Hearts Like Ours | Red View Romance #1

🍏 Twenty

Layla didn't come to dinner that night, and Dawson was still asking himself why the next day. She told Kenzie she wasn't feeling well, but the real answer was pretty damn obvious, wasn't it?

He had leaned in. He'd moved in to kiss her and he scared her off.

Idiot, he scolded himself as he moved the wheelbarrow down the muddy path to the store. Drizzle crackled against his raincoat, and the ground sloshed beneath every step of his boots. The weather had started off that morning even worse than it was now, and was the perfect match to his moping. Of course Layla was avoiding him—they hadn't even known each other ten days and here he was trying to kiss her, an engaged woman.

She must think I'm crazy, he thought as he entered through the back doors of the barn, tracking in muck that would no doubt get Jack snapping at him later. Hell, maybe he was crazy. It sounded crazy, that was for sure. But the way it felt... At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. The only thing.

Not to mention the way she'd been looking at him. With that heavy gaze, and with how she was staring at his mouth, he was certain she wanted it to. So then why did she back away and all but run out of the kitchen?

Securing the doors behind him and shutting out the rain, he argued with himself for the umpteenth time that he should have knocked on her door last night, made sure she was alright, tried to talk to her, something. Then again, would she even have wanted him to? Where the hell did they stand?

Where do I stand? he questioned, feeling like a completely different man than he had just nine days ago. What he said to Kenzie about not wanting a fling, he meant. He never thought he'd be able to want more than that again, but Layla proved that he could. So what now?

God, one night without seeing her across from him at the table and he was acting like a lost puppy. It was pathetic, emasculating, and completely unavoidable.

Knowing that he'd get a long lecture from his brother if he brought mud onto the main floor, he left the wheelbarrow in the back and wiped his feet before heading inside. He'd ask Adam for help bringing the apple bags in by hand. It wasn't like they'd be getting any customers for him to help on a dreary, wet day like today. God knew why Jack bothered to open the store.

He was surprised to see a couple people in the aisles, until he realized who it was—his mother, needlessly organizing the shelves, and Annie, who was crouching down with her fancy-looking camera to take pictures of the rows of jarred goods.

Adam was coming out from behind the counter, and nodded in greeting. "I'm picking up some sandwiches for all of us from that new place next to the bakery. You want something?"

"Uh, sure," he shrugged, figuring the apples could wait. "Get me a BLT. Hey," he lowered his voice, "You seen Layla around today?"

Adam's eyes narrowed. "Oh, engaged Layla? The Layla I'm supposed to not flirt with? The Layla you were all over the other day when the two of you were in here?" The smile that crept onto his face made it obvious he wasn't mad, but instead gloating at the irony. "No, I haven't seen her."

Dawson shot a look over his shoulder to make sure his mother hadn't heard that. Thankfully, she was still lining up the pies, making the display look like something out of a magazine. "Is my hypocrisy that obvious?"

"Glaringly." Adam gave him a pat on the shoulder as he moved for the door. "Only the strongest of men wouldn't want what he can't have."

With those words—which Dawson knew Adam thought of as some kind of wisdom—Adam headed out into the rain, pulling up his hood as he hurried for his car. Dawson lingered by the entrance, knowing Adam was wrong—that wasn't it at all. He wished it was that simple.