Take the Chance (Top Shelf Romance #9) - Brittainy Cherry Page 0,149

wanted anyone more. But I want to take you out. A real date. It sounds insane, but I’ve never done that.”

Her eyes were glassy and bright with desire. “Neither have I. Not at first, I mean. It always starts with this. But Sawyer—”

“I want you to have more,” I said. I pulled away, and sucked in a breath. “Will you have dinner with me? Tonight, if you can. Or tomorrow?”

“I can’t tomorrow,” she said, and the brilliant light in her eyes sparked with something like fear. “But tonight is short notice. What about Olivia?”

“I’ll take care of her,” I said.

The urge to touch her again was like a hunger in my entire body. But if I did, we wouldn’t make it out of this room.

“I’ll make reservations,” I said. “Someplace nice.”

“Not too nice,” she said quickly. “I don’t want you to spend a lot of money on me.”

“I do. I want to take you to a place nice enough where you can wear another dress like the one you wore on Saturday,” I said. “Something that will make every man in the room seethe with jealousy.”

Darlene’s smile was tremulous. She opened her mouth to speak and I dared to take her face and kiss her again.

“Tonight. Seven o’clock? A real date. Okay?”

She nodded, and with supreme effort, I pulled myself away and went home, toward something more.

Chapter 15

Darlene

On the way home from the Dance Academy, I opened the contacts in my phone a hundred times to call Max. Each time, my thumb hovered over the call button, and each time I chickened out.

You know what he’ll tell you to do. He’ll say you have to tell Sawyer the truth.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the Muni train rumbled and swayed beneath me.

With every passing block, my resolve waxed and waned. Yes, Sawyer deserved the truth, and I started to call Max for moral support in that endeavor. The next instant, the thought that Sawyer would hate me filtered in, and I shoved the phone away.

Instead, I let my fingers touch my lips, where I could still feel Sawyer’s kiss. Our first kiss. My heart crashed against my chest at the sense memory.

Sawyer’s mouth on mine was exactly as I had imagined it and nothing I had ever prepared for. Soft and hard. Sweet and masculine. Demanding and generous at the same time. I wanted more of his kisses, his body holding mine tightly to him. I thought of how he looked at me…

He won’t look at me the same way if I tell him.

By the time I’d arrived at the Victorian, my stomach was a knot of nerves, worry mixed with butterflies of excitement. I dashed up the two flights of stairs to my place, hoping the exertion would burn off the anxiety and I’d know what to do.

“Why do I have to tell him at all?” I asked my empty studio. “There’s no reason! It’s in the past and that’s where it should stay.”

I took a hot shower, scrubbing my skin with a loofah, as if I could scrub out the whispers of memory imbedded there; of nights spent on a jail cell cot, or on a hospital bed with an IV drip in my arm to flush out the heroin…

Even though the drugs were long gone, the shame they left behind hurt in so many ways.

I stepped out on a cloud of steam, wrapped myself in a towel, and grabbed the phone. Before I could stop myself, I jabbed Max’s number.

“Hello, Max speaking.”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Hey, Me. What’s up?”

“Sawyer kissed me,” I blurted. “And we have a date tonight. I just thought…as my sponsor, you should know that.”

A silence.

“Are you there?”

“I’m here,” he said slowly. “Processing. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“Nope. That’s it.” I wrapped a lock of dripping hair around my finger. “He’s taking me out to dinner. Oh, and we went dancing on Saturday night too. It was fun. No big deal.”

See how well I’m handling this? I wanted to shout.

“Okay.”

Max hadn’t been able to get out of a shift on Monday night and had missed the NA meeting with me. I’d considered that lucky at the time, but now I wished he’d been there. I wished I’d talked.

I wish I could talk.

A small sob tore out of me, and the pretend bravado gusted out with it. I sank onto my little loveseat. “Fucking hell, Max, this sucks.”

“I know,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I want to. I want to be honest. I do. That’s