Joke's on You (SWAT Generation 2.0 6)

He chuckled.

“Delanie is just insanely good at it,” he said as he leveraged himself out of the glider using his knees. “Thank you for coming over to check on me, Dillan.”

I bit my lip and stared at him for a few long seconds.

“You scared me, Booth,” I told him honestly. “Be safe out there. Asa would miss you like crazy if you weren’t here anymore.”

He was silent for a few seconds as he led me once again through his house, only backward this time.

When I opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, I half expected him not to follow me out. But he did.

Stepping out on the porch with me, he didn’t have a shy bone in his body as he proudly stood there in front of me looking like a midnight snack.

The light that was coming from his house at his back, paired with the front porch light, lit up his body like he was a display at the museum.

And he really could’ve pulled off the Greek statue look completely.

He had well-defined, honed muscles. And I’m not talking about here and there. I’m talking about those muscles along his ribs that I liked to call ‘side abs.’ His pectoral muscles were bunched up, making me kind of envious.

Sadly, I wasn’t the biggest bra cup in the world, and when Booth stood like that, his muscles there were even bigger than my boobs.

And the veins.

Sweet baby Jesus, the veins on the man.

They were everywhere.

On his arms and biceps, his belly, running down into his pants, seriously, if I was a nurse, I’d be drooling right now.

As it was, I wasn’t a nurse, I just had a stellar ability to check out the male form, and I was practically salivating.

Luckily, the fact that I knew that Booth would most certainly notice had me keeping it under control.

He missed absolutely nothing.

Which was why, when he cleared his throat, I blushed profusely.

“Those freakin’ bruises are gonna hurt tomorrow,” I lied through my teeth. “Are you sure you don’t need to, you know, go to the emergency room or something?”

He flashed me a quick grin, and I had the distinct feeling that he knew damn well I wasn’t looking at his bruises.

“I went to the hospital,” he said. “They forced me to. I passed out for a second, so it was required by law. When I woke up, I was already in the back of the ambulance. One of my dad’s good friends was in the back with me, so despite me informing him that I was okay, and that I didn’t want to go to the hospital, he forced me to go anyway. More like, he ignored me and my complaints.”

I smiled, even though a sudden, vicious wave of sickness had coursed through me at the mention of him having passed out and riding in an ambulance.

The idea of him being hurt that badly for him to pass out had the smile quickly falling away.

“It was good that you went,” I told him as I turned to go. “Take some ibuprofen, at least. You’re gonna hate yourself in the morning.”

I was two steps down the pathway to my car when Booth’s voice halted me in my tracks.

“Hey, Dillan?” he called, making me halt halfway back to my car.

I turned and surveyed him. “Yeah?”

“I did a lot of thinking on the floor of that dressing room before I passed out,” he said.

I frowned. “Really?”

He nodded. “Came to a few conclusions.”

I felt my heart start to pick up its pace.

“What were those?” I asked hesitantly.

“I’m done waiting,” he said. “I’m no longer going to let life pass me by.”

I was almost afraid to ask what he meant by that.

“Oh yeah?” I licked my lips. “What’s that mean?”

“It means that I’m done waiting,” he answered. “You and me? We’re going to happen. It might not be the most conventional. It’s going to be tough and confusing as hell… but we’re going to happen.”

I started to breathe faster. “What’s that mean?”

Was that all I knew how to say?

“It means that Saturday night, I’d love to go out to dinner with you,” he said. “My mom’s gonna watch Asa for me.”

My heart was pounding away in my chest.

I opened my mouth, and then closed it, unsure what to say.

“Goodnight, Dillan,” he whispered.

I licked my lips and practically ran to my car after that.

When I got home, there was a text message on my phone.

I grinned when I saw it was from Kerrie.

Kerrie was my childhood best friend. Or, at least, he was at one point. Our text messaging and hanging out had come to a rather abrupt halt when he’d started to be a little friendlier than I’d wanted. When I’d explained that we were never going to be that kind of friends, our hanging out had definitely slowed down.