Roll the Dice

sixteen. dulce de leche

[Dedicated to Chanel, who I remember reading so many of my books consistently, not only Roll the Dice, but also Excuse my French. I hope that you know that I so appreciate everything you've done to support me, and you're one of my favorite commenters!]

Everything came back to the park where Cara and I usually chose to do our training runs over the summer. That was a little funny in a way—it wasn't like it was the most spectacular park I'd ever seen. If anyone asked me when and why I liked to run there, I'd spout out a little something like, "My time of day is the dark time just a couple deals before dawn..."

That was exactly what I puffed out to Dom when he asked me those particular questions as we jogged along the paved path through the towering trees.

"What?" he huffed out, a hand through his hair.

Both of our bodies were glistening with sweat, even in the early morning like this, and I closed my eyes a little as a breeze blew through the tendrils of my hair. It was nice to run like this with the familiar ache in my thighs—even if it was with Dom, who, I hesitated to admit, was overtaking me.

And I was the cross country runner!

I was going to whip out another quote from Guys and Dolls, but then I realized that he hadn't asked me for that.

"That was actually a rather clever quote from the musical," I said to him out of the corner of my mouth. I took in one large breath and breathed it out evenly—that was the key to running. His expression remained so flat as I watched his face. "What? You can't even admit that was pretty awesome?"

Dom's mouth twitched even though his eyes remained steely.

I smacked his arm with the back of my hand. "Do you want me to spit out another quote? Because I could totally do that, if you really, really would like me to do so—"

"Save me the pain," Dom puffed out as he rolled his eyes. "Really, after three weeks, you still can't take the hint—I do not want to be exposed to your damn musical more than I have to."

I gasped. "All right, first, I've got to say that you are completely wrong regarding that aspect. I don't know how long it will take me to drill that into your dense little head." Dom sent me a flat look. "You have to appreciate the complexity of the fantastic characters that Runyon wrote up." When I caught Dom's now blank face, I rolled my eyes at him. "I didn't teach you anything, did I? Runyon's the writer who wrote up the stories that inspired the musical, and thus, the movie."

By the way Dom let out the longest sigh through his nose, I guessed one out of two things: first, he was either bad at running (which was impossible because of soccer), and second, he probably still hated Guys and Dolls.

Life sucked.

"Well, let's take the main characters to start off with." I shrugged, taking a breath through my mouth. It was a good thing we were going on an easy jog because I was always bad at maintaining a conversation, especially a long one requiring much time and energy and fervor and passion, while running. When Dom rolled his eyes to look up at the still brightening sky, I smacked him again. "Pay attention! This is essential to your cultural edification."

"Stop hitting me," Dom grumbled. He rubbed his reddening arm—and that drew my attention to the tight tank he had on and, in turn, his tan, muscled arms. And it also made me beg the question: what in the world was he doing to get them?

Then, it brought me to a different realization: why wasn't I hitting on him?

(Why did I want to hit on him? Right—because I was so close to him now, and I'd never gotten this close to him ever.)