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“Sure, and Piper, I hope this won’t make things difficult when we see each other.”
“Nope, we’ll put this down to a brief moment of insanity on your part. I’m sure next time we meet you’ll have that stick firmly back up your backside, and that ‘I’m better than you’ look in place.”
“What? I don’t....” His words stumbled to a halt as she walked by him. He wished he’d followed his first impulse to stay away from Piper when he’d seen her leave the bar. “I so don’t,” he muttered sounding like a ten-year-old boy unable to stop himself.
He found his sister talking to Fin Hudson, who had seen him so he couldn’t exactly turn around and walk out. But he wanted to. He wanted to find a corner somewhere and contemplate the fact he’d just behaved like a jerk.
He bought a beer, and another wine for Charlie, then leaned on the bar beside her and watched people. He often did this, and tried to work out what they were thinking, what their role in life was.
Piper had gone back to preppy boy’s side, and he refused to watch her; he’d done that enough. Watching her dance had made him seriously uncomfortable and that in turn had made him act the way he had. Totally out of character.
So we need to have sex, then we can settle into living in the same town without the tension for a while until I leave.
That was pretty bad, even for him, the man who had once been told by a woman that he had the emotional stability of a Pop-Tart. The problem was, Dylan had never really wanted anyone like he did Piper Trainer, and it was uncomfortable. He doubted it would last, but while it did, he’d need to avoid her now she’d made it clear there would be no one-, two-, or even four-night stands with him while he was in town.
It still stung that she’d said he had a stick up his ass and a look on his face that said he was better than her. Did he look like that?
“I’m just talking about the Coffee Run with Fin, Dylan.”
Pleased to be pulled from his thoughts, he looked at Charlie. The sparkle in her eyes told him she’d had a few glasses of wine and lost some of her reserve, and maybe managed to put aside the fact someone had set out to ruin her career.
“Do you want to enter?”
“Ah no.” He shook his head. “I think I’m getting my hair done that day.”
“Ha,” she said, looking from him to Fin. “The park ranger here says it’s fun, and that you get free coffee and donuts at the end. The winner gets a night at the lodge and spa. Plus, there’s the hot tubs. Come on, I want to do it. We were too young when it first started.”
Dylan pushed aside visions of a naked Piper in the hot tub. That breast he’d had his hand on would look pretty sensational naked, he was sure.
“It’s not really my thing, Charlie.”
“A bit too uncool for the big city FBI man?”
Fin was goading him, but there was an undertone of something there.
“I was born here, I don’t think you were.”
“Got me there, but then I always enter the Coffee Run. It’s for the local old folks’ home. All proceeds go to them.”
The challenge had been thrown down. If he didn’t enter he’d look like he didn’t give a shit about the elderly, and if he did, he’d look like an idiot.
“Plus, I usually win, so if you’re not—”
“I’m not ten anymore, that shit doesn’t work now, Hudson.”
“Sure it does, and wait till the Trainer brothers start on you. You’ll enter, mark my words.”
“I doubt that.”
“They say smiling takes as many muscles as frowning, bud. You should give it a shot.”
“Any reason why you’re getting on my case?”
“It’s how I communicate,” Fin said. “Ask the Trainers.”
“You want to wrestle or something? Throw a few punches maybe? Just so you feel comfortable about my manliness.”
Fin’s smile was real this time.
