Second Chances (4 page)

Dustin could see both her mom and dad in her, that was for sure. She had great skin and the perfect tone. Stacy always looked like she had a tan, and in the summer she was even darker. But his favorite feature on her was her eyes. They were such a different shade of brown—deep and dark, except for around her pupils. They were almost a golden brown.

“I’m glad, Stacy. Have you heard anything from him?” He felt her stiffen in his arms and then shake her head. “Good. Promise me you’ll tell me if he tries messing with you. I still think you should’ve filed a report against him.”

The day after the Mark fiasco, Dustin encouraged her to go file a report since he did assault her, but she wouldn’t do it. Stacy was convinced that he was gone for good, Dustin not so much.

“So what do you say you come over for dinner tonight? I can grill us some burgers and we can drink some beers.” Dustin missed spending time with Stacy.

“I’d love to, but I can’t. I’ve got two classes I’m teaching tonight for your mom. Tomorrow, I’m bartending. What about Thursday?”

“Sure, Thursday sounds good. Why don’t you come over at six?” Dustin replied as he stepped back, tucking a fallen curl behind Stacy’s ear.

“Sounds good. I’ll see you Thursday.” She reached up, placing a chaste kiss on his cheek.

Dustin watched her start walking down the walkway to the sidewalk when it hit him. “Where’s your truck?”

“It’s a nice day, I decided to walk,” Stacy shouted over her shoulder with a smile.

“Well, be careful, sugar,” Dustin shouted back.

He stood there for a moment, watching her walk away. Dustin knew they were friends, but maybe in time they could be so much more. He turned and went back inside to say bye to his sister and niece.

***

Stacy was glad that she had decided to walk when she went over to Bellamy’s. They were heading into the end of summer and soon it would be rainy. The heat never bothered her as she felt a light sheen of perspiration cover her body.

She would have time to look over some more pictures she’d taken and send them off to be printed before she had to get ready to go teach.

Stacy was a few blocks away from Bellamy’s when she heard a car roar up next to her to a stop. She didn’t recognize the car, but she froze because she certainly knew the driver.

She started walking at a fast clip until a hand wrapped around her arm stopped her.

“Stacy, stop!”

“Fuck off, Mark.” Stacy didn’t want him to see how scared he made her.

“Come on, baby, I gave you a couple of weeks to cool off, so let’s stop this shit. Get in the car, I’ll give you a ride home,” Mark said.

“Um, yeah, I don’t think so. How’s your wife?” She couldn’t keep the quiet disdain out of her voice. “You know what? Don’t tell me, because you’re a liar and I wouldn’t believe what you said anyway.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is? Well, I see as soon as I was out of the picture you ran back to Dustin,” he sneered. “That bitch left me and took my kids. I’ll get them back and then you and I will raise them together because I told you already: you’re mine and I don’t want anyone but you.”

Stacy felt like she was gonna be sick. He was obviously delusional and at least his wife was smart enough to leave him and take the kids. The closer she looked at him, she realized that he almost looked strung out…Idiot. One thing he prided himself on when they had been friends was the fact he could, for the most part, keep his job and personal life separate.

Maybe it got to be too much for him, but it didn’t matter to her because she no longer gave a shit about him.

Stacy took a deep breath. “I. AM. NOT. YOURS! I’ll never be yours. You’re a liar and you hurt me, so let me go. Now.” She couldn’t keep the trembling out of her voice. Stacy wrenched her arm away from him and started to back away.

She let out a sigh of relief when she saw Luke and Dustin drive by and then pull over. Dustin quickly hopped out with Luke trailing behind him.

“Hey, sugar, is there a problem here?” Dustin said with a hint of menace in his voice.

Stacy shook her head and moved to stand next to him and felt safe when he slipped an arm across her shoulders.

“Oh, I see. You’re fucking him now, aren’t you? You slut. You’re gonna be sorry, and believe me when I say this isn’t over between us.”

She watched as he climbed into his car and peeled out onto the road, barely missing Luke.

“Jesus, that guy is seriously fucked up,” Luke said.

Stacy walked alongside Dustin to the passenger of Luke’s truck, climbing in when Dustin opened the door for her. She settled herself in the middle of the bench seat as she waited on Dustin and Luke.

They were right behind her, but now they weren’t. She turned and saw them talking quietly behind the truck. “Great,” Stacy muttered. Maybe she should just get out and keep walking.

One thing Stacy didn’t want was to become anyone’s headache. It brought to mind right before she’d caught Brian and Celia together when he reamed her for depending on him too much and why couldn’t she be more independent.

Stacy hated that he had made her feel bad, and worse, she pulled away from people because she was too afraid that they’d find her too dependent on them.

Why, oh why did she have such horrible taste in men? Dustin wasn’t like them, but she never gave him a chance to hurt her. It made her want to laugh at the irony. She got Dustin to agree to just being friends and then she was dating Mark, and what did he do? Hurt her. And what was worse was that Dustin was there for her, helping her deal with it all.

She started when Dustin climbed into the truck and sat next to her. Luke got in and started to back up his truck and did a U-turn in the middle of the road. The tension was thick in the air as they all sat in complete silence on the drive back to Stacy’s.

When Luke pulled up in front of her house, Dustin hopped out first and then helped Stacy down. She turned and thanked Luke for the ride home. “And please don’t tell Bell about this. I don’t want her to worry.”

“No problem, Stace, but please be safe, okay?” Luke said from the driver’s seat.

“I will, thanks.” Stacy turned to say bye to Dustin, but he put his hand to the small of her back and led her up to her door.

“Dustin, you didn’t have to walk me up,” she protested.

When Stacy turned to look at him, his brow was furrowed and a muscle in his jaw was ticking. She tried to step back because the look frightened her a bit.

“Please don’t, Stacy. I want to make sure everything’s okay in there before I let you just waltz in.”

“Okay. I’m sorry you’re getting drug into this. I—”

Dustin put his hand over her mouth. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Now come on.”

Stacy unlocked the front door and let Dustin go in first. She looked around and didn’t see anything out of place. Dustin went through the rest of the house while Stacy stood by the front door, waiting for the all clear.

A moment later Dustin came back and told her the house was clear. She watched him as he walked towards her and couldn’t help but take him in.

He was over six feet tall by at least a couple of inches. He had the body of a swimmer. His muscles were tight and compact, but he was freakishly strong. His hair was so dark it almost looked black. His eyes were the prettiest shade of blue she’d ever seen.

He had a strong jaw covered in the lightest amount of stubble and he always seemed to have the same cocky look on his face.

Dustin was so handsome and sometimes she wondered what it was he ever saw in her. Growing up, she always saw him with the willowy types, and that was just not her. Stacy knew what she looked like, and she knew that when people saw her she was judged immediately.

Girls hated her. They thought she was easy and guys only wanted her because they thought she was. It made growing up very painful for her. Even as an adult it wasn’t easy.

“What?” Dustin asked as he walked towards her.

Great, he caught her ogling him. “Uh, nothing. Did everything look in order?”

Dustin reached out and pushed the hair out of her face and gave her that smile that could make her knees weak and panties wet. “Yep, everything looks normal and untouched. Lock the door when I leave. What time are you going to the studio?”

“I told your mom I’d be there at five-thirty so she could go out to dinner with your dad,” Stacy said.

“Do you want me to come up there when you’re ready to lock up? I can walk you to your truck and make sure you’re safe.”

This was so not what Stacy wanted to happen. She knew it’d be smart to have him do it, but there she went, being dependent on a man again.

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I’ll park right out front and I’ll make sure I leave when my students do. Go do your thing. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than play my bodyguard.” Stacy knew she sounded bitchy, but she didn’t want to be an obligation.

***

Dustin was pissed that Stacy was being stubborn. She didn’t seem to get that he wanted to do this because he loved her, but dammit, he wasn’t going to tell her that, especially since she had just broken up with Mark.

He reached out and cupped her face with his hands. “Sugar, the only thing I have to do is make sure you get home safely.” He could tell she wanted to protest so he cut her off. “I’m gonna be there because there’s no place I’d rather be than with you and making sure you’re okay. So just drop it. I’ll see you later.”

Dustin placed a kiss on her forehead, and maybe he lingered a tad longer than he should’ve, but the soft sigh that left her lips made him want to kiss her the way he really wanted to.

“I’ll see you later.” He walked out the door and stood there listening until he heard the snick of the lock.

Dustin got back in Luke’s truck and they headed back towards the office.

As he sat there, Dustin could tell Luke wanted to say something. “All right, man, just say whatever it is that you are dying to say.”

Luke gave him an evil-looking grin. “So, you and Stacy, huh?”

“What do you mean, me and Stacy?” Dustin didn’t know how much Luke knew about what happened between them last year, but he was sure his big-mouthed sister spilled her guts.

“Well, it’s no secret that you guys had a thing last year, but are you going to try to start something with her now?”

“Considering she just broke up with that dickhead, I’m not gonna rush her into anything. Plus I don’t even think she thinks of me like that anymore.”

Chapter 4

Dustin had been more of the romantic when he and Dylan were younger. Emily Peters was his girlfriend from the time they were sixteen until their freshman year in college. His family never knew that he had chosen to go to Tulane so he could be close to her.

They’d made plans to get married after their sophomore year, with or without their families’ blessing. He’d gone down to surprise her, which he did when he went to her dorm room and found her with her roommate and her roommate’s boyfriend. He’d beaten the fuck out of the guy and damn near got himself arrested.

Emily claimed that she never had any intention of marrying him. That she was learning so much more sexually than she ever could with him. That he was boring and too sappy. She wanted someone who took charge and made her feel like a woman. She’d destroyed him that day.

He left her there and swore he’d never be serious about anyone ever again. Dustin knew after that he became a man whore, but that way he never let himself get close to any woman ever again.

Stacy was the first woman that made him even want to consider it, but the timing couldn’t be more wrong. What kind of guy would he be if he took advantage of the situation she was in?

Dustin didn’t want to be her rebound either. He wanted her to be with him because she cared about him just as much as he did her. Dustin knew he sounded like a chick, at least to himself, but she was the total package. She was beautiful inside and out, she was funny and she made him want to be better man.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and asked Luke to just drop it for now. Bellamy told him that if it was meant to be it would.

***

Later that night Dustin pulled up behind Stacy’s truck in front of his mom’s dance studio. Dustin, Dylan and Bellamy all spent a lot of time there when they were younger.

Dancing was something they all came by naturally. He’d never admit it, but he enjoyed those times when he’d swing his mom or his sister around the studio floor. It didn’t hurt his chances with the ladies back in the day that he knew how to dance, too.

He pulled open the front door and stepped inside. The front wall was covered with pictures of students of his mom’s through the years. Dustin felt a smile tug at his lips when he saw a picture of Dylan, Bellamy and himself. He and his brother were probably seven or eight and Bellamy was maybe a year old.

The boys sat side by side with Bellamy sitting on both of their laps. Dustin and Dylan both had gaps up top from where their teeth had fallen out. Bellamy was in a little baby leotard and had a mass of dark hair and tiny baby teeth poking out from the bottom of her mouth.

He moved on to a picture that was behind the front desk. It was during his parents’ wedding reception because his dad was twirling her around the dance floor. His mother was still as beautiful as she was then. Bellamy looked a lot like her, and he and his brother favored their dad more.

Dustin and Dylan were fraternal twins, but looked almost identical. Facially everything was exactly the same, but his brother was an inch taller and broader in the chest like their dad.

When they were younger it was easy to switch places, because it wasn’t until high school that Dylan became broader than Dustin. They fooled everyone at least once, except for their parents and Bellamy.

Dustin stepped away from the desk and as he walked towards the back he could hear voices and music starting. He peeked around the corner and about swallowed his tongue.