LOSING IT ALL //HAYLEY PARKER

20

~LOSING IT ALL~

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20| DALE'S INTERROGATION
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I JERK AWAY FROM HIS TOUCH like it scalds me and shift uneasily in my Ugg boots. "I still don't understand what you're going on about, Dale." I respond as casually as possible.

Dale steps closer, his expression dire. "I know he's your boyfriend and you want to protect him, but assaulting you?—" Thick eyebrows quirks upward in a stretch of emphasis. "—That's not something you hide, Hayley."

I unearth my hands from my jacket pockets, fold them across my chest and adopt an exaggerated intransigent pose. "Assault?" I start, a neatly crafted brow tilted. "What do you mean?"

Dale watches me gingerly for a moment. Small dark brown eyes squinting but clearly reevaluating the situation. I avert my gaze from his, afraid to give away my false pretense. "Are you hungry?" He suddenly asks, and I, bemused by the change in subject don't know what to make of it.

"No." I lie. I had woken up so early this morning having suffered a brutal stroke of emotional purgatory last night, and since I didn't want to explain whatever transpired between my conversation with Jayden to anyone, had decide to take a stroll to the subway without even bothering to take anything.

I didn't even realize it until Dale broach on the subject. I'm famished, literally. But, in other to escape the foreseen unavoidable discussion about Jayden with him, I'm not going to admit it to him.

"Here I thought we were friends." He says, looking somewhat rebuff. "I'm not taking no for an answer, Hayley Parker. Let's go grab a bite."

Reluctantly, I tag along after him after a good few minutes of verbally arguing on the subject. No matter what I won't tell him. How'll I tell him Jayden accused me of being intimate with him? It is foolish to even think about it.

We ordered cappuccinos and croissants with honey on an outdoor patio of a bistro with a very spectacular view. Dale remains painfully quiet, watching me keenly as I starvingly devour on my breakfast.

"You're staring too much." I finally break the silence, reaching out for some paper napkins. Our eyes meets and my pulse spikes as the look in his sun-glinted eyes. A tiny frown is staunchly pleated between his long black brows. Apart from the unnerving look in his dusky eyes, his face remains impassive.

"What's it?" I ask, physically affected by his stare. "Is there anything on my face? Where?" I fumble fruitlessly with the napkin, dapping the corners of my mouth, on my cheeks and on my chin.

He gaze skitters at my frame, laconically, languidly, and a wave of anxiety spreads through my body. I bite my bottom lip, trying my hardest to suppress the gasps that lodges in my throat.

"Where'd he hurt you?" He asks, his deep voice low and groggy with a roughness that tints with frustration.

I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. So, I clamp my lips shut and instead allow a nervous cackle to erupt from my throat. This is frustrating, like hell!

His eyes lays on me unwaveringly, and my stomach tightens into a knot. Fuck this, doesn't he know what his gaze does to me? If Jayden sees this there's no denying that I really like this guy. I don't think I would deny it either.

Dale leans over, raise his hand tentatively and put his fingers lightly on my cheek. My nostrils flares as I squirm into my stool at the contact.

"He's a fool to treat you lightly." He says, half-in-a-whisper, half-as-though-he's-talking-to-himself. My stomach dips as the disclosure, and I quickly swallow back the sentiments that threatens to overwhelm me.

Lowering his hand, he cocks his face and warily tries to gauge my expression. "Are you sure that he didn't hurt you, Hayley?"

I nod quickly. What's wrong with you. I deprecate inwardly, he won't believe you if you don't act cool and casual. Stupid fool.

He hums under his throat, and my heart flutters at the deep resonance that erupts with the action. "Okay, so, you guys are cool, right?"

I nod quickly again. Fan-fucking-tastic!

"All right." He says, blinding me with his signature smile that flashes his painfully cute dimples beside his mouth. "I've started browsing for couches for the studio apartment." He says, picking up a spoon and appears to examine it before lowering it into his coffee.

My eyebrows quirks with real enthusiasm. "Really, what'd you pick?" I rhapsodize.

He stares warily at me for a second with a curious but guarded eyes, and then picks up his phone, turns it around and shows me a picture displayed on his screen. It is a gray willow II slipcovered sofa with a 2-piece right arm chaise sectional. Very masculine.

A sigh of relief puffs involuntarily from Dale's lips when a bright smile stretches across my face. Do I make him nervous? I quip inwardly.

"I like it." I enthuse, giving him a double thumbs up.

"If you like it, then I must've made the right choice." He replies proudly. My head echoes with a pounding of my pulse, and my chest feels so tight it is almost so difficult to breathe. A deep blush grudgingly rushes to my face.

"Yes, you've." I say simply.

His gaze fondly skitters over my face again, and when our eyes collides, I swear there's a darkly brewing dust of desire in his mahogany eyes.

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