Page 132 of Wicked Pickle

“You quitting the bar?” I ask.

“Not completely. But maybe there’s still some Dean in the Diesel.” His gaze bores into mine.

God, I’ve missed him. I’ve thought about us over and over, hoping he’s gotten back with his family. Wishing I could return to that last day and make him see what we could be.

To tell him how I felt but was afraid to admit to someone like him.

“So, what now, Dean Diesel?” I ask.

The clock tower sounds the quarter chime, and students pour out of buildings. He glances up at it. “Can I walk you to class?”

The way he says it, along with the tilt of his head and his earnest expression, melts me all the way to the bone. “Yeah. That would be nice.”

I reach down and pick up my backpack. He’s doing it. He’s doing it. Following something of his own, not running from one thing and settling on another.

He’s being true to himself.

We walk into step beside each other, the sun bearing down. I glance back at Marietta. She bounces on her toes, clapping her hands. This makes me laugh.

“This is going to be good,” Diesel says, but there’s a tone in his words that isn’t as confident as the man I’ve gotten to know.

“Are you trying to convince yourself, or do you know it?” I ask. He said the same thing to me months ago at Bailey’s wedding.

“You using my words against me?”

“They were some pretty good fucking words,” I say. “You better be good orelse.”

He lifts his arm and drapes it over my shoulder. “I’m going to make you fall in love with me.”

“How are you going to do that?” I ask.

“With my magic fingers.”

“And what if you fall in love with me?”

He draws me closer. “It might have already happened.”

My heart skips. “To Dean Diesel? Nah. Nobody lands Dean Diesel.”

He shrugs. “First time for everything.”

I lean into him. “You think it’s really going to be good?”

He grins in that way that makes my panties want to fall right off. “It’s going to befucking perfect.”

EPILOGUE: DIESEL

Eight months later

My brother better not fuck this up.

The back tire spins in the sand as Symphony and I approach the dune I scouted yesterday.

Symphony squeals and grips my waist more tightly. “We’re going to get stuck!” she shouts in my ear.

I can’t speak back to her, not over the roar of the bike. But no, we won’t get stuck.

It’s a balmy day for March. We’re on spring break, both of us, and Symphony got a couple of days off from her job at the federal building.