Page 36 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

His cheeks went red, but he laughed again, a light and airy sound. It was nice.

“I’m Dan,” he said, holding out his right hand between us. I shook it.

“Amy.”

“Nice to meet you, Amy,” he said, “and under better circumstances this time.” His eyes were locked on mine, and I found myself grinning. He was actually quite charming when he wasn’t bludgeoning me on the battlefield. Or, well, next to it.

“Thank you for the peace offering,” I said, holding up the rest of the pastry. “Offering accepted.” I took what I hoped was a much daintier bite.

Dan threw his head back dramatically and brought his hands to his heart. “What a relief.”

We spent a good few minutes chatting about where we were from (he lived near Bristol) and who we were here with (he was also with his D that’s what we’d agreed, after all.

But Phil had been so distant for the past week, and so easily aggravated with me so far today, and I was annoyed.

He’d felt like my boyfriend all summer, even if it was a ruse, but now? He really, really didn’t.

Still, I wasn’t quite prepared to tell Dan the whole truth, so I just settled for the truthiest truth I could manage.

“It’s complicated.”

Dan nodded, as if he’d been expecting that, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. “The kind of complicated where you wouldn’t want to give me your number?”

“Maybe I don’t want to give you my number because you nearly skewered me.”

“In public?” he said back to me, smirking. “I would never.”

I felt genuinely conflicted, even putting aside whatever nonsense was going on with Phil.

Under normal circumstances, I never would have met Dan.

And yeah, him panicking after the whole stabbing debacle had been a bit of an ick.

But I wasn’t feeling the ick now. He seemed nice, and normal, and funny.

And I wasn’t ready to jump his bones, but that could have been the cosplay.

He was definitely attractive, and if I squinted hard enough, I could even convince myself he looked a bit like Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

Not for the first time in my life, I felt annoyed at Phil for the irreparable damage he’d done to my ability to gauge attraction.

I’d found other guys cute, and I’d even wanted to sleep with them, but there had never been the kind of electricity I felt with Phil.

Even with Chris, it had been more about the social dynamic with the others than it was about him as a person.

Was I only capable of feeling palpable attraction to people I’d known for most of my life? Because if so, I was screwed.

But no, I refused to claim that. There had to be the possibility of something with literally anyone but Phil. If he didn’t want me, I needed to learn to spread my wings– and maybe my legs– with other men.

I smiled, making a decision. “No, not that kind of complicated.” Then I held out my hand for his phone, and he nearly dropped it trying to pull it out of his own leather pouch at his waist.

Just as I finished typing my number in and handed the phone back to Dan, I heard my name being called from somewhere behind me. I looked around for a few seconds before zeroing in on the figure striding purposefully across the grass.

It was Phil, again.

“What the hell, Amy?” he shouted as he came near. “I’ve been looking for you for more than an hour.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know the signal wouldn’t work,” I said, very intentionally not facing him. “Phil, this is Dan. Dan, Phil.”

“Good to meet you, mate,” Dan said, standing up and sticking out his hand, but Phil ignored it.

“Yeah, I fucking remember you,” he sneered. “Now come on, Amy. The others are waiting.”

“Don’t be a twat, Phil,” I said, standing, then turned to Dan. “I’m sorry about him. He’s clearly forgotten how to be a human.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dan said, raising his hand. “I’ll leave you to it. Goodbye, Amy.” I smiled apologetically and waved.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked, turning on Phil. “He was apologising.”

“It looked like he was doing more than just apologising,” Phil said, pointing at Dan’s retreating form. “Did you just give him your number?”

“So what if I did? What’s it to you?”

Phil sighed, looking over his shoulder. “The others saw you, you know.”

I looked back in the direction he had, where our friends were walking across the grass too, though tentatively, clearly trying to figure out if it was safe to approach.

But I didn’t care. I was so done with Phil’s moodiness.

He could be mad at me, but he needed to be a fucking grown-up and explain himself to me if so.

Otherwise, what was the point? Why was I even there?

“Yeah, well, they also saw you ignore me the whole car ride,” I said. “And my family saw me not come to yours at all this week because you wouldn’t return my texts. So forgive me if I’ve stopped giving a shit.”

Phil sighed again, but this time it seemed less exasperated and more just exhausted.

“Not here,” he said, almost a whisper.

“Yes here,” I said, so fucking done it wasn’t funny.

I wasn’t exactly naming my future babies with Dan, but Phil didn’t know that.

If he was going to interrupt me meeting new people, acting all broody and possessive, but then still not kiss me or tell me what was wrong or anything else that an actual boyfriend would do, then we needed to sort it out now .

So I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him with me as I walked around to the other side of the retaining pool.

The others shamelessly watched us as we went, so we rounded a crumbling wall into the gardens.

There were couples and groups and impressively costumed people in every picturesque corner, so Phil and I stopped just in front of a roped-off path that led out the other side of the gardens into a copse of trees.

“Okay, that’s enough,” he said, wrenching his arm out of my hand. “If you wanna do this in public, then fine. Say what you want.”

“Absolutely not,” I said, shaking my head so hard I felt some of my hair come loose from the half-up style I’d so carefully done that morning. “You’re the one who’s clearly got a stick up your ass. What the hell is going on?”

“Jesus, you’re not the only thing in my life, Amy,” he said, his words full of annoyance. But his eyes went wide at the same time, and it looked as if he might start crying at any moment. He was clearly at his wits’ end. “I’ve got other things I’m worried about.”

“Then tell me,” I said, stepping towards him and trying to grab his hand, but he pulled it away again.

“Does none of this mean anything to you?” I gestured between us.

“Shit, do none of the last nineteen years mean anything to you? Because if it’s about Ethel, or work, or any of your friends, I care about that, too, regardless of our fake relationship status. I thought we’d established that.”

“Of course we did,” he said, holding my gaze. “It’s not that, I promise.”

“Because I don’t actually need you to be okay,” I said, desperate for him to understand. “You’re dealing with more than any one person should have to. But I need to know that we’re okay.”

“Why?” he snapped, his lips pursing as he bit back words before choosing them. “Why is it so important to you that we’re good, when you’re just counting down the days until our breakup?”

Was he fucking serious? Was that what this was about?

No, he couldn’t mean that. There was no way that, after everything we’d been through over the years, he was mad at me for maintaining the boundaries we’d carefully drawn between us.

My feelings for Phil had been an open secret since I’d been a teenager, and I was done pretending he didn’t know.

That it was somehow excusable for him to play dumb anymore, and that I had to be the one keeping track of where the line was, when he’d been the one to draw it five years ago.

“You fucking know why,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Then say it,” he said, stepping forward suddenly, his face close enough to mine that I could feel his breath on me; feel the tickle of his beard against my nose.

He tilted forward and leaned his forehead against mine, and I could feel his words as he spoke, his voice strained and raspy. “Tell me, Amy. I’m begging you.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head, gently this time.

“No,” I said softly, my voice trembling. “I’ve put myself out there for you so many times. I won’t do it again. Not without something concrete from you.”

It was the closest I’d ever come to telling Phil how I felt, and I felt him swallow hard as our heads stayed pressed together.

“I fucking tried, Amy,” he said, bringing his hand to my face, his fingers shaking against my cheek. He groaned, and it vibrated through my head and shoulders. “ You shut it down. You made it clear you didn’t want to have that conversation. I was ready.”

“That’s not fair,” I said, clenching my eyes shut hard. “Don’t do that.”

Phil pulled his head back, but he didn’t drop his hand from my cheek. I opened my eyes and saw a wretched, pained look on his face. He looked like he was about to break, and I knew the feeling.

And he wasn’t wrong, either. Even if I’d been the one who felt ready five years ago, I’d also been the one to shut things down last week in the river.

I’d been the one to bail this time. Sure, I’d had my reasons.

But he’d never looked at me like this. Like I was his lifeline. His deepest need. Like he wanted me.

No, that wasn’t true. He’d looked at me like this in the river, too. And maybe even before that, if I were being honest with myself.

And fuck, I wanted him too. So badly.

“Please, Amy,” he whispered, sounding almost like he was gasping for air as he ran the pad of his thumb over my lower lip. He clenched his own eyes shut. “I’m hanging on by a fucking thread here.”

“Then snip that shit,” I said, as calmly and evenly as I could manage, “and do something about it.”

Phil’s eyes snapped open and met mine, wide with surprise, his pupils blown so wide I could see my reflection in them. I saw the moment his resolve set, his jaw twitching hard enough that his whole beard shifted, and something bottomed out inside me.

I took in a deep breath to brace myself, but I barely caught any breath at all before he moved his hand to the back of my neck and pulled me into him, his mouth crashing against mine.