The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

“Thanks for coming, Dallas.” I kissed her cheek and waved at them as they drove off. I saw Dallas glance at me in the rearview. I smiled broadly and caught her reluctant smile.

My spitfire.

Sitting in my car in front of her house on prom night had tested my limits. I had wanted to ask her. In truth, all year I had only wanted her. I saw her bedroom light on as I sat in my tux, ready for a night I didn’t want to spend without her. I was supposed to pick up my date in twenty minutes but couldn’t tear myself away from staring at her window. I was leaving in two months and should have been relieved that I had kept my gentlemen’s vow. It wasn’t just physical. Dallas had a way of challenging me. Whether it was an argument about my time on the track, which she kept up with to the half second, or the definition of a blind spot when I taught her how to drive, she had a way of making me crazy and needing more of her at the same time. She was often successful in taunting the angry Spaniard in me. And more often than not, she brought out the best in me with the way she regarded me.

I had come so close to kissing her on her sixteenth birthday.

I knew she felt it because the pull was so damn strong it was undeniable. I had pulled away at the last second and she’d almost called me on it.

Looking up at her window and without thinking, I grabbed my date’s corsage and walked to her door. Her father answered with a smile and an arched brow.

“Dallas,” he called up the stairs, staring at me with amusement. She stopped at the top of the stairs, looking at me in confusion. I felt like a complete idiot. She slowly descended, looking between her father and me for answers.

“Hi,” she squeaked. She had on a Dallas Cowboys fitted tee and shorts. “I think I may be underdressed.”

Her father, Seth, gave me an inquisitive look before taking his leave. I silently thanked him.

Dallas led me onto the porch. “Dean, somewhere there is a girl in a prom dress waiting on you.”

“I know,” I fumbled out as she looked up at me for explanation. Somehow, with nervous hands, I managed to take the solid white Lilly out of the corsage box.

“I wanted you to have this.” She shook her head, looking up at me.

“Why?”

“Because.”

Way with words, Martin.

I slipped it on her wrist as she admired the flower. “Dean, it’s beautiful, really, but I can’t take another girls corsage. She picked up the packaging from the porch and slid the flower back in, handing it back to me.

“Girls daydream about this night, Dean. That poor girl waiting on you probably has a thousand scenarios of how this night will go. She’s probably checked her appearance a million times and is looking out her window waiting for your arrival.”

“I thought you were going with Reiner.”

“I changed my mind. I was kind of holding out for something better.” I didn’t miss it and she didn’t let me.

“Dallas—”

“Go, you’ll be late. You look…really good.” She walked inside and shut the door, turning off the porch light.

I cursed my damn gentlemen’s vow as I walked down her steps. What I thought was selflessness had turned into pure stupidity.

Prom was a complete blur and unfortunately for my date, I was distracted. I saw relief in her eyes when I took her home at midnight.

A few weeks before graduation, I showed up to Reiner’s third party in a month with Daisy Tipton on my arm. Dallas was on the porch. She stood up to greet me and immediately lost her balance and flew forward. I let go of Daisy and caught Dallas quickly, getting a strong whiff of her poison and establishing the cause of her sudden immobility.

“Whoa, buddy, you have been hitting the sauce hard,” I noted, immediately on edge. How long had she been drinking out here?

“Dean, you know I don’t like Daisy. Don’t screw her. Ew, not her.” My eyes widened and I had to stifle a laugh as Daisy spewed her venom.

“I can hear you, bitch,” she snapped in warning.

“Oh, you can hear me?” She hiccupped as she took a step out of my arms, her body swaying and her attention towa

rd Daisy. “Hear this, I would rather be a bitch than the passed around whore you are.”

Daisy didn’t hesitate before landing a hard slap on the side of Dallas’s face. Dallas smiled spitefully as if to say ‘thank you,’ her hand going up to cup her reddening cheek. She had purposefully just started a fight.