“Sometimes.” All the time.
“Thank you for telling me.”
Why had he told her? He hadn’t told anyone new in so long, but he’d confessed to Sophie. And something about her knowing this truth made his whole body tingle with lightness. Like a door had just opened and the shimmering sun was finally washing over him. Sophie was his sun.
She gave him a warm smile and squeezed his open palm. If this was how Sophie reacted, maybe his family wouldn’t be so bad.
“I’ve tried really hard to not be in situations where I might be triggered. I know people will continue to drink around me, but in these early days I’m just trying to stay sober and not get distracted.”
And then her expression shifted to something akin to disgust, as she said, “I made you take care of me when I was hungover.”
“You didn’t make me do anything.” His hand found its way to her shoulder, and he squeezed for reassurance.
She looked at his hand, then up at him, and swallowed. “I think it’s really cool that you’re sober.”
Something about her saying that made him roll his eyes grudgingly. She was trying to empathize, which was sweet, but she didn’t have to take pity on him.
“No, I’m serious!” She inched closer and put a hand on his knee. “Committing to anything is hard. And you’re smart enough to know something had to change. That takes a lot of courage. You’re an impressive person, Dash Montrose. You’ll just have to accept that fact.”
And he stared at her, and she stared back, and they stayed frozen like that for a few beats more. There was no judgment from her about anything he’d said, only a heat he couldn’t quite place. Then her eyes danced from his mouth back up his face, and she licked her lips. And he’d never ever in his entire life wanted anything more than to have her. And maybe he was imagining it, but she seemed like she wanted the exact same thing. Without thinking through what he was doing, he reached a hand up and rested it against the back of her head, and no movement he’d ever made had felt this natural. His fingers touched the soft hairs at the nape of her neck and goose bumps erupted across her flesh.
His breath grew shallow as he asked, “Can I kiss you?”
And he knew as soon as the words came out that he couldn’t take them back, and kissing Sophie would change everything, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to pull her toward him and see if she tasted the way he imagined: lime and sun and salt.
“Yes, Dash.” She said his name, and it was coated with a layer of something thick and sweet, too.
His thumb grazed the side of her cheek as he looked into her eyes to check that she really was okay with this.
She smirked back. “Dash,” she breathed out again.
The whisper of his name made him want her even more. Her lips met his, and she tasted like a sip of warm tea that heated his entire body. Her wide bottom lip pressed against his mouth, then her lips parted, and so did his, and their tongues met.
He couldn’t keep them this far apart, even though it was only a few inches, really. He reached a hand around her waist and pulled her toward him. And, to his delight, her legs parted and she hoisted up her dress and straddled his lap.
Her hands went to his face, and she trailed her fingertips along the scruff of his jawline. “I didn’t expect this.”
And he hadn’t either. He had fantasized about her, of course. After all, the mere thought of her sizzling gaze made him hard. But he hadn’t expected anything to happen between them, especially because he wasn’t sure when he’d feel comfortable enough to be with someone while trying to stay sober.
He knew, logically, that he would eventually date. But asking someone to handle all the complications that came from dating a newly sober person was intimidating. And, frankly, he didn’t want to have to explain his sobriety repeatedly while trying to date. But Sophie wasn’t someone he’d planned to connect with at all. She’d just happened to need him, and he’d helped, and now he needed her.
“Should we talk about this? Or about how you’re feeling? I’m okay, but if you want to stop—”
He pressed his lips to hers because he was done talking. He knew why Sophie wanted to talk things through—she had a hard time not talking—but for now, all he wanted was to keep kissing her. He overthought almost everything in his life these days: second-guessed interactions with people, worried about what his family might think, or what to do with the rest of his life. But he knew with crystal certainty that he wanted to kiss Sophie, and as her fingers dug into his arms, he knew that she wanted to kiss him, too.
His hands wove through her hair and pulled out the bun she’d so carefully crafted on top of her head. He let her hair fall around them and that citrus scent of hers enveloped them both.
Later he would figure out what they were to each other. But right now, all he wanted was her—and that was better than any high he’d ever felt.
He could keep kissing her for the rest of the night, but he pulled back. His thumb grazed her cheekbone, and she searched his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. Her grip on his shoulder tightened.
“Absolutely nothing.” Except for the fact that he hadn’t expected a make-out session, and he wasn’t ready for anything more than that either. Even if his body pleaded otherwise. “It’s just been kind of a crazy day.”
Sophie hesitated but eventually nodded. They untangled themselves, and he stood from the bed. “I’ll get us water.” He didn’t look back at her as he walked toward the bathroom. He knew he should feel ashamed for what they’d done. If Poppy found out, she’d be so hurt. But the feel of Sophie against him hadn’t felt wrong at all. It felt like he was waking up to something he hadn’t known was missing, and that realization scared him more than anything. Because he hadn’t needed or wanted anything in so long, but he wanted more of Sophie.
13
SOPHIE
Sophie could not sleep. Obviously she couldn’t just drift off, because not only was Dash gently snoring next to her but whenever she closed her eyes the only thing she saw was him.
Dash weaving his fingers through her hair.
Dash’s charmed expression as she straddled his lap.
Dash cutting their make-out session short with the weird excuse of needing water.
Gah. She shouldn’t obsess over what was going through Dash’s head, but overthinking was also something she did extremely well.
And it wasn’t just Dash who was playing on a loop. Whenever she took a mental break from them, her mind wandered to her unfinished conversation with Ned. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but a little worm of dread had wriggled into her thoughts. Was she the bad person in their relationship? Had she completely ruined their friendship all those years ago?
As soon as soft morning light trickled in through the curtains, Sophie quietly grabbed her laptop bag and let herself out of the guesthouse. If she was going to have insomnia, she might as well try to get some writing done. The air was still cool as the sun began to crest the mountains, and despite the lack of sleep Sophie felt wired. There was a long, wooden table in the shared courtyard, and she sat down at it.
She opened the draft of The Love Drought that was just waiting for her final scenes to be written. She had twenty thousand words to go, and then she’d be done. Her meteorologist and storm-chaser leads had experienced their all-is-lost moment, and now she just needed to bring them back together so they could find their happily-ever-after. Typing those words out should’ve felt like seeing the finish line after running the bulk of a marathon—the end in sight. But as Sophie stared at the last page she’d written, a kind of numbness overtook her. Nothing about her characters or their relationship in this book felt natural or earned, just forced. And she found that while her fingers were poised over the keyboard, ready to put the words to paper, she couldn’t just fake their love story.