I loved the little rhetoric game we had played since we were in middle school. Always starting interactions or explanations between us with an ‘of course’—as if it should be obvious to everyone that we would go out of the way for one another. I almost sighed in realization, because I was starting to understand why everyone had assumed we were dating for a fair amount of high school. To be fair, when I was around King every day, it was hard to think of our interactions as anything but our normal, but after some distance? Well, it was a bit more clear how much I’d fallen for him.
Before he could say anything, the sound of the moving truck door slamming across the street caught my attention. I peeked around his large frame, the open door flooding the hallway with humidity and giving me an unobstructed view of the movers.
“Oh!” I tugged his hand. “I am so glad you are back today, there is someone moving in. Can you believe that? I’ve been trying to spy from my bedroom window, but I’m failing miserably.”
His deep laughter followed me as he guided me out onto the front porch. It was hard to look away from the man, but I did for a moment, searching the massive stretch of green that laid in front of me and the estate in question, as if our neighbors would just appear like magic. When I looked back up at King, he was staring at me with an expression that had me stilling, a flash of heat rolling over my skin at the intensity there.
That was a new look.
“What if I told you,” he said, smoothing a thumb over my jaw as I leaned with my back against the railing of the porch, his body caging mine, “that I knew who was moving in?”
“You would have to tell me,of course,” I teased. His eyes sparked with amusement as he wrapped an arm around my waist, turning me slightly into him but so that I could still see the house. I jumped as he lifted his fingers to his lips and did one of those insanely loud whistles. I watched with avid interest to see what was going to occur. I mean, I could stay here all day, perfectly content pressed between King and… well, anything. A railing. A wall. A bed. You probably get where I am going with this.
It didn’t help that it had always been this easy between Kingston and I.
Like an easy, slow, hot summer day. He made me smile and laugh, and I… Well, I’m not positive about what I did for him, but he stayed around for a reason, right? As I said, we’d been accused of dating throughout high school, and as a freshman it had freaked me out, worried it would push him away, but as I got older, I realized I was perfectly happy with that rumor. More than happy with it, especially since he never denied it.
Didn’t confirm it, either, but hey, that was something, right?
So why didn’t I just awkwardly blurt out my feelings? It wasn’tjustKing that I had these strong feelings for. Yeah, it became all the more confusing when you added in the other men that I found myself drawn to. I knew, without a doubt, that I’d never be able to choose between them, and maybe that was what was holding me back, in part. My fear of losing them. Or I was chicken, afraid of being rejected.
“And there he is,” Kingston mused as I watched a head of reddish brown hair walk through a sea of movers, the stranger’s frame equally as massive as the men surrounding him doing all the heavy lifting. My chest squeezed at the giant that was walking over, his shoulders easily double—maybe triple—the width of my frame. Holy smokes.
He was halfway across my lawn before he finally looked up, and I was met with a very familiar shade of green eyes. Eyes that held mine for a hot second, looking somewhat shocked—at what, I wasn’t sure—before they slid over to King. A look I didn’t fully understand flashed across his handsome face before it was suddenly gone again.
“Who is this?” I asked curiously, trying to keep my tone light and upbeat.
“Dermot,” King explained, his tone sexy and amused, as if something about this was hilarious to him. I found myself tempted to say the new man’s name, wanting to let it roll off my tongue, but I didn’t want to scare away the new neighbor by acting like a total weirdo. I would just do it later, where I could be a weirdo in the privacy of my bedroom.
That was way dirtier than I intended it to sound.
“I heard you the first bloody time when you whistled at me like a damn pup.” Dermot’s Irish accent had my lips popping open in surprise as he responded to King saying his name. A shiver crawled over my skin, causing me to grip the railing just slightly tighter as I tried to not find his voice ridiculously, unfairly sexy.
That was all I needed right now.
If King noticed my reaction, he didn’t say anything, but I found that hard to believe since his one hand was on the soft spot between my shoulders and neck as he ran his thumb over my pulse in a repetitive, relaxing motion. It wasn’t an unusual action for him to do, but in his time away I’d forgotten how soothing I’d found it. I think he also used it to gauge if I was anxious or not, because he sometimes did the same with my wrist. I swear that was the reason why. The man was always doing crazy stuff like that.
I was perfectly fine with him knowing my body that well… I was just hoping that he couldn’t read my damn mind. I would be so screwed if he ever had a front row seat to what I was actually thinking around the group of them.
“Dermot, meet Dahlia,” King drew out lazily, his chin resting on top of my head as he continued to pet my neck. “Dahlia, this is my cousin, Dermot. I think I’ve mentioned him before.”
Oh, he had.I had heard about him before this summer, but also in the background of many of King’s calls this summer… I just hadn’t realized that he looked like this. His voice sounded not only deeper in person, but it had a ton of richness to it. Everything about him seemed vibrant, much like King, but he seemed to have a slightly rougher edge.
The Irishman froze upon the introduction, his eyes flicking down to me before letting out a small sound from his throat, making King shake with silent laughter. I arched a brow, feeling way more confused than before. Was it just me, or was there something going on here I didn’t understand? Maybe he was awkward. I could understand that—meeting new people was hard.
Or maybe I was terrible at reading people? It was one of the other reasons I loved photographing people. It allowed me time to study mannerisms and body language. I wasn’t always fantastic at doing so in the moment. I was distracted fairly easily, which I used to consider a flaw, but there was just a lot to take in about the world around us, and bright colors, specifically, always caught my eye.
“Nice to meet you, lass,” he said softly before looking back up at his cousin. “Is this why you called me out here? In the middle of moving?”
Was he the one moving into the house? I mean, clearly. But just him? In that massive house? I frowned, wondering if he would be lonely in it.
King’s voice was laced with suspicious innocence, even for him. “Dahlia wanted to meet the new neighbor, and I was positive you would want a personal introduction. Can’t have two of the most important people in my life not knowing one another.”
My cheeks heated as I looked up at King. Did he mean that? King’s fingers paused on my throat, a smile filling his face as his gaze ran across my expression… before Dermot’s curse jogged me from staring at the man behind me and back to his cousin. My expression turned curious as Dermot held my gaze for a minute, searching for something, before shaking his head and turning back towards his house.
Had I done something wrong? I liked to think I was welcoming… but he seemed upset.
I tried not to be upset about him walking away. Maybe he was stressed with the move. And like I said, meeting new people wasn’t always easy, something I definitely understood. Especially after everything that had happened, I’d become far more cautious than I had ever wanted to be. I was just toeing the line of being cynical, and I was starting to hate myself for it.