Loving You (The Bridesmaids Club Book 2) (30 page)

Pastor Steven shook his head. “Everyone’s getting a couple of presents, but there are some special ones in here for Frankie. Apart from the cake, we would have provided all of the other food, anyway.”

Dylan looked around the room and smiled. A whole lot of kids were going to be happy tomorrow. The front doorbell rang and he stood up, happy to leave the present wrapping to the other guys for a few minutes. “I’ll get it.”

“That’ll be Tess,” Pastor Steven said. “Make sure Jeremy doesn’t start inhaling lunch before it gets through the door.”

Dylan heard Jeremy growl in the background and smiled. The easy friendship of this group soothed him more than anything else ever could. He’d felt as though his body had been whipped mercilessly by everything that had happened in the last week. And now, here he was, helping to organize a pool party and trying to find a new level of normal.

He opened the front door and stared at the woman standing in front of him. Annie’s mouth dropped open. They looked at each other for what felt like a long time. Everything Dylan might have said fell out of his brain like a lead weight sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

“You gonna stand there all day or let Tess in?” Jeremy appeared beside Dylan. “Oh. Hi, Annie.” He looked between Dylan and Annie. “Jeez, man. You can’t leave Annie standing outside. The food will get cold.”

Jeremy pushed Dylan out of the way and took the box out of Annie’s hands.

“It’s just as well you winked when you said that, Jeremy.” Annie’s hands fluttered at her side. She sighed, then stuck them in her sweater pockets. “I’ll go and get the other box.”

Jeremy poked Dylan with the edge of the box.

He waited until Annie had left the front porch before growling at Jeremy. “What did you do that for?”

“Go after her. Get the box out of her car.”

Dylan frowned. “You can be a real bastard sometimes.”

“Only when someone I know is being a jackass. Now go…” Jeremy nodded at the open door and gave Dylan another poke with the box.

Dylan walked down the porch steps and headed toward the green car parked in the driveway. Annie was pulling a box out of the trunk, balancing it on the edge of the car while she wrapped her arms around the sides.

“I’ll carry it,” Dylan said. “Is there anything else you want brought inside?”

Annie didn’t let go of the box. “I can manage.” She hauled the box against her chest and started walking toward Pastor Steven’s home.

Dylan looked inside the trunk and grabbed a smaller box. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

Annie stopped and turned toward him. “What?”

Dylan could have kicked himself. A week ago he’d told Annie he didn’t want her in his life, now he was telling her she was stubborn. It wasn’t the bravest thing he’d ever done. She scowled at him so hard that he was sure she’d get permanent wrinkles.

He cleared his throat and tried to think of something less controversial to say. “It’s a warm afternoon.”

Damn. He’d left his sunglasses inside. Annie was the only person he knew who could tell what he was thinking simply by looking into his eyes. She was doing it now, weighing up what he wanted her to see, against what was going on inside of him. He felt naked, stripped to the soul by the serious blue eyes staring at him.

She glanced at the box in his hands. “Be careful. You’re holding Frankie’s birthday cake. I spent two hours decorating it this morning.”

Dylan let go of the breath he’d been holding. “What does it look like?”

Annie turned her back on him and started walking toward the front porch. “It’s a skateboard. Pastor Steven took a photo of the one he bought for Frankie.”

“Must have been tricky.”

Annie kept walking. She stomped up the steps and disappeared inside. He felt sick, as if every lie he’d told her was bubbling up inside of him, looking for an escape route that would change what he’d said. There was no hope of that. And even if he could have taken back what he’d said, he wouldn’t.

Annie deserved better than he could give her. She might not see it now, but one day, when she’d married the man of her dreams and had children running around her feet, she’d thank him.

Todd came out to meet him in the hallway. “Are you okay? You look like you’re going to puke.” He took the box out of Dylan’s hands. “You’d better sit on the steps outside.”

Annie stood beside Todd. The box she’d been holding was gone. “Who’s going to be sick?”

“Dylan.” Todd nodded toward him. “Take him out to the porch. I don’t want to have to clean sick off the carpet.”

“I’m not going to be sick. I don’t need to sit on the porch.” Dylan glared at Todd. His brand of sympathy left a lot to be desired.

“Rubbish. Sit on the porch with Annie or I’m going to tell Pastor Steven you’re not okay.”

If Todd hadn’t been holding Frankie’s cake, Dylan would have had something to say about his bad timing. He didn’t need sympathy, he needed to get the hell away from Annie.

Dylan glared at Todd’s narrowed gaze. “Fine. I’ll stay here for a couple of minutes.” He glanced at Annie. “You don’t need to sit with me. I’m fine.”

Annie ignored him. She walked through the front door and sat carefully on the top stair. She turned around when he didn’t follow her. “The sooner you get out here, the sooner I can leave.”

It was Dylan’s turn to look surprised. He’d never heard a steel edge to Annie’s voice before. She was always kind and gentle, maybe even goofy at times. But she had her bossy, indignant face on, and in some perverse kind of way, he liked it.

He sat as far away from her as he could manage, which wasn’t much. Pastor Steven’s porch steps weren’t an architectural feature. They were purely functional; wide enough for two people to get in and out of the house, not wide enough to make a grand statement.

They sat in silence. Annie moved her legs so that her purple sneakers weren’t in a projectile vomit range.

“Did you get the all clear from your doctor?”

Dylan ignored the way his heart pounded in his chest. “I’m back to normal duties. Thanks for coming to Boulder.”

Annie’s silence said more than any words could have. Yeah, he’d stuffed that up, too.

“Has your mom gone home?”

Dylan nodded. “She left yesterday. How did the photos of your meals turn out?”

“Really good. Thanks for letting us use your kitchen.” Annie looked across Pastor Steven’s front yard. The kids on the other side of the street were playing basketball, throwing three pointers at the hoop above their garage.

Dylan frowned. “I got a new completion date from the contractors outfitting the warehouse. Some of the materials they ordered won’t be here when they were supposed to be. It might delay your start-up date by a few days.”

Annie stopped fidgeting with the sleeve of her sweater. “I can still lease your kitchen?”

“Don’t you want to?”

“Yes.” Annie’s voice squeaked. She took a deep breath. “I mean, yes. I didn’t know if you still wanted me there.”

Dylan was confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You know…” Annie’s cheeks reddened. “You don’t want anything to do with me. I thought that might have included the kitchen in your warehouse.”

Dylan dropped his head into his hands. “It’s not that I don’t want anything to do with you…not like that anyway.”
Damn
. He wasn’t making sense. If he was getting confused, then Annie must be totally bamboozled.

He tried again. “I can’t be your friend, not yet. I need to put some distance between us. That doesn’t mean I won’t honor our agreement.” He was disappointed to see the relief on her face. He hadn’t known she’d been worried about renting the kitchen and he felt like an idiot for not thinking of it.

Dylan wanted to reassure her, let her know that he wouldn’t stress her out anymore than he already had. “You won’t see me very much at the warehouse. Someone else will be taking the bookings for the storage units. The only time I’ll be down there is to make sure everything’s okay.”

He glanced at Annie to see if anything he’d said made sense to her. She smiled at him. The warmth in her grin snuck through his body and stabbed him in the heart.

Her eyes widened and the grin disappeared off her face. “I’ll try my best to keep away from you.”

Dylan wished he’d remembered his sunglasses. He needed something to hide behind while he thought about what had just happened. Annie had agreed to everything he wanted. But for the life of him, he couldn’t find anything to make him feel happy.

“Email me with the new dates,” Annie said quietly. “I won’t move my things into the warehouse until everything’s finished.”

He nodded and looked at the kids across the street. They were still throwing hoops, dodging each other like NBA stars.

Annie stood up and fiddled with the ring on her right hand. “I need to leave. I promised Kate I’d fill in for her for a couple of hours this afternoon.”

“Thanks for bringing us lunch and decorating the cake for Frankie.”

“It wasn’t much. Bye.”

Before Dylan remembered to ask if she was coming to the pool party, Annie was in her car and reversing down the driveway. It was probably just as well. Seeing her in jeans and a sweater was hard enough. Seeing her in a one-piece, or heaven forbid, a bikini, would be fatal.

***

“Would you hurry up?” Logan took the last box of presents off the backseat of his truck. “I promised Pastor Steven we’d be here fifteen minutes ago.”

Dylan couldn’t blame Logan for being annoyed. Ever since he’d woken up this morning, he’d been worried about the pool party. The thought of being surrounded by teenagers and their families hadn’t fazed him at all. It was the pool part that had given him a sleepless night and a bad case of heartburn.

He hadn’t been back to the indoor pool since he’d nearly drowned at the Half Ironman competition. Dylan would be the first person to admit that he was scared, so scared that he’d decided there was no way he’d get in the water. Pool party or not, the youth group were on their own. He’d stay for a while and when no one was looking, he’d quietly slip away and enjoy the rest of the day in the sunshine.

“Did you remember to buy candles?” Logan handed Dylan the box that had Frankie’s cake inside and locked his truck.

“They’re in my pocket. I bought matches, too.”

“At least your brain’s still functioning, even if your legs need to move faster.”

“You’re a real comedian today,” Dylan grumbled. “Didn’t Tess feed you this morning?”

“Very funny. And just for your information, Tess doesn’t need to feed me. I’m capable of making my own meals, even if hers taste better.”

Dylan stopped in front of the glass doors that led to the reception desk. Through another set of doors he could see kids jumping off an inflatable obstacle course. It had been set up in the middle of one of the pools, keeping kids of all sizes busy. Other people were swimming in the lanes, their arms slicing through the water, propelling them forward.

Two weeks ago he’d been one of those swimmers. He’d spent more than an hour each day at the center, training hard for the race that would nearly kill him. He took a deep breath, held the air in his lungs, then slowly let it go.

“You okay?” Logan held the door open, waiting for Dylan to follow him.

“I don’t know if I can do it.”

“I thought you’d already decided not to swim?”

Dylan nodded. “I have.”

“What’s the problem, then?”

Dylan stared at the box in his hands. “I don’t think I can go inside.”

Logan moved away from the door and it closed quietly on its hinges. “Come and sit down.”

Dylan followed his friend to a wooden bench seat.

Logan put the box of presents on the ground. “I’d probably feel exactly the same if I’d nearly drowned.”

Dylan put the cake on the seat. He sat beside Logan, hoping the panic he felt would disappear as quickly as it had arrived. “Training in an indoor swim center is a lot different than swimming in a lake. It’s warmer for one thing. And for another, there are fewer people. The lanes keep everyone in some sort of order. Out on the reservoir, it was every person for themselves. It was cold, colder than I ever expected. I thought I’d prepared myself for what was ahead, but I hadn’t even come close.”

“When did you know you were in trouble?”

Dylan hung his head in shame. He should have left the water sooner, but he’d kept going. If he’d given in to what he was feeling, he knew he wouldn’t have finished the race. He’d been training for so long that there was no way he was giving up.

“About ten minutes into the swim I started to remember things, things I thought I’d dealt with. By the time I got to the second buoy, I knew I was in trouble. I tried to get help, but by then it was too late. I started swallowing water. The more I panicked, the worse it became. I don’t remember much after that.”

“What would make you feel better about going inside?”

Dylan dropped his head to his chest. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

“Frankie’s looking forward to seeing you.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s a good kid.”