Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

When we were safely outside, Theo chose to speak. “She was trying to get you to dance.” It wasn’t a question, s

o I considered not answering. I knew Theo wouldn’t relent though.

“Yes. I told her no.”

There was a stretch of silence. “You’re smart, Della. You know your limits. She may not say it, but I will. I’m proud of you. Your father would be too.”

Tears burned the back of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I simply said, “Thank you” and climbed into the car that Dallas usually drove us around in.

Once we were both buckled, he turned to me with a small smirk gracing his sculpted face. I knew by the glint in his eyes he was up to something. “Want to go to Denny’s?”

Part of me wanted to tell him no. It was rare I told him that though. I loved spending time with him, especially one-on-one. But that nagging feeling cemented in the bottom of my stomach, the one that made me want to curl up in bed and not come out for days, resurfaced.

It told me not to eat my favorite pancakes or be with my favorite person or do anything other than sulk until every one of my defenses I’d custom built had fallen again.

I wanted to tell him no so bad.

But I didn’t. “I’d love that.”

The warehouse was musty, but it was my favorite place to go to think, which wasn’t often. Usually I avoided my thoughts, but sometimes they were unavoidable, and I had to accept that. That was why I was sitting on an old crate in the middle of the empty room with a sketch pad on my lap of a new project I’d been wanting to draw ever since it popped into my head one night when I’d been too restless to sleep.

A pencil outline of two faceless people took up most of the white sheet. Running a finger over the lines, I traced the larger hand that raised to the much smaller face. I’d pictured it a gentle touch, one of longing. That was what my mind conjured in the middle of the night on repeat. I figured if I could draw it, paint it, something, it’d free my conscious of the taunting memory of what it felt like that night.

Sighing, I looked up when a flutter came from the rafters. Birds got in all the time and hung out with me while I wallowed. Sometimes I drew, sometimes I’d just sit around and listen to the silence. This side of the city didn’t have a lot of traffic. It felt forgotten, almost like it was mine and mine alone now that my father was gone. I’d seen pictures of it in better shape when my parents were younger. It’d made sense why they liked sneaking away, having parties, breaking the rules like two people in love.

Part of me had been jealous of their tale, like I wouldn’t get that feeling. Not as easily as they did. Both my mother and father came from wealthy backgrounds. My father’s family was always in politics, and my mother’s from law. It made sense that they’d meet considering the mutual events held for the two groups of people. I’d been to my fair share of black-tie formals where I watched my father mingle among the best the city had to offer. When I was younger, I’d usually have somebody watch me while my parents went to them, but my father took me when I was fifteen and let me pick out a fancy silver dress that flitted to the floor gracefully and hung off one of my shoulders. I’d felt beautiful then and hadn’t hated the way people complimented me. I should have, but I’d been too distracted.

I wasn’t even sure what the event was for—some charity, I believed. What I knew for sure was that Theo West would be there because my father told me he’d donated a mass sum of money to the cause. He’d looked uncomfortable when I finally laid eyes on him, across from the large ballroom everybody mingled about in, until he saw us. My chest had warmed when he made his way over, greeting my father with a typical handshake and me with a kiss on the cheek.

“You look beautiful, Della.” Maybe it was those words that had cemented the thought I’d already made myself before being dropped off at the doors that night. The dress was gorgeous and fit my body perfectly, my hair was styled in a skillfully curled updo, and I’d put makeup on that made me look older. I realized the moment I’d captured Theo’s attention that I subconsciously did it on purpose. I wanted to catch his eye and see his reaction and wasn’t disappointed.

Lifting fingers to the cheek he often kissed, I found myself smiling. From somewhere in the distance, music thumped loudly. Nothing I knew, but the bass was evident from whatever place it traveled from. A car maybe? One of the rundown apartment buildings a block away? Whatever song it was shifted to something slower, and I found my head swinging in a slow melody, my feet moving to the new beat, muscle memory taking over.

I wasn’t sure when it happened, but my sketchpad was set on the crate and I was on my feet swaying. Eyes closed, I turned to the beat and found my feet gliding me across the floor as I hummed to myself.

Getting lost in the old me as my feet swept across the cement, I gasped when an arm hooked around me, and familiar spicy cologne took over my senses. Before I opened my eyes, the hardened body against mine pressed us closer together as he took lead. One rough palm held mine while the other rested on my waist as he led us in a slow dance.

Cracking my eyelids open, I saw the fitted light blue button down against a bulky body wrapped in earned muscle before drifting my gaze upward to light scruff, full pink lips, and up to dark blue eyes gazing down at me.

“You don’t smell like tobacco today,” was the brilliant greeting I gave him as he turned us. If I looked down, I’d see Tom Ford shoes, polished, stepping to the practically non-existent music.

He grumbled, “Trying to quit.”

My brows drew up. “Really?”

One head nod was all I got in return as he tightened his grip on my hand and waist. “You were dancing.”

Swallowing, I rested my cheek against his chest and listened to the thrum of his heartbeat as my body eased into him. “Not really. Just…playing more than anything.”

He hummed.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, changing the topic to something lighter.

“Dallas called.”

Pressing my eyes closed, I nodded against him. It made sense, I guessed. Dallas was striking up conversation the whole way he drove me here, something he did more times than he probably liked. I enjoyed the thirty-something-year-old’s company. We had light conversations and he seemed to genuinely care. Plus, he knew my mother. Not well, he admitted, but enough to tell me on occasion how much I reminded him of her. It always made me smile when I heard those words.

“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” Theo scolded quietly, his chin resting on the top of my head. “We’ve been over this.”