Page 54 of What I Like About You

“Mate, she already knows the difference. You better hold on to this one,” Cullen commented.

“My older brother, Rhett, was the one who taught us the difference, so…” she said with a light shrug.

“Finish your story, dude,” Kyle said, goading Dalton.

“Y’all already know it.”

“Zara doesn’t,” Leona said playfully.

“And she doesn’t need to.”

“Tell me!” Zara said, leaning into him to encourage him to share.

“No, I would hate to give you any more reason to think poorly of me.”

“Fine,” she said in protest. If he wouldn’t share, then maybe she should. Teasingly, she said, “Then perhaps I should tell them all about New Year’s our sophomore year.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said, in mock indignation.

“I would.” She stuck her tongue out at him, but quickly pulled it back in her mouth when he leaned in toward her like he was going to bite it.

“Oh my God, what happened New Year’s of your sophomore year?” Drea asked, sitting up straight.

“Nothing,” Dalton told her, his tone trying to get Zara to drop the subject.

“Oh, so it was something good,” Leona said, now mirroring Drea’s posture. These two were like a dog on a bone. Drea had mentioned that he was still pretty secretive, but she hadn’t realized that these two would pounce quite the way they had.

Zara looked to Dalton, who was squirming in his seat a little bit now. She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable or embarrass him, but she was enjoying the camaraderie. She could see why this group was so close. There was an easiness between them all and a respect that came from trusting each other implicitly. Zara’s heart squeezed a little, thinking about how happy she was that he had found these people and made himself a family here. She also really, really wanted to be a part of it.

“I won’t tell it if you don’t want me to,” she told him, looking deep in his eyes.

“It’s okay, you can share it,” he said, kissing her temple. “You’re just gonna owe me.”

“So, y’all know what a mankini is, right?”

* * *

Walkinghand in hand as they left the kitchen, Dalton felt like he was on top of the world. Not that he had ever doubted it, but Zara had fit in seamlessly with all his friends. Other than the brief moment where she froze when Miller had used the word “finally,” the whole evening had been effortless on everyone’s part. Which reminded him, he needed to thank Drea for jumping in and saving his ass when he was caught off guard by how to answer that question. Miller had heard Zara’s name more than once prior to this week. For as much as he kept his past under lock and key from everyone else, he'd lost count of how many times he’d found himself in this kitchen confessing to Miller as if he were a priest.

Dalton couldn’t remember Zara ever being as open and outgoing as she had been tonight with anyone who wasn’t him. Maybe that was something that had developed while they were apart, but somehow, he didn’t think so. But that had been part of his motivation in agreeing to let Zara tell the story of the mankini to begin with. He liked seeing this bubbly side to her shine through, and like hell was he going to stand in its way.

It was hard enough to believe she was sitting there to even tell the story. And hard was the right word, in more ways than one. His mind had kept straying to the knowledge she was entirely nude under the pool cover-up, and the thought excited him greatly. Good thing he’d had the table to hide his crotch under at that moment.

But watching her as she’d animatedly told the story of his lost bet with Chet and Jonah left him feeling excited in a completely different way. Like this was exactly where they both belonged.

“I hope I didn’t embarrass you too badly with the stories of all your pranks,” she said, breaking the silence as they reached the now empty pool area. “I just got on a roll after the mankini thing, and everyone seemed to love hearing about you.”

“You didn’t embarrass me at all,” he told her, stopping to haul her into him. Fuck, she felt good in his arms. He’d held a lot of women in his short life, more than he’d care to admit to, but no one had ever just fit in his embrace the way she did. “I was enjoying reliving it all. I’d forgotten about some of them. Like the mayo in Scarlett’s suntan lotion.”

“How on earth could you have forgotten that?” she exclaimed, playfully smacking his chest. “I can still hear her shrieks when she saw that sunburn.”

“I can too, now that you mention it, but it’s not something I have thought about in a very, very long time.”

Everyone else at the table cackled right along with her as she told that story, and the warm, fuzzy feeling that overtook Dalton’s insides was almost too much to take. If he could have made that moment last forever, he would have.

Up until this point the idea of some kind of future with Zara hadn’t even crossed his mind. How could it have? Until the other day he wasn’t sure she’d ever speak to him again. But now, seeing how easily she fit in with all his friends, it certainly made him wonder.

Images of the two of them sharing a life together flitted through his mind like a slideshow. There was no reason she couldn’t do her blog from here. They could find a little cottage where she could spend her time working on whatever new project she had for either her blog or the Internet TV show. They could be close enough to the airport that she could come and go as she needed. He’d be more than happy to continue to run tours on the Brown Eyed Girl with Kyle, or maybe even consider actually taking on his own boat the next time the chance arose.