Page 22 of True Ruin

She leaned in to get a better look and heard him sigh behind her.

There was so much love in the photo, so much boyish ease and cavalier affection, but there was also something in Dallas’s face, a guarded, slightly haunted expression.

She took a sip of wine, deciding to hold the probing questions for later. “Word is, you saved those kids the other night from getting caught by Promise’s version of Barney Fife.”

“Word from whom?” he murmured, tipping a bowl of sliced cherry tomatoes into the skillet. They hit the oil with a bright hiss, bursting against the garlic and browned chicken. Whatever he was cooking smelled like paradise.

Gabi shrugged, not about to tell him his editor at theDispatchhad given her the full rundown, complete with the gleeful implication that Dallas himself had triggered the alarm. He’d only said, “Something that boy would do,” without explaining why he thought so.

Dallas grunted, chopping a handful of parsley with more focus than parsley required. So, he wasn’t one of those guys who turned every good deed into a story about himself.

“Good rosé,” she said, lifting the glass.

“I know the family.” He arranged the parsley in a neat circle with the side of the knife. “Or knew them for one week in Mendoza when I was twenty-three and pretending to write a serious piece about vineyard labor.”

“Pretending?”

He tapped the blade against the cutting board. “Mostly I got lectured by a sixty-year-old grower who thought journalists were parasites.”

Gabi laughed, easing onto one of the stools at the island. “Were you?”

“Absolutely.” He added a knob of butter to the skillet, swirling it through the tomatoes and garlic as it melted. “But I was a parasite with a strong back and good manners, so they gave me a story in exchange for a week’s work in the fields. I got my first Reuters gig because of that article.”

This guy was definitely smokin’, if there’d been any question, Gabi decided as she watched him move around the kitchen with surprising ease. He didn’t take any of it too seriously, laughing when a tomato escaped the skillet and rolled across the stove like it was making a break for freedom. And he was so different from anyone she knew, a little nerdy in a way that somehow felt artistic. It was a trite word—cool—but it described him perfectly. She’d been cool once, too, back in high school, though she’d peaked at the worst possible time, before she even knew who she was.

How was he still single? Chaotic schedule. That had to be it.

“Do you want to eat in here?” he asked, beginning to plate the food, unaware she was debating weighty relationship issues. “It’s just skillet chicken, à la True, which means I used half a recipe and made the rest up.”

“Sure,” she said, because the kitchen was warm and he was there. She didn’t want to leave this spot and risk losing the rosy glow of wine and watching. “This is perfect.”

He glanced at the overhead light, then switched it off, leaving only the low pendant over the island and the moonlight slipping through the window over the sink. The kitchen changed immediately, ordinary things made softer—the glimmer of wine in the glasses, the steam rising from the skillet, Dallas with his short hair rumpled from the heat, the light catching in his lenses, his green eyes bright behind them.

“Better?” he asked, giving them a casual nudge along the bridge of his nose that, for some magic reason, curled her toes inside her boots.

“Yes,” she answered, though she wasn’t sure what she was saying yes to. “Much.”

He set her plate in front of her, then reached for napkins and silverware from a drawer beside the stove.

“I can get it.” She was already sliding off the stool, used to waiting on everyone.

“I know.” He handed her a fork, as if that settled the matter, then topped off her glass before taking the seat beside her.

Gabi gestured to the small CD player on the counter. “Is this a new album?”

“Just released.” He sat, stretching his injured leg out, his boot brushing hers. “OK Computer.”

“Should I know it?”

“Probably not. It was released in Europe first.” His mouth curved, his eyes catching hers. “Which means I get to be the one who shows it to you.”

For a second, neither of them moved.What else could he show her?

The song shifted behind them, into lonely, beautiful tones, and the space around them seemed to shrink around the accidental touch of his foot against hers. Gabi looked at his mouth before she could stop herself, and there it was again—the storage room, the hot press of his hand, the way her body had answered him before her brain caught up. She would never forget shivering in his arms, pleasure skating through her as her teeth sank into his cotton shirt to hold back her moans.

Dallas’s smile faded, as if he’d remembered the same thing.

“Well,” he said, reaching for his wine with unnecessary focus. “Before I make a gorgeous woman listen to me explain the genius of Radiohead, we should probably eat.”