A Measure of Love (10 page)

“I do. I did,” Riley blurted.

“So why the hell didn’t you ask her?”

“Because . . .” Riley tried to come up with an answer but was suddenly struck with the overwhelming feeling that he’d truly screwed up. “I just assumed she’d—”

His words were cut off by his father’s loud belly laugh. It echoed around the yard and, despite it normally being an infectious sound, it caused a large bubble of annoyance to swell in Riley’s chest. “I’m glad you find this all so funny,” he griped.

Park clapped a hand against Riley’s back before he got up and stormed back into the house. “Oh, Riley.” His father tried to calm himself by putting the back of his hand to his mouth. “Son,” he muttered into it. “Listen, if I had to give you only one piece of advice in your entire life regarding women, it’d be to never assume anything!”

Riley grimaced in confusion. “But we’re friends and . . .”

“And she was probably waiting for you to ask her.”

His words slowly settled around them. She
had
been acting weird recently. She’d snapped every time the dance was mentioned and commented frequently about how she “didn’t want a new dress anyway.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yep,” his father agreed.

Riley dropped his face to his hands. “What do I do now?”

He didn’t care that he sounded desperate. He
was
desperate.

“You go and ask her.”

Wow. Didn’t that sound simple?

“She’s not speaking to me,” Riley confessed. “I told her she was an idiot for going with Blake and . . . a few other things.” He cleared his throat, hating every barbed word he’d thrown at her the last time they’d spoken. “We haven’t talked since Monday.”

His father sat forward, reaching into his jeans back pocket, and pulled out his wallet. From its depths he retrieved ten dollars and handed it to Riley. “Then my second piece of advice about women is, flowers always work as an apology.”

Riley gaped. “You want me to buy her flowers?”

Park nodded. “And apologize your ass off.”

“Then what?”

“Then you ask her to the dance.”

“But what if—”

“She won’t.”

“But how can you be sure that—”

“She will.”

Riley stood, the ten dollars clenched in his hand. “Okay.” He pointed at his dad. “Flowers. Then I ask her.”

Park stood, too, his smile wide and maybe a little proud. “Sounds like a plan.”

·   ·   ·

Riley grabbed the flowers he’d tied to his handlebars before he dropped his bike on Lexie’s front lawn. He ran up the porch steps, lifted his hand to knock on the door, and paused.
Christ.
He was suddenly finding it hard to breathe and his heart thumped so hard he could hear it.

“Grow a set,” he grumbled to himself, knowing that’s exactly what Tate would have said to him had he been there. He gathered himself and knocked twice.

After a brief moment in which Riley took a few calming breaths, the door opened, and he came face to face with a blue-and-red plaid shirt and a waft of cigar smoke. “Mr. Pierce,” Riley muttered, looking at the man with a nervous smile. He hated that Mr. Pierce intimidated him, especially when he saw how nice the man was with his wife and daughters. Lexie found her father’s contempt toward Riley hysterical. But then, she was and always had been a daddy’s girl.

Mr. Pierce eyed the flowers in Riley’s hands and cocked an eyebrow.

Heat surged into Riley’s face. “Is Lexie in, sir?”

Mr. Pierce exhaled in that disgruntled way he always did around Riley and shouted over his shoulder, “Alexis, that boy is at the door.”

Lexie’s voice came from the top of the stairs and Riley’s throat tightened. “What?”

Mr. Pierce turned back into the house, almost closing the door in Riley’s face as he did. “That boy. He’s at the door. With flowers.”

“He’s here with
what
?”

Riley closed his eyes and lifted his face to the heavens. This wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined this would go.

“What are you doing here?” Lexie’s question had Riley’s eyes snapping open. She stood with her hand on her hip, her expression stern. Like her father, she glanced at the flowers with a mixture of suspicion and surprise.

He coughed and lifted them, holding them out to her. “Here. These are for you.” She looked at him as though he’d grown a second head. “They’re daisies,” he said, stating the obvious. “I know you like them.”

She looked between the damned things and Riley’s face a few times before tentatively reaching out for them. “Um, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Riley watched her hold them up to her nose and smell them. “They’re to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Lexie asked quickly. Her expression knew very well what he was apologizing for.

“For being an idiot.”

“Riley,” she uttered in exasperation. “If you brought me flowers every time you were an idiot, I’d be able to open my very own florists.”

Riley couldn’t have been certain, but the laugh he heard come from inside the house sounded like Mr. Pierce.

“I know,” Riley agreed. “But they’re also to say sorry for . . . not asking you to the dance.”

For a split second, Lexie looked shocked as hell. “It’s okay.”

“No,” Riley countered. “It’s not okay. I should have . . . I should have asked you.”

She toed the floor. “But you didn’t, so . . .”

Noting her bitter tone, Riley ploughed on regardless. “I know you’ve agreed to go to the dance with Blake. And I know I said some not-so-nice things to you.”

Her head snapped up, eyes blazing. “You called me a desperate sheep, a Hannah Grand wannabe!”

Riley winced, his stare on his feet. The underlying hurt in Lexie’s words blatant, now he realized what an ass he’d been. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” He shrugged. “Well, I did, but that’s only because I was mad because he doesn’t deserve to take you, and he only wants to take you because you’ll look beautiful and he wants to look good and, Lex, you’re better than that and—”

“Riley.”

He snapped his mouth shut and took a deep breath. “Look, I was wondering if—”

“If what?”

“If you’d go with me instead.”

She pressed her lips together, pursing them to the left. “You think you deserve me looking, what was it you said, ‘beautiful’ next to you?”

Riley’s gaze meandered up the doorframe as he considered his answer. “No.”

“No?”

“You’ll look beautiful no matter who takes you,” he said with a lift of his shoulders. “But that’s not why I want to take you.”

Lexie sighed, apparently confused and losing patience. “Okay. Then why do you want to take me?”

“Because you’re my best friend,” he answered quickly. “And because . . .”

Gathering his courage, Riley reached into his back pocket and pulled out the piece of paper he’d kept folded in a box at the back of a drawer for the past four years. “Do you remember giving me this?” he asked as he unfolded the picture of the Earth she’d drawn him on the day he’d defended her.

Something flashed across Lexie’s blue eyes as she nodded, something that made Riley’s stomach lurch. God, she was so very pretty. “Do you remember what you said it meant, what I meant to you?”

Lexie licked her lips and nodded again. He’d never known her to be so quiet, but he refused to let it worry him. “Well . . . I brought it to give it back.”

Lexie blinked as though finally coming to. “What?”

“I’m giving it back,” Riley repeated.

The bunch of daisies hit her thigh at the same time a
V
appeared between her brows. “Why?”

Riley swallowed and lifted his chin, staring straight at her. “Because I wanted you to know that you mean the same to me.”

“The same?” Lexie whispered.

“All the world.”

For the first time ever, Riley watched as a flush of beautiful pink washed over her cheeks. She shifted on her feet and dipped her chin as though hiding a smile. “Oh.”

“So,” he breathed and lifted his chest. “I know I’ve been a jerk, but I wanted to ask . . . would you go to the dance with me?”

The smile started at her eyes and drifted down her cheeks to her mouth. Her mouth, which Riley suddenly had the urge to kiss. His lungs squeezed.

“Okay,” she answered quietly.

Riley blinked, meeting her stare. “Okay?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

Riley grinned at her sassy tone. The tone he loved to needle out of her at every opportunity. “Yeah. Okay. Great!”

“Alexis!” Mr. Pierce’s voice came from the depths of the house, sounding even more amused. “Tell that boy to go home. You have schoolwork to do, and then we’re going to Grandma’s.”

“Okay, Dad,” she called back, still smiling. She turned to Riley and whispered, “I’ll come over when we get back.”

And without another word, she leaned over and kissed his cheek. Before Riley could do or say anything, Lexie giggled, clutched the daisies to her chest, and closed the door.

“Dad’s awake.”

Tate’s voice drew Riley from a deep sleep filled with sweet and vivid memories of daisies, dances, and pink dresses.

As though it were just yesterday, Riley remembered him and his parents picking Lexie up the night of the dance, her amazing dress, the coy glances and torturously fleeting touches, and finally,
finally
getting so close to her that he was unable to resist placing his mouth on hers. Their first kiss.
His
first kiss. She’d been so damned soft, and the taste of vanilla had made his head spin. He’d gripped her waist as she’d squeezed his arm, hoping to God that he was doing it right. Because it had felt
so
right. It always had with her.

The kiss had lasted mere seconds but when they broke apart, breathing heavily and both a little dazed, Riley had known, from the look in her eyes, that everything between them had changed.

He opened his own eyes to find Tate standing at the side of his bed. It was early. The sun had yet to hit his bedroom window, which it always did from 8 a.m., but Tate was fully dressed. Despite his not being an active Marine in over five years, he was still usually up before sunrise.