Page 48 of Before We’re More Than Friends (When We Faced the Music #1)

Dallas

D ear Dallas,

For the record, I’ve written this letter six times, and it still hasn’t come out right, so I’ll just say it in person instead.

I’m sorry about how I treated you last week.

I want to hang out with you this evening if you’re free after dinner.

Playful Paws Dog Park is open until midnight.

We can talk things out and walk our dogs.

Anything you want, I’m down, just let me know later today in Chem.

Yours truthfully,

Raina ?

It took all the strength in me not to gasp like I’d won the lottery. I’d lost all hope that we’d be friends again after Saturday’s band practice, but this was a step toward the right thing.

She didn’t hate my guts anymore.

“What you got there?” Hayden asked, leaning against the lockers. “It must be good if you’re grinning like that.”

“Oh.” My cheeks flushed. How long had I been beaming at the letter like a fool? “It’s from Raina.”

A smile broke out on his face. “See, I told you that things weren’t over between you.”

“Actually, all you told me was that she was very upset the entire week.”

He patted my shoulder. “Same difference.”

“Sure.” I looked down at the letter, grinning again. This was my chance to make everything right. And I wouldn’t give up on it.

I glanced at my phone for the tenth time, hoping I’d driven to the right dog park. It was on the outskirts of the much nicer part of town, walking distance from Raina’s neighborhood, so I assumed I hadn’t messed up.

My nerves building up, I sat on a bench. Houston sat beside me as I kept him on his leash. Since it was almost eight o’clock in the evening, there wasn’t anyone here.

Please tell me she’s coming .

Around ten after, I started to worry that Raina had changed her mind. I fiddled with Houston’s leash, my knee starting to bounce. Why was I nervous like this was some type of date?

Ha. Like she’d ever like me back for us to go on one.

Just when I’d almost lost hope, a silhouette of a female body appeared in the moonlight, holding a big dog with a leash. My stomach jumped into my throat, the hairs on my neck standing up.

She came.

Raina walked over to me, and when she got closer, I was able to take in her full appearance. She wore the same clothes as earlier—a black-and-purple tank top, a small black jacket, tight jeans, and silver jewelry.

But there was one bracelet on her left wrist that didn’t go with the rest of her jewelry. The purple-and-green bracelet with a black star.

I smiled, trying to keep myself from shaking. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She smiled back. “You’re here.”

“I didn’t want to miss this.” Houston, who’d been resting in the grass, perked his head up and barked at who I assumed was Penrose, Raina’s German Shepherd. “Houston didn’t want to miss this either.”

Penrose barked back at Houston, more aggressive. Houston backed away, still barking at her.

“I forgot dogs acted like this around each other,” Raina said. “Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.”

“He’ll warm up to her eventually.” I rubbed Houston’s head, but he only growled before going into a barking fit with Penrose. “Eventually.”

Raina giggled. “Just like we warmed up to each other.”

“True, it took us a bit to stop barking at each other.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Which I think we should talk about.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Want to walk around the park with the dogs?”

“Sounds like a bigger walk in the park than it actually is.” I cringed. My humor was completely off. “I mean, sure.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be nervous.”

“I don’t know. The way Houston and Penrose are growling at each other . . .”

“Not about that.” She smacked me in the arm before realizing what she’d done. “Sorry! Gosh, you’re rubbing off on me. I’m becoming an awkward mess.”

“You think I’m an awkward mess?” I put a hand to my chest. “I’m a charming mess, thank you very much.”

She giggled. “If you say so.”

We started our lap around the park. It was pretty big, larger than our one in Dallas. I could picture it full of people during the day. “Do you come here often?” I asked, not sure how to address the elephant in the room.

“I used to when I was little,” Raina said, trying to keep Penrose from running wild. Or lunging at Houston. “My old best friend and I used to come here all the time. Remember Isabelle?”

I nodded, though the memory was foggy. “She wished she could get rid of her mom so she could get a dog.”

She laughed. “Yes. I bet she still hates her mom.” Her gaze dropped to the ground. “She actually placed an order for my jewelry business. Yet she hasn’t said a word to me since she first moved.”

“Wow, that’s strange.” Placing an order at an old best friend’s business would’ve been way too awkward for my liking. “You guys used to be close.”

“She was the best before she moved and decided to change,” she said. “Now she’s out every night with her boyfriend and huge friend group. Living the best life.” She shook her head. “I just don’t get how you can be someone’s everything and then leave them in the dust like that.”

Ouch. I hoped that wasn’t aimed at me. “Yeah. But people change.” I sighed, thinking about my walks with Toby.

He’d walk Buster while I walked Houston, and we’d talk about our problems as the sun set.

But the sky was dark, except for the moonlight and a few stars in the sky. “You can’t predict or avoid it.”

“Yeah.” Raina bit her lip. “We clearly know how change can turn out.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, paying attention to Houston so I wouldn’t have to look at her. “For sure.”

“Okay, we came here to talk about this. We can talk about other things later. ”

“It has been a week.” The hurt in my voice was probably obvious. “Not that I’m blaming you. It was my fault.”

Raina nodded and stopped walking as Penrose went to the side to use the bathroom. I stopped walking, too, causing Houston to bark and pull on the leash.

“I didn’t want to stay mad at you forever,” Raina said, focused on Penrose. “But what you did . . .” She faced me, the ice in her eyes chilling me to the bone. “You really broke my heart, Dallas. I never thought you’d hide something so important from me.”

The lump in my throat grew. “I never wanted to break your heart. To have that effect on you.”

A smile spread across her glittery lips, reminding me of that moment at my birthday party. “I had no idea you did, honestly.” She sighed before walking again. “Until we got closer.”

I kept up with her pace. “I didn’t expect this to happen,” I said, trying to control my breathing. “I didn’t expect to meet you in real life, for you to be everywhere, for my feelings for you to blow out of proportion. I thought I could suppress it until it disappeared.”

“Why don’t you want to have feelings for me?” she asked, the ice in her eyes slowly melting into a look I couldn’t discern. “Were you really that scared . . . of me?”

“I-It’s not you.” My hand shook as I held on to Houston’s leash. “It’s that I knew you wouldn’t feel the same way, and you know me better than anyone else does. You knew my heart, and that made you the best candidate to break it.” I let out a heavy breath. “And you did.”

“I’m sorry.” She squeezed my free hand, and a tingle spread through my arm from the warmth. “I never wanted to do that.”

“It’s not your fault. My feelings for you have made everything too complicated, but it won’t always be like this.” A breeze blew by, and the shock from the cold amplified the ache in my chest. “I’ll find a way to get over you.”

She bit her lip. “I hope not.”

I blinked, nearly tripping over a rock. “What?”

She giggled. “I hope you won’t fall out of love with me.”

My breath caught in my throat. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t have feelings for you before we met in real life,” she admitted.

“But after meeting you, Dallas, the way you looked into my eyes and made me feel like we knew each other inside and out when we didn’t—at least when I thought we didn’t—something shifted.

I always knew what we had was real, but now it feels different.

” She played with the bracelet on my right wrist. “It feels solid.”

“A-Are you saying,” I stammered, unable to wrap my head around this. “But you rejected me. You pulled away when I tried to kiss you.”

“Because you hurt me. And I hadn’t realized at the time how I felt. Until I visited my dad yesterday and saw how he looked at my mom, how his cheeks flushed.” The moonlight made her eyes sparkle. “It reminded me of how you look at me.”

“You saw your dad yesterday?” I asked, my pulse skipping.

Raina nodded. “It went well. I had a lot of realizations about my family. About love.” She squeezed my hand again.

“It made me realize I want to forgive. To accept the love others give me.” She stopped walking, arriving at another bench.

Her eyes pierced through me as she looked into mine.

“I want to accept your love. If you let me.”

“I-I . . .” The blood rushed in my ears, my knees knocking together. Had I been sucked into some type of fever dream? Was she pulling an April Fools’ prank on me three weeks early? “I . . .”

“I love you, Dallas Alexander Friar,” Raina whispered in my ear, her voice making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “ You’re the sunshine to my moonlight. You rise when I fall and bring the world to light.”

I was going to die. I was about to go into cardiac arrest and die in a dog park.

And I was over the moon about it.

“I-I love you too,” I said, my heart seconds away from jumping out of my chest. “I love you so much, it makes me lose my mind whenever I see you smile.” I twisted the friendship bracelet on her wrist. “But we can’t be friends like this.”

Her face fell. “We can’t?”

“Not when I want to be so much more.” I kissed her hand, the warmth of her skin greeting my lips. “Not when I’ve been waiting for your love for so long.”

A grin spread across her lips. “Then let’s stop being friends and start being what we really want to be.” She closed her eyes and pressed her lips against mine, sending another shock down my spine.

My mouth followed hers as they danced together in the moonlight, her lip gloss tasting like a mix of strawberry and vanilla. The heavenly scent of her lavender perfume filled my senses. I cupped her chin with my free hand as she moved closer. I craved more of her taste. More of her.

I tried to hold on to Houston’s leash, but the electricity zapping through my body made me weak. It felt like I could collapse as our lips continued to dance to a song I’d never heard before.

Nothing about this could be real.

But it was. It was all real.

And it was all mine.

Raina pulled away from me with a huge smile. Some of her lip gloss was smudged, probably now on my mouth, but she looked as stunning as ever as the breeze blew through her hair.

This girl was freaking everything to me .

“I think we should have the dogs actually enjoy the dog park,” she said, nodding over to the dog play area. “Then we can finish what we started.”

“Good idea.” I loved the sound of that way too much. But I didn’t have to hide that anymore. I didn’t have to hide my feelings and make myself feel stupid about them. For my entire friendship with Raina, I’d never thought I’d have a shot with someone as raw as her.

But things could definitely change. For the better.

Raina and I brought the dogs over to the play area and closed the gate. Houston barked at me, then at Penrose, and they continued their growling fit.

“Come on, guys,” I said. “You can get along.”

Penrose looked at me and growled as if I were ruining her evening.

I glanced at Raina, who was still smiling. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“She does,” Raina said, waving a hand. “She shows her love through aggression and trying to suffocate you in your sleep.”

“I’m still not convinced.” I blew the dogs a kiss and wrapped an arm around Raina, happy I could finally hold her like this. “So where did we leave off?”