Page 56 of Parentmoon

Dallas chuckles. “More comfortable on the ass and back.” He drops the custom-made cushions into place and then steps back inside, returning once more with a bottle of malbec and two glasses. Dallas pours us each a glass and takes a seat beside mine. Hooking his foot around a leg of my chair, he pulls my seat closer to his. The loud drag of wood over concrete zigzags through the peaceful night.

“To your sweetness.” He taps his glass against mine, then brings the rim to his lips.

I don’t drink yet, but swirl the stem, watching the dark red liquid dance in the glass bulb. “I’d never be enough for someone like you.”

Dallas swallows hard and slowly lowers his wineglass. “What?”

“I’m not very adventurous, like Laria said at dinner. I don’t have sex against pylons under a pier. I don’t go fishing on the ocean. I don’t do a lot of things, I guess.” I continue to stare at the wine in my glass.

Dallas leans forward, still holding his glass, and bracing his forearms on his bent knees. “Darlin’, no one says you have to do those things. You’re exciting in your own way.”

“How?” I glance at him over my shoulder. “I’ve never done anything exciting in my life, other than coming here and being with you.”

Dallas’s face illuminates slowly, like a miniature Christmas light miraculously growing into an Edison bulb. “And I’m glad you’re taking the adventure with me.”

“But I’ll never be what a man like you needs.” And the truth is, I want to be with someone like him. Someone sweet but rough. Someone pushing my limits but understanding when I’ve hit the edge. Someone taking care of me in word and deed.

“Jo, don’t make assumptions about what I need or want. These past few days . . .” Dallas gazes off at the dark waters before us. “They’ve been some of the best in my life.”

“You can’t mean that,” I caustically laugh, disrespecting the seriousness in his tone.

“I do.” His eyes land on mine, locking on them to impart his sincerity. “You don’t want to have sex in the ocean, we don’t have to have sex in the ocean. There’s plenty of other places we can and have had sex. It isn’t location, darlin’, or even position. It’s the person you’re sharing the experience with.”

I note the generic, non-committal you he’s referencing again, like he used this morning in his spur-of-the-moment vows in a rundown chapel.

What a day it’s been.

“You know we owe this experience . . .” I wave at the darkness, the romantic setting of moonlight over water and palm trees rustling in a warm breeze. “We owe this to Michael and Keli. Neither of us would be here right now, without them.”

Maybe Dallas would have been here, but I wouldn’t have been present without Michael asking me to trade tickets. Without him canceling his wedding and giving me his honeymoon, I wouldn’t be experiencing this adventure.

“Then to Michael and Keli, on what should have been their day.” Dallas lifts his wineglass and softens his voice. “The day was ours, instead.”

“To Michael and Keli.” I bitterly swallow around their names. New guilt blooms that their loss was our gain.

Then I sip my wine, washing away an after taste of sorrow, and choke.

“Oh my God, what is that?”

Chapter 14

I screech and tuck my legs into my chair, balancing precariously in the ladle-like curve of the seat while hanging onto the triangular back and clutching my wineglass.

Dallas is laughing beside me, but I don’t see what’s funny about a lizard that’s double the length and about five times thicker than the one found in the bathroom.

“It’s an iguana, darlin’.” Dallas slaps his bare foot on the concrete and the sluggish reptile moves off the edge of the porch.

“Just holy shit.” I’m still clutching the seat back and digging my toes into the cushion beneath them.

“He’s more afraid of you, especially with that screech you just let out, deafening him.” He chuckles.

“Do iguanas even have ears?”

“I think they do,” Dallas states like a reptilian expert. “It’s rare for them to move during the dark. Like us, they sleep at night, but he must still be on his way home for the evening.”

“Where do you think he lives?” Panic is rising with each of Dallas’s explanations.

“Probably in the tree over there.” Dallas points to a large bush a few feet off the edge of the patio. “Or in the stone beneath us, if there’s a hole.”