Dream Chaser (Dream Team, #2)(27)

Boone watched me do that and it made him smile again before he reached to my battered coffee table, nabbed my remote, pointed it at the TV and it paused.

He tossed the remote on the seat between us and twisted further my way.

He took up a forkful of macaroni salad before he teased, “This room could be darker.”

All righty then.

It was get-to-know-you-better time.

Fabulous.

Because suddenly, I had the unique, and not-all-that-fun sensation that I hoped I was interesting to know.

I considered what my living room said about me.

My couch was a deep purple. My armchair was a brick red. The walls were a deep orange-red. The rug on the floor was fake Persian with a dark-blue background and red, orange, pink and peach designs.

And my dark-wood roller shades were closed.

“I like dark,” I muttered.

“Mm,” he hummed and shoved into his mouth salad that was so far from the true meaning of salad, it was kinda hilarious.

After he swallowed, he said, “Do you know how many plants you have? Or did you lose track after number three thousand?”

I was fighting a smile when I replied, “Evie says they’re destroying the Amazon, and this destruction is depleting the world’s oxygen, so I’m doing my bit to oxygenate Denver.”

“Obliged, baby, I’m already breathing easier,” he murmured, and forked more macaroni into his mouth.

“Can you tell me how our meal is drenched in mayo, grease and marshmallows and you have negative body fat?”

He chewed, swallowed, and replied, “I work hard. I work out hard. And I fuck hard. Calories aren’t a problem for me.”

I squinted my eyes at him and announced, “You know, if we’re gonna take this slow, you’re gonna have to not be so hot.”

He looked in danger of dissolving in laughter which was a good look on him (as were all of them, gah!). “How am I gonna do that?”

“Not talk about fucking hard would be a start.”

“Rynnie, baby, you gotta know delayed gratification is the best kind.”

Seriously?

I pointed my chicken breast at him across the couch. “That! Stop doing that!”

He started chuckling.

I rolled my eyes and focused on eating.

“You wanna talk about your brother?” he asked.

Man, that was nice.

Still.

“No, nothing horrible happened today, but the end of it is surprisingly promising, so I don’t wanna ruin it.”

“All right, sweetheart,” he muttered.

“Do you have a brother?” I asked.

“Yes. Two.”

“A sister?”

He shook his head.

“You oldest? Youngest?” I went on.

“Middle.”

“Middle child syndrome?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Dad called me Bobby.”

I didn’t get that.

“He called you Bobby?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Said I was Bobby Kennedy, as good as or better than the ones that came before, or after.”

Wow.

Bold.

And maybe uncool.

“I bet your brothers loved that,” I mumbled.

“Dad was about competition. He did shit like that all the time to get us riled up to best each other to better ourselves.”

I wasn’t sure that was healthy, though watching Boone talk about it, he didn’t seem tense.

“I was a brain,” he went on. “Late bloomer. Growth spurt came when I was a sophomore in high school, which sucked. And then I was all gangly. I’d always been shit at sports. Both Cassidy and Larson were strong, tough, tall from young ages, and they just got taller. Good at sports. Smart too, though they weren’t into that kinda thing, so they didn’t apply themselves. But the stuff they were good at was the stuff other kids thought was cool, so my dad was tryin’ to make me feel less of a loser, doing shit like calling me Bobby. Cass and Lars didn’t need that. Everyone thought they were awesome.”

Wow again.

That was, in a way, beautiful.

“So how did you become all you are today?” I asked quietly.

“When I started growing, Cass took me under his wing, taught me how to work out, lift, use the weight machines, helped me fill out. And Lars and me played a lot of basketball.”

“So you have a tight family.”

“They’re all still back in Pennsylvania, except Lars, who lives in Idaho. But yeah. I’m thirty-three and Christmas and Thanksgiving are still sacrosanct. If I didn’t haul my ass back home for both, Mom would disown me.”

“That sounds sweet,” I said.

He looked into my eyes. “It is.”

I turned back to my food, happy he had that, wondering how it would feel.

“Not everyone can have Ozzie and Harriet,” he said gently.

I returned my attention to him. “It sounds like you did.”

“I did. My parents fought on occasion, we heard them. But they got over it, sometimes it’d take a while, but they did. It wasn’t great, being the scrawny Sadler brother. But Mom and Dad and even Cass and Lars played to my strengths at home, so I had a solid foundation it was impossible to fall off. I know I was lucky, am lucky. Hear shit. See shit. Shit I never had at home or shit my parents shielded me from. I count those blessings, Ryn. But it doesn’t make someone who doesn’t have all that any less.”