Yeah. Thing about Gabby? She understood, even when he never once voiced a complaint. He swore she could read his mind most days. He shrugged like he couldn’t give a good goddamn.
“Why don’t you have women climbing all over you?”
Her question was rhetorical and not necessarily directed at him. And she knew the answer. He might be as attractive as his two brothers, but no woman wanted a long-term thing with someone who couldn’t listen. “People tend to pay attention to the guy who shouts and ignore the one who whispers.”
Her shoulders rose and fell with an exhalation. The understanding in her eyes had him backtracking for a topic change. He glanced at the TV, noting the movie had ended. It was nearly midnight, but neither of them were working tomorrow. He wondered if he should start another chick flick or if she was feeling better and would head out.
Fletch, his golden retriever, unwound himself from the floor by the fireplace and made his way over to drop his head in Gabby’s lap.
Her round cheeks lifted in a grin that split her face. She rubbed the dog’s ears, her mouth moving to speak to him, but Flynn couldn’t make out the words. Wisps of her caramel hair broke free from her ponytail and brushed her neck.
She wasn’t sultry or hot by any stretch of the word, but she had some kind of illumination from within. A warmth most took for granted and overlooked. She was so damn beautiful inside that it mattered not what she looked like outside. But unattractive? Gabby? Not one iota.
He may be deaf, but the men in this town were blind.
“Your dog has agreed to marry me.”
As usual, she pulled a laugh from him. “You bribed him with bacon. Admit it.”
“He agreed based on my merits.”
There was no arguing with that. She had merit in spades. “We’ve had this discussion. You marry my dog, I’m part of the package.” What a ridiculous conversation, but he sensed she needed a little nonsense tonight.
Her gaze swept over his body as if considering…him. After a moment, she looked away, him being no wiser on her conclusion. “Who are you bringing as a date to Cade’s wedding?”
His brother and Avery were set to tie the knot late next month. Because it was Avery’s second marriage and she didn’t like a ton of attention, they’d wanted a small ceremony out at Mom’s cabin just down the road. Drake’s and Cade’s places were on Flynn’s wooded private drive, too. But the Battleaxes—as Cade referred to their mother and two aunts—caught wind of the wedding plans and had turned an intimate gathering into a circus. The venue was now set for the botanical gardens with all of Redwood Ridge in attendance.
He hadn’t given much thought to a date. If he and Gabby weren’t seeing anyone, they were typically each other’s fall-back crutch for such events. Come to think of it, he’d spent more time as her plus one than anyone else. “If some other Neanderthal hasn’t plucked you by then, you want to be my date?”
“We’re paired in the wedding party together, anyway. Why not?”
Which brought up another minor anxiety. Okay, a big one.
“What’s wrong?” She stopped petting Fletch, much to the dog’s discontent, and focused those blue eyes on him. They tripped him up every time. A cross between cornflower and sapphire, he could never resist spilling his guts when she looked at him like that.
He sighed. “The wedding party is expected to do a first dance, right?”
Her brows furrowed. “Yeah.” She studied him closely. “We’ve danced hundreds of times together. Prom, town events.”
Emasculated, he stared at her until she caught up. Didn’t take her long.
She nodded gradually. “But never a slow song with everyone watching us.”
Yep. It was one thing to observe the crowd and mimic what they were doing, and another to be expected to perform some complicated steps to a tune he couldn’t hear.
Gabby had her phone out and was texting in the next blink. Once her message was sent, she watched the screen for a reply.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Brent. He’ll know what song Avery picked for our dance.”
Brent being Cade’s vet tech at their clinic who’d helped Avery with a lot of the wedding plans. But what difference did it make what song they’d chosen?
Gabby’s thumbs flew over the keypad in response, then she swiped the screen to pull up YouTube. She scooted closer to him, bringing her light scent of honey with her. “We’re dancing to Ed Shereen’s ‘Thinking Out Loud.’ This video has the lyrics typed.”
Because if he understood the lyrics, he would feel the mood of the music. He stared at her and, for the umpteenth time in his life, wondered what in the hell he’d do without her. To avoid doing something stupid, like kiss her in gratitude, he focused on her phone.
As he read the lines of the song, he couldn’t help but think how it kinda nailed his feelings toward Gabby. From a friendship standpoint, of course. There was no crossing the line in the sand with her. Everything that made his life run smoothly, everything that made a lick of sense, was because they were a solid unit just like this. He was certain his world would implode if anything jeopardized what they had.
When the video ended, she set her phone aside and stood. The sweats he’d loaned her hung from her hourglass hips and threatened to fall. His old tee hid all her willowy curves. She held out her hand expectantly.
“What?”
“Practice, that’s what.” She grabbed his wrist and pulled him to his feet, or rather, he let her. He had a good foot and ninety pounds on her. Glancing around the space, she pursed her lips in thought as if trying to calculate the best spot to “practice.”
After Flynn and his brothers had graduated from veterinarian school, they each had built a house on unused family land deep in the woods at the edge of town. Flynn’s was modest compared to his brothers’. A ranch with only three bedrooms and a kitchen half the size of Cade’s. Drake had gone grand scale because he and his wife Heather had wanted a litter of kids. Until she’d died from cancer a few years ago. Even though their tastes were different and the layouts unique, all three cabins had naturalistic and masculine elements. Huge stone fireplaces, bare wood floors, rafter beams cut from birch, floor-to-ceiling windows, and clean edges to the designs.
Gabby grabbed the phone and guided him around the couch to the open area between the living room and kitchen where the rug wouldn’t trip them up, he assumed. The hardwood planks beneath his feet were cool, despite the temperatures outside finally warming with spring.
She fiddled with the phone and took his hand. “Do you feel the vibrations?”
Barely. It was easier to feel bass from a speaker. He shook his head.
She did something in the settings and looked at him. “Now?”
It was stronger, yeah. The thready pulse pressed a rhythm against his hand. He nodded.
She put the phone in the breast pocket of his tee where the bass thumped against his chest. Maneuvering his right arm around her waist, she took his left hand in hers. The position thrust them closer than he’d anticipated as her soft, sweet honey scent wrapped around him. The warmth from her body drifted near, inviting.
He stilled as his neck heated. He didn’t think it was possible to get embarrassed with Gabby, but being this close to her was awkward and…
Hell. He focused on breathing instead.
“I put the song on repeat, so we have time.” She smiled reassuringly and his heart flipped over in his goddamn chest. When he made no motion to start, she tilted her head. “We really don’t have to do much more than sway back and forth. If you want to learn