dart around us, running by in blurs in my peripheral vision.
Lyle pulls away quickly, his face more than enough to know something is wrong. “Shit,” he says. “It's the cops. Go, get out of here.” He pushes me toward the darkness on the opposite side of the yard and runs the other way.
“Wait. . . What?”
“Go, Dalia! Go! I need to go find Sandy, just get out of here!”
I stand still for a second, taken back that even after her hurtful words, after he had to step in and stop her from doing any more damage, he still feels the need in his heart to keep her safe.
That says a lot about who he is. He’s more than the self-centered jock with only football and pussy on his mind.
And it only makes me like him more.
My feet start to take off, but I stop in my tracks. Kira. . . Whipping my head toward the backyard, I run around the side of the house, and as luck has it, Kira is flying out the sliding glass doors.
“Oh, thank God, Dalia,” she says between breaths as she grabs my arm. “Come on, we’ve got to get the hell out of here.” She glances right to left, and back to the left again. “This way.”
With her hand wrapping my wrist, she drags me through the backyard and into a thick set of bushes. Ducking down, she pulls me down beside her.
“Get low, as low as you can.”
We lay on our bellies and push ourselves as far back into the bushes as possible. Voices start to spill in from every direction. The police are yelling at the kids they catch, grabbing them by their collars as they try to run by.
Kira and I wait quietly, giggling and trying not to shake the bushes as we laugh. This is a story I'll have for the rest of my life.
The night I finally kissed my crush. The night he kissed me back. And the night I hid in a bush for two hours until the cops finally left and it was safe to go home.
I know this is going to be one of those moments I'll always look back on, one that changed me, and gave me the confidence to finally go out there and get what I want.
Because it's clear to me after tonight. . .
I'm not the only one who knows what they want.
3
Lyle Present Day
“We'll talk soon,” I say, shaking my new client's hand with a smile. Walking him to the door, I point him in the direction of the front desk and send him on his way.
It's the repetition that's saving me. Having done this so many times over the years means I don't even have to think about it anymore. It's second nature.
Smile. Handshake. Nod.
Smile. Handshake. Nod.
That's all I have to make this meeting seem normal.
Standing in the doorway, I watch him until he rounds the corner, and disappears out of view. Walking back to my desk, I fix the stack of papers, tapping them against the surface, and slipping them back into the folder.
I'm trying to focus on anything I can that isn't—her.
But she's there, sitting right in the front of everything, and I can't get her out of my head. Those fucking eyes. Her long legs. Her perfectly kissable lips. I'm getting hard just thinking about her.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Pausing, I hold the thin edge of the folders against the table, staying very still. I'm trying to convince myself that she's not the girl I've dreamt about for years.
Victor, one of our IT techs is passing the door, causes me to lift my head. He looks inside and gives me a small smile with a wave.
Giving him a head nod, I call out to him, “Victor, don't forget I need the newest version of the PicTrans program uploaded on every computer in this office by the end of the day.”
He stops short, tipping his head back to answer. “You got it, Boss. Consider it already done.”
“Thanks, we really need it for this new project we're starting Monday.”
Everything on the outside seems normal. I'm doing my job, I'm bringing in new clients, creating advertising and social media plans, and making sure everyone is happy on both ends.
But inside, inside I'm a fucking mess.
Dalia Greene is back in my life. She's here, and now I can't fucking think straight. I thought I was stronger than this. I convinced myself that I'd be able to handle seeing her again without an issue. I even thought that maybe it was a typo and a stranger would walk in that door.
But the fact that I can't stop thinking about her is proving me wrong. It is Dalia Greene, and she's just as gorgeous as I remember.
Her hair is still long, with those same bright, red highlights. The green in her eyes is still explosive, bursting with specks of gold. Even from across the room, it's easy to see her thick lashes sweep over her eyes with every blink.
Except, there's something about her that's different. She has this aura around her I've never seen before. I know what it is, and it's sexy as hell on her. Confidence.
The shyness is gone, and she holds herself taller, with a bold and undeniable spark I could feel even standing across the room from her. The meek little vixen I remember is now a strong woman.
And her fucking body, I'm lucky my jaw didn't hit the floor the second I laid eyes on her. Curvy and thick, her figure can bring any man to their knees.
Dalia isn't the teenage girl I've seen in my dreams. She's come back, and now she's all grown up.
I kept stealing glances of her heart shaped face, her eyes, her beautiful hands. I've always loved her hands, there's something about them. They create such amazing things, such incredible, beautiful
