All Lined Up

Chapter 2 Dallas

A new song starts, one that’s been blowing up the radio, and the dancers crowded in the living room let out a cheer. Stella does, too. And as we head for the archway that opens up into the kitchen, she throws out a hand and belts the words. I bump her hip and open my mouth to sing along, but no sound comes out.

The catchy tune shrivels in my throat as I make eye contact with one of the most gorgeous guys I’ve ever seen. He’s sitting on top of the island counter in the kitchen, and even sitting I can tell he’s tall. He has messy dark blond hair, artfully sculpted in that way that makes him look like he’s jumped right off the pages of a magazine. Add to that a strong jaw and eyes that smile more than his lips, and no matter how hard I pull my gaze away, it keeps wandering back to him.

And I get caught.

Not just once.

Like four times! I should have learned my lesson after the first, maybe the second, but now I have officially crossed over into creepy territory.

It takes talent to be a gawking hot mess, and I am a gawking hot mess to the third power. I jerk my eyes away again, a billion years too late to retain my dignity. He’s sitting right next to the keg, though, so I have to look back his way a few seconds later or risk adding frat-boy face-plant to my list of special skills.

This time his lips join the smile in his eyes, and my heart picks up its tempo.

He did have to keep looking at me in order to catch me. So maybe he doesn’t mind that I’m staring.

And maybe Stella was right about this particular stamp.

While she fills up a cup, I try to look casual. I never know exactly how to hold my arms or how far to cock my hip. The dancer in me doesn’t feel comfortable unless my posture is perfect, but that makes me stick out like a sore thumb in a sea of slouchy college kids.

My hands are floppy, dead fish. Or that’s what they feel like anyway as I try to arrange them in a way that doesn’t make me look like a mental patient. While I’m still trying to figure it out, a red cup enters my vision.

I follow a muscular arm up to that pair of smiling eyes.

“Pretty girls shouldn’t have to wait in line.”

I eye the half-full cup, then manage a casual shrug.

“I’ll wait. Thanks.”

Nothing about Stella’s stamp says I have to do something as stupid as take a drink from a stranger, no matter how good looking he is.

Stella moves aside, but not before waggling her perfectly sculpted eyebrows at me. Gawk-worthy guy slides down off the counter as I step up to the keg.

“You don’t trust me?” he asks.

This time I catch him staring at my legs, and how not covered they are by the outrageously short skirt Stella picked out for me.

“I don’t know you,” I reply, trying to sound at least a little stern and failing.

He smiles unabashedly and glances one more time at my legs. I only agreed to the stupid skirt because it has pockets, and I cannot resist a skirt with pockets.

Now I wish I had tried a little harder.

“So get to know me,” he replies.

God, do they make WD-40 for flirting? Because I am rusty. Not enough practice thanks to four years of high school with an overbearing dad as the football coach. Then again, this guy is scary gorgeous, so he would make me nervous no matter how much practice I had.

I hold out my hand and say, “I’m Dallas.”

He eyes my proffered hand, and I know I’ve made a mistake. Laughing, he takes my hand and bends to kiss it in a princely bow, and I can’t tell if he’s making fun of me or not.

“Dallas and Silas,” he murmurs, his lips still close enough to my hand that I feel his breath skate across my skin. “Sounds like fate to me.”

No one has ever been so audaciously flirtatious with me in my entire life, and it muddles my brain.

“Nice to meet you, Silas.”

I am thinking about how it will be impossible for us to have a couple nickname if we get together because every combination ends up just being one of our names when he laughs.

He moves closer to me, and instinctively I take a tiny step back.

“You’re never going to get to know me like that. Come on.”

He lays an arm across my shoulder, hooking me closer to his side, and starts leading me out of the kitchen.

“Wait. My friend.”

“She’ll be fine.”

I’m not worried about her.

“He’s right!” Stella calls behind me. “I am fine,” she announces to a group of three guys that she’s already managed to ensnare. Good God, it’s like she’s found her natural habitat. I envy her confidence.

I envy a lot of things about Stella.

He pulls me toward the living room, and I automatically fall into step with the rhythm of the music. But when I see the room packed full of grinding bodies and decorated with wandering hands, I panic. It’s not that I’m incapable of dancing like that. My tastes run more toward ballet, lyrical, and jazz, but I’ve taken a few years of hip-hop.

It’s not the movement that intimidates me. I can roll my hips with the best of them. It’s the intimacy I can’t handle. There are no secrets when your body is that close to another. Hell, it took me close to a year before I could comfortably press up against Levi that way.

Fat lot of good all that caution did me.

As much as I get annoyed with the way my father affects my love life, a really small part of me is glad to have him as an excuse to not get too close. As an excuse not to get hurt again.

“Bathroom,” I blurt out, grasping for another excuse. “I, uh, need to use the ladies’ room.” I thought ladies’ room might sound less embarrassing.

Wrong on all counts.

He gives me that look again like I’m behaving like the grandma who I apparently stole my personality from.

I cough and add, “Bathroom,” once more, like that somehow might clear the air of all the terrible, but yeah . . . this place is officially polluted. He raises an eyebrow, and I wait for him to ditch me because I am clearly the least cool person in this house, counting the dude asleep underneath the table in the foyer currently sucking his thumb.

But my weird doesn’t phase him. It’s a miracle. “Sure, there’s one upstairs, I think. Maybe we can find a quiet place up there to talk, too.”

Oh my Jesus. Make that miraculously scary.

His finger draws little circles on my shoulder, and I concentrate on swallowing down all the irrational excuses that I want to make to run away.

Claiming flesh-eating bacteria to get out of a private conversation might be overkill. Malaria might work, though.

As we climb the stairs together, my heart climbs higher and higher into my throat until it throbs on the back of my tongue. The two girls who’d been all over Levi earlier are still on the stairs, and when they see us coming, they sit up straighter. One fluffs her hair, her gaze darting between Silas and me, and I can see her confusion in her glossy-lipped frown. She stands as we near, petite to the point that she would look twelve years old were it not for the giant rack that has to completely throw off her balance.

“Hey, Silas,” she breathes.

He only nods back, but he smiles while he does it, and she looks grateful for even that little bit of attention.

Dear God, please tell me I don’t look that pathetic. Because I will not be that girl, begging for scraps, no matter how gorgeous the guy is.

Upstairs is surprisingly deserted. Or at least it appears to be. The long hallway of closed doors is probably hiding plenty of things I don’t want to be party to. Discomfort sweeps through me, and I’m grateful when he stops outside a closed door that I hope (oh please, please) is the bathroom.

He gives me another mock bow and says, “All yours, pretty girl.”

I cannot escape into that bathroom fast enough. And maybe (okay, definitely) it’s overkill, but I lock the door as soon as it’s closed.

Get a grip, Dallas.

I suck at the whole meeting new people thing. I’ve had plenty of practice, what with Dad’s propensity to up and move us every few years, but it never gets any easier.

All in all, I just really blow at being a normal human being.

But I am going to start now, damn it.

Note to self: do not use the world blow in front of Silas . . . in any context. It won’t turn out well.

No matter what I have to do, I will not let my dad limit my life here, too.

I don’t look in the mirror as I work to gather my composure. If I do, I know I’ll obsess over my hair—how the deep red color clashes horribly against my no doubt pink cheeks. I can feel the light perspiration above my brow, so my bangs are probably a clumpy, oily mess, too.

Nope. Better to avoid the mirror altogether. Silas didn’t seem to take issue with whatever he saw, so neither should I. Instead, I take a few seconds just to lean against the door and breathe.

By-product of having a coach for a father? A natural gift for mental pep talks.

But now . . . I wasn’t sure which pep talk to give. The familiar be cautious and careful routine? Or take a cue from Stella and treat myself to a live it up talk to get my ass in gear? In the end, I decide on something carefully in the middle. I’ll see what happens with Silas, but I am not staying upstairs with him, and I am not leaving the party with him either.

There. That seems reasonable.

Fun. I need to have some. Stat.

Decided, I open the door quietly, smile situated on my lips, expecting to find Silas waiting, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

Walking back toward the stairs, I see him, hands braced on the railing and talking with someone a few steps down.

“Come on. Give me one hint,” Silas says.

The answering voice is familiar, and immediately I feel sick.

“Dude, it took me years to get in her pants.” Levi. Freaking Levi. “No way I’m giving you an easy in. And no way you’re managing it in one night. She’s an icebox, man.”

I shiver. Like I really have been coated in ice.

Silas chuckles before replying, “Oh ye of little faith.”

“Oh ye of little chance.”

“Whatever,” Silas says. “If she gave it up to high school you, all farm fresh with zero game, she can’t be that tough.”

They talk about me like I am some play to master, a team to beat. I probably matter less to them than their helmets and pads. And, oh yes, I have no doubt now that Silas is on the football team. Levi wouldn’t be hanging out with him if he weren’t.

My heart drums in my ears, and my mouth waters in that way that usually means I’m about to be sick. I don’t scream, even though it would be satisfying. Nor do I pick up the vase on the hallway table and test out how my Angry Birds skills translate to real-life target practice.

Instead, I calmly walk the length of the hallway and escape into an empty bedroom. I breeze past a few twin beds and head straight for the French doors that open up to a balcony on the far side of the room.

Emerging into the surprisingly cool evening air, I close the door behind me, sucking in a lungful of refreshing air.

Then I scream.

Not the shrieky, ear-shattering kind. Lower, more guttural. Like a battle cry.

Gripping the balcony railing, I stand up straighter, like I would if I were standing at the barre in my dance studio, and I let it all out.

Already I feel better.

A few seconds of precious silence passes, filled only by the faint echo of my scream. Then below me a voice calls out, “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’ve decided against going Greek.”

Down in the yard, highlighted by one of the floodlights affixed to the outside of the house, is another gorgeous guy wearing dark, worn jeans, scuffed boots, and a smirk that oscillates between infuriating and adorable. He’s got dark hair and a delectable touch of scruff along his jaw, and he looks entirely entertained by my mental breakdown.

And all I can think is . . . Dear God, not another one.