Dream Chaser (Dream Team, #2)(96)

Though I was glad to make Boone laugh.

“And just by the by, we had a thing with Hattie, which was after Axl and I talked things out. So he and I are all good. But he is not all good with Hattie. So heads up, you might need to take your boy’s back on that.”

“What thing with Hattie?”

“She’s a really, really good dancer. Ballet. Classically trained.”

“Yeah?”

“And Axl saw her dance.”

He leaned back on an “Ah,” not fighting that grin.

“And then she messed up, had a very alarming reaction, he saw it, went right to her, tried to be there for her, and she fled the room. Whoosh!” I added to that final bit a dramatic swoop of my hand.

Boone wasn’t smiling anymore.

“So…yeah,” I finished.

“It’s gonna be good it’s just you and me and the weekend because no drama happens to you when it’s just you and me and a weekend.”

Yeah it was.

So good.

“Go eat,” he ordered, and bent to touch his mouth to mine. “I gotta go back to work.”

I didn’t go eat.

I went to say hi to Hawk, Joker and Tack, collected Axl, and we went back to Chipotle and ordered the same damned things.

*



“You do know I’m gonna have to put an end to this,” I announced.

It was that evening, after dinner.

We were doing the dishes and then we were going to watch a movie.

Or, some ID channel if I could talk Boone into it. I hadn’t had my true crime fix in weeks.

“Put an end to what?” he asked, scraping some leftover garlic mash into a bowl, mash that, in the hands of Boone, would probably be a toe-curlingly good latke-style something at Sunday brunch.

“You helping me do the dishes,” I answered.

His eyes came to me. “Why?”

“You cook.”

“So?”

I shoved a plate in the dishwasher and turned fully to him. “We have balance. You cuddle. I cuddle. You tell me I’m gorgeous. I tell you you’re hot. You order me to suck your cock. I suck it. You can’t cook and help do the dishes. It fucks with our balance.”

“Ryn, I like being with you.”

So freaking sweet.

Still.

“Boone, your house is one room, minus the bath and laundry. You can be with me sitting on the couch and picking a movie.”

“I like the way you smell. I like the way your hands move, even putting dishes in the dishwasher. I like shooting the shit with you, and not doing it shouting across twenty feet of space. I like being with you, Ryn. And I don’t give a fuck I’m dumping mash into a Tupperware while I do it.”

Seriously?

Seriously?

No wonder he had a hero complex.

He was top to toe to brain to heart awesome.

To explain the vastness of my feelings about all he’d just said, I snapped, “You’re totally fucking up our balance!”

He laughed and caught me in his arms, which sucked because my hands were wet, and I couldn’t touch him.

“Just let me do what I do,” he said quietly.

“Whatever,” I replied.

“And I’ll let you do what you do,” he went on.

“Yeah, you get to be the dream guy and I—”

“Do not fuckin’ finish that,” he growled on a hefty squeeze.

I shut up.

“You have a real problem with not being what you’ve decided is perfect, Kathryn,” Boone stated irately. “He gave you that, your dad did. He laid that on you. And if there is nothing I say from this point on that you hear, you need to hear this. You are a dream, Ryn. And that isn’t about you being gorgeous or having a great body or sucking my cock when I order it. It’s about you being tough and funny and sweet and too goddamn generous and not letting anything slow you down. It far from sucks you dig me as much as you do. But it’s clear I’m fallin’ down on the job of sharing how much I dig you and why, Ryn, when you say shit like you were just gonna say.”

I stared up at him.

“I don’t know how to help you let what he gave you go, but he lost out, Ryn. He did.” He said that on another tight squeeze. “I know it’s hard for you to see it this way, but you missed out on a dad who was an absolute dick. But he missed out on having you. And if I didn’t hate the guy’s guts for what he landed on you, I’d feel sorry for him.”

All he said was all Boone was.

Fabulous.

But that last was a surprise.

“You hate Dad’s guts?”

“Yeah.”

“Boone, you haven’t met him.”

“I don’t need to. I don’t want to. And I hope I never do.”

Whoa.

“But, Boone, hating isn’t good.”

“Would you be copasetic if my dad was like yours?”

I saw his point.

“Yeah.” He saw I saw his point.

“Okay, I’m awesome and you’re awesome, so freak-out canceled. We still have balance,” I decreed.

Boone scowled at me a second before his face cracked and his lips tipped up.

“Jesus, you’re cute.”

“I’m also ordering latke-style something with that mash for Sunday brunch.”