Page 120 of Accidental Blind Date

Hopefully, this time the right guy shows up…

But then I see him. He comes in through the front door with a small bouquet of sad flowers. Still…I find myself smiling.

He’s wearing jeans, not his normal slacks and button down. He’s also wearing a red Henley that looks so soft my first thought is about how much I want to touch it. To wrap my arms around his toned waist and bury myself in his chest. To take in his sweet and spicy scent and pretend like we can just stay that way forever.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says as he walks over, and his expression slides off his face. Probably because he realizes that’s his line from last time. I bite back a smile at the irony. “The, uh, girls insisted I bring flowers, but they wanted to collect them along the walk here. They picked them out of planters.”

“The girls are here?” I ask, looking around.

“They’re strolling around the harbor walk. Probably getting ice cream before dinner and other things Jenna does for fun, just to make my life harder.”

It earns him a real smile. “That’s not fair,” I say. “We haven’t even talked about things yet. You’re not allowed to make me smile.”

“I miss your smile,” he says as he sits down. “I miss you.”

My heart skips and the bartender, the same girl from the last time we were here, comes over and takes his drink order. Then she uses her bartender intuition to read the table and excuses herself without any chit chat.

“They got the flowers from the planters?” I ask, looking over the marigolds, pansies, and petunias.

“Yeah. Really pissed off the owner of a wineshop down the street but Poppy straightened them out,” he answers.

I giggle. “I bet she did,” I say, touching one of the soft, purple petals.

“Libby,” Dax says, and his tone draws my eyes to meet his. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing,” I say, setting the flowers down and reaching for my drink.

“Well, I’m going to. Because what I did was wrong.”

I take a sip and swallow. “It was.”

“I was lonely. I was…low. Coming here has always been hard for me. But I do it because I want–” He pauses, searching for the right end to that sentence.

To remember her.I finish it for him in my head.

“I want to believe in love.”

I blink. If I didn’t know any better I’d think he had my conversation with Summer bugged. Although I know he doesn’t because after Kai freaking out over the security footage, I don’t think we even have cameras anymore.

“Love?” I ask.

“Love. Romance. All of it. You know, I thought that part of me was dead,” he says with a forced smile directed at thebartender as she sets his drink in front of him. “But it’s not.” He takes a sip, and I do too.

“I understand that…” I tell him. “More than you know.”

“Turns out, it’s not dead. My heart is very much alive. Very much beating. Very much in love.”

I stop.

Dax’s eyes are locked on mine and he reaches for my hand across the table. “I know I messed up. Hell, I know I am a mess in general. But from the moment I saw you, you did something inside me. You woke up parts of me that I had tucked away. Feelings I never thought I’d feel again. You make me happy, Libby. You make me want to be alive. You bring me joy and remind me that all of the pain is worth it. And the girls,” he stops, swallowing back a lump in his throat. “The girls, they love you too.”

“Too?” I ask, my own voice shaking.

Dax’s lips tip in an easy smile. His blue eyes are warm and familiar. Like home.

“Yes.Too.I love you Libby. And I’ll do anything if you let me show you that. But I understand if you can’t.”

I blink fiercely, not wanting to fall apart in the middle of an upbeat restaurant. But right now, I don’t really care. I don’t care if everyone is staring or if they see me crying or anything else.