Maybe he should just get “forgive me” tattooed on his forehead.
“How did you find my car?” Dalton asked while unlocking it manually.
“Um, I searched for the one with my butt print on it?” Would he even remember Tierney collapsing against it the other night?
Dalton jerked his head up, shoving Tierney further out of the way to look at his paint job. There was nothing there, and Dalton turned to him, raising his brows.
Weak joke fail.
But Dalton smiled, rolling his eyes, and relief rained on Tierney’s insides like water on the desert. “Wanna get coffee?” he blurted.
“Coffee?” Dalton wrinkled his nose. Either confusion or disgust.
“Um.” Tierney straightened up, trying to look more respectable or something. “I kinda was thinking I should, like, apologize.” Was there a limit on the number of times he could? “For the last time we went for coffee. How I acted and some of the shit I said.”
“You kind of think you should?” Dalton yanked open his door and tossed his messenger bag onto the seat. “Wow. Your fervent sincerity is overwhelming.” He tilted his chin, which gave him an air of confidence that Tierney really wished he could get some of. “Should I assume you have a favor you want from me? Or is there something you’re trying to manipulate me into?”
Totally deserved that. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and Tierney had to brace his palm on Dalton’s car. “Just . . . I need a friend. I mean—” Christ he was a dork. “I guess, you know, if you don’t think you’d get anything out of it—”
“Tierney.” Dalton sighed, sucking his lower lip into his mouth a second.
Why was that so hot?
“About what you accused me of at the coffee shop . . .”
The shit he said when he was mad always came back to bite him in the ass. Tierney smacked his brain around, trying to get it to pay attention to what the dude was saying and not the shiny wetness of his lip. “Which thing I accused you of?”
Dalton shifted, glancing around the garage a second. “That I’m getting some kind of, um, emotional charge from giving you a sympathetic ear. You weren’t completely wrong. It’s not a power thing,” he said quickly. “Or a feeling of superiority. It’s just sort of . . .” He wiggled his shoulders, as if warding off a shiver. “I get a little bit of a rush out of helping people. I mean, especially people who are like you.”
Like him? Messed up in the head. Tierney shrugged. “I am kind of a fixer-upper.” A momentary twinge of angry pride pinched his gut. How come it was so much less dangerous to admit this to Dalton? But fuck, anyone had to be able to see it. When he’d built this fake personality, he’d never planned to make it such an obvious facade. But he had, and now he didn’t care enough to change it. Not anymore. Too much energy.
He suddenly found himself fighting a grin, because that was such a fucked-up reaction to all of this. Him being a douche bag and Dalton’s pity and, like, condescension. But still. “If you wanna use me for the thrill of poking around in my psyche, I’m okay with that. I mean, I’d be using you too.”
Dalton dropped his chin, trying to hide a small smile that Tierney couldn’t miss. So adorable. Wait, had he really just thought that? “I guess you are kinda using me too, huh?” Dalton asked.
“Yeah. Using you to be my friend, or at least pretend to be.”
“So cool, it’s agreed.” Dalton grinned. “We’re using each other.”
“Uh-huh.” Tierney blinked away the effect the dude’s smile had on him. “So, coffee?”
Dalton tilted his head, the smile dying. “I can’t. I’m meeting my brother at the gym.”
“Oh, yeah, well.” Tierney shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever. Just thought I’d offer, you know.” The guy had to meet his brother—it wasn’t really a brush-off. Unless Dalton was lying. About everything, like using him— Why would he want to do that, anyway? If he didn’t have a penis attached, Tierney wouldn’t bother using himself.
“Seriously,” Dalton said, reaching for him, briefly grabbing his arm to halt him. “I’m not blowing you off.”
“Um, yeah.” He nodded and just kept on nodding. Dalton really did want to use him? Not the penis.
“Do you want my number? In case you need to talk or something?”
What did or something involve? He stared at Dalton, heart speeding up.
“Tierney?”
“Why would you want me to have your number?” I’m smooth. I’m the man.
But Dalton didn’t laugh at him, although he did smile more. “It’d be hard for us to use each other without access.”
The inmates, who’d been mostly silent, listening intently, began clamoring for the number. “Um, okay.”
“Give me your phone.” Dalton held out his hand, wiggling his fingers when Tierney simply stood there.
“Oh, uh . . .” He found it in his coat pocket. His fingers brushed Dalton’s skin when he passed it over.
Dalton entered himself into Tierney’s phone. “Now call me, and I’ll have your number.”
Tierney took it back, and there was Dalton’s name on the screen, so he touched it and held it up to his ear.
Dalton’s pants rang—something catchy that Tierney couldn’t place but he’d heard on the radio—and he lifted his jacket to get his cell out. Tierney was caught by the sudden sexiness of the way his khakis stretched across his hip. Watching him dig through his front pocket, bulging and grabbing and nudging up against things, reminded Tierney once again of just how stunning Dalton was. Everywhere.
“Hello,” Dalton said once he’d liberated his phone, lips caressing the word, his voice echoing in one of Tierney’s ears, then the other.
“Hi,” he returned. I think I’m in lust with you.
One afternoon later that week, Mother came by Tierney’s office to speak with him about Grandfather’s wake. He hadn’t thought she knew where his office was, but someone had narced him out. Probably Chase.
She sat in a visitor’s seat, one ankle crossed over the other, adjusting the jacket of her pantsuit and regarding him over the desk. “Father and I thought that, considering all the extra attention Grandfather lavished on you—he always kept his eye on you, you know—you should give a short toast to him. A mini-eulogy, as it were. It will be a fitting, final tribute to your grandfather,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.