Page 67 of Have To Be Mine

“Too much?”

“No. Just cold.” A pause. “It’s good. Great, actually. Keep going.”

Her head dropped forward, exposing the back of her neck. I worked carefully, spreading the gel across her shoulders and neck, trying to cover every angry inch without pressing hard. I was glad she was facing away from me because my cock was about half an inch from poking her in the back.

She had a mole just below her right shoulder blade. I wanted to kiss it. Fuck, I wanted to kiss every inch of her bright red skin.

“Why are you being nice?” she asked.

“Just helping out.”

“You were a complete dick yesterday. You fucking abandoned me at the pool and then avoided me all day.”

“I know.”

She waited.

I was not built for silence.

I capped the gel and moved away. She put her shirt back on but still said nothing.

I busied myself opening the bag of tacos and set them out on the table. “Adrian called. He told me they were coming to Santorini.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “And I know he said it’s not about babysitting, but it is. And this thing between us is fucked. You don’t want anything to do with me.”

She didn’t say anything, just sat down and went about tearing open a hot sauce packet and squeezing it over a taco.

Saying it out loud made me feel dumb. I looked down at my hands, then back at her. “I want this to go well. The runway show is a big deal. There won’t be anywhere to hide once it starts. It’s on me.” I paused, trying to find the right words. “I want to prove I don’t need people watching over my shoulder.”

She took a bite of her taco, chewing slowly. Watching me. “I get that.”

“And if I’m honest with myself?” I ran a hand through my hair. “The challenges have ignited something inside me. I work well under pressure. It’s satisfying to close loops, solve problems, and move the needle forward. I’ve never felt that before. Not like this.”

“So what does that have to do with me?” she asked quietly.

“Everything. You make me want to be better. And then you push me away like I’m just another asshole in a long line of assholes who’ve disappointed you. At the pool, I wanted to kiss you. I wanted everyone to see that you’re with me. That you chose me. And you shut me down. Made me feel like I was just trying to add you to some collection. Like what almost happened meant nothing.”

She set down her taco and wiped her hands on a napkin. “It meant something but I’m working, Dash. You just said you wanted this to work. We can’t be distracted.”

“I can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

She smirked. “You want this show to go off without a hitch, so do it.”

Like it was that simple. As if I had chosen chaos in the past. Well, maybe I had.

I laughed and tore open a sauce packet. “That’s it? That’s your advice?”

“That’s it,” she said. “Because that’s what it is. You want to prove something? Handle it. One thing at a time. The next thing in front of you. Don’t think about Santorini, don’t think about Adrian standing in the front row watching you, don’t think about your father or your brothers.” She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Just think about what needs to happen next and then make it happen. The rest is noise.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“It is simple. Not easy. But simple. People overcomplicate things. They look at Everest and act like it’s about jumping to the top. It’s not. One step at a time gets you there. You just have to do it.” She looked at me with those dark eyes that stared straight into my soul. “You have to stop living in your head, Dash. That’s where all of it goes wrong. You start thinking about what everyone else is thinking, and then you get paralyzed. You put your head in the sand and shit hits the fan. You said you liked putting out fires but why allow them to start? Shit happens, but you don’t have to encourage it to happen.”

I winced. “Well, yeah.”

“Stop performing and start doing,” she said. “That’s all.”

This woman might be the only person who had ever just told me the truth without an agenda attached to it. It wasn’t personal. It was just facts.

“That’s what I did when I kissed you,” I said.