Kiss and Break Up (Magnolia Cove, #1)(37)

She looked at his retreating back, then at me, questions abuzz in her startled eyes. “Later,” I mouthed.

Byron scrubbed at his chin. “He’s really—”

“Oh, my God. It’s amazing!” Willa purposely cut Byron off, and I gave her a small smile in thanks. “When can we eat it?” She clapped her hands, bouncing in her heels.

“How about now?” Dad said, coming into the kitchen with a pack of candles and a lighter in hand.

After being mortified in front of God knows how many people as everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and each took a slice of cake, Dad and his friends retired to the pool house to give us some space.

But when the bass started thumping through the walls, I started feeling unsure. It was one thing to attend parties, but a whole different beast to host your own. Especially while your parent was present, even if he wasn’t in the main house.

I spent the next few hours cleaning as everyone danced, laughed, and drank—though I didn’t know where they’d gotten the alcohol from.

Byron found me when it was nearing eleven with a beer in his hand and some fruity looking drink in the other. “You’re like the little cleaning fairy, disappearing whenever I think I’ve finally caught sight of you.”

I took the offered drink, tired, a little sweaty, and somewhat irked. “I just don’t want anything to get messed up.”

Byron nodded, then swayed a little on his feet. I frowned. “You okay?”

“Think I’ve had a little too much.” He pinched his fingers together.

Offering a weak smile, I popped the top on my melon concoction, tossing the cap into the trash bag I’d been carrying from room to room. “How’d you guys get the alcohol anyway?”

He used his beer to point at some of the guys out by the pool. “Danny’s older brother.”

“His brother is here?” More and more people had shown up, and if I was being honest, it was starting to make me anxious.

“Nah, just bought it for him. Come dance.” He tried to grab me, but I ducked left.

“I’m okay. I’m going to clean up a little more.”

Byron pouted, then backed up when someone called out to him, and left me there.

I didn’t wait for him to come back and quickly grabbed some empty chip bags from the coffee table, then some rogue soda cans rolling over the Indonesian rug.

I tossed them in the trash bag, then took a long sip of my drink, pausing with it in the air when I caught sight of Dash out by the pool.

Some of the anxiety fled my shoulders when I saw he wasn’t doing what I’d feared he was. Though why I’d feared it, why I still felt sick over what Byron had said Dash did at Wade’s party, well I didn’t know why or how to figure it out.

He was walking around, collecting bottles and cans in his arms and taking them to the bin he’d wheeled over to the pool fence.

He was also shirtless.

While he didn’t have the washboard abs the guys on sporting teams at school liked to flaunt, he had some, and he was still fit. His skin sun-kissed and smooth. He’d developed lean muscles from the small amount of weight training and cardio he did—when he could be bothered—to ride his dirt and BMX bikes.

His golden back faced me, his shoulders expansive, tapering gradually to his hips. His chest was mostly hair free, but as he turned and my eyes dipped lower, my mouth dried. His ripped stomach contracted as he bent over to grab a bottle, then straightened. The tiny trail of hair leading inside his pants had me pondering whether I’d touched his stomach at all in any of our practice sessions.

In fact, I couldn’t help but think I’d maybe overlooked too much of him in general.

I took the trash bag outside, a cautious smile at the ready when he caught me heading toward him even though what Byron had mentioned earlier still poisoned my stomach.

He held the lid open for me, closing it when the bag was inside. “This isn’t birthday girl behavior.”

“I can’t relax,” I said.

He ran a hand through his damp hair, then dragged the trash over to the sitting area by the porch. With a jerk of his head, he gestured for me to follow him inside.

I did, taking long sips of my drink as I tried to ignore the make-out sessions, body grinding, and copious amount of drinking happening in my dad’s meticulously kept backyard.

“Did you get your you-know-what wet?” I asked, the beverage in my hand warming my limbs as he headed upstairs.

Dash huffed. “Dick? And yeah.”

I almost tripped up the steps, and he caught my arm. “How many of those have you had?”

“This is my first one.” I pushed some hair from my eyes, unable to meet his, then kept walking upstairs.

“I took a swim. Been a while since I’ve been in that pool.”

I laughed. “That’s what you meant by getting your dick wet?”

He reached me as we hit the landing, and we moved down the rug-covered hall to my room. Arched windows lined the walkway, and I remembered sitting at the biggest one at the top of the stairs as a kid, pretending I was a princess in a castle, getting annoyed with Dash when he refused to play my prince.

“You always wanted to be the villain,” I said.

Dash followed my gaze over his shoulder to the big arched window, knowing what I was thinking about. “And you always tried to make me something I wasn’t.”