“Oh, I love soccer. Especially women’s soccer. The men? They’re good for nothing. Now the foreign players…”

I swallowed and let my mom’s words run down my back. I wasn’t going to let her bother me. But somehow Dallas happened to meet my eyes and we both just stared at each other. I smiled at him tightly, and I was surprised to see him smile back just as tightly.

* * *

I wanted to cry.

Looking out on the mess in the lawn, I felt a sob that consisted mostly of me being extra tired, fighting its way up through my insides. Somehow, someway, I managed to keep it down.

The backyard was a fucking mess. God help me. But I wasn’t going to cry over it, no matter how badly I might want to, and that was really, really badly.

The party had moved into the house when the mosquitoes had come out hours ago, and I hadn’t bothered turning on the outside lights after the moonwalk had been picked up. I hadn’t wanted to see the damage and not be able to do anything about it, and I was suddenly regretting sending everyone home without forcing them to stay and help clean.

Now seeing it… it honestly looked like Woodstock after everyone had trashed the place. The yard had shit all over it, one of the trash bags had been torn open by possibly Mac, the grass was trampled… even the tree… there was something hanging from it, and I had a feeling it wasn’t a streamer.

It was awful.

“Diana?” Dallas’s dark head of hair was sticking out of the back door of the kitchen.

It startled me, and I forced a tense smile on my face that was 95 percent fake. “Hey. I thought you left.” Hours ago, I remembered seeing him take off with Miss Pearl and holding up a hand when he caught me looking from across the yard where I’d been busy talking to the neighbors next door.

“I did,” he confirmed, closing the door behind him as he paused on the stoop and swept his gaze over the yard. His eyes went wide and his “Oh shit” seemed to come straight out of my own mouth.

“Uh-huh” was all I could answer without bursting into tears.

It was a mess.

It was a fucking mess.

I thought I might have choked a little as I took it in one more time.

“You okay?” he asked.

I couldn’t even look at him. The yard had me in a trance. “Sure.”

“You’re not okay,” was the statement that came out of his mouth, dry and serious and so, so, so true.

I opened my mouth and swallowed the thick saliva that pooled in my throat. “It’s terrible.” I gasped. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

He started to shake his head before stopping the motion and nodding instead. “Yeah.”

Well, at least he wasn’t bullshitting me.

I wouldn’t cry over grass. I wouldn’t. I just couldn’t. At least not in front of anyone.

A hand briefly touched my shoulder, nearly enough to get me to turn away from the aftermath of a nuclear bomb my beloved backyard had turned into. “Hey. It’ll still be there tomorrow. Don’t worry about it tonight.”

The little bit of neat freak in me sobbed that I couldn’t leave it until the next day. I didn’t want to wake up knowing what lay outside the door. But as I stared at it, I was fully aware that it would take hours to clean up. Hours and hours and a few more hours. All the swallowing in the world didn’t do enough to help my suddenly swollen throat get any smaller.

“Diana?” Dallas kind of laughed. “Are you about to cry?”

“No.” I didn’t even believe myself.

Obviously, he didn’t either because one of those rare, belly laughs of his escaped him. “I don’t have anything to do tomorrow. You, me, and the boys can knock it out.”

I couldn’t look away from the destruction, no matter how hard I tried. “It’s okay,” I mumbled, swallowing an imaginary golf ball again. “I got it.”

There was a pause. A sigh. “I know you got it, but I’ll help.” There was another pause. “I’m offering.”

He’d used that soft, smooth tone that seemed so… inappropriate on his raspy voice, and it made me glance at him, sniffling. Since when had I become this person who was the annoying kind of stubborn and didn’t accept help? I hated people like that. “I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you,” I admitted.

It was too dark to tell whether he was staring me down or not. “You’re not taking advantage. I’m offering. I’ve been up since five, and I’m about to keel over. All I’m asking is that you don’t make me stay up all night and half tomorrow morning cleaning up. We’ll do it first thing.”

I must have taken too long to answer because he crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his chin down. I didn’t look at his big biceps. “I won’t bail,” he seemed to promise, making me move my gaze away.

A small, tiny part of me didn’t want to take his promise seriously.

That must have been apparent because Dallas kept going. “You look exhausted too, and Louie is already passed out on the couch. If he hears you doing stuff out here, he’ll eventually wake up and wanna come help.” I think he might have coughed. “I know you’re not planning on molesting me, okay?”

I was so upset I couldn’t even laugh. But in that moment, the exhaustion overwhelmed my inner OCD, and I nodded.

“You need help with anything else that isn’t….” He lifted a hand and vaguely pointed to the disaster zone I suddenly didn’t want to look at any longer.

“No. Not really. I have some food to put up, but that’s about it. Thanks.” Closing both eyes, I reached up to pinch the tip of my nose and thought for a second, opening one eyelid in his direction. “Did you forget something?”

Tipping his head toward the door, he answered, “No. I just got home from meeting up with some old friends in town and was in my garage about to go inside when I saw everybody had left. I wanted to check and make sure you were all good. Josh let me in.” He slid his gaze toward the yard again and winced.

For the sake of my mental health, I told myself I’d imagined it.

I also made sure not to make a big deal about him wanting to come over and make sure I was good. Nope. I wasn’t going to think about that for one single second more. How many times had he told me he owed me by that point?

“You have a shit ton of dirty dishes. You scrub and I’ll rinse,” he offered unexpectedly.

What the hell was happening? Had he backed into my car, felt guilty, and was now trying to make it up to me? “You don’t have to do that—”

“I haven’t eaten food that good in a long time, and I have two days’ worth of dinner in the fridge your mom made me take home. I can rinse some dishes, and if you got any beer left, I’ll take one afterward. Deal?”

Maybe he had hit my car. Or broken something. I didn’t get why he was being so nice. Two days of food didn’t seem like enough of a reason to go out of his way, especially when just about everyone had taken off with leftovers. But…

I sighed and made sure to meet his eyes. “You really don’t have to be this nice to us.”

Dallas’s head tilted to the side just a little, and I could tell he let out his own breath in what might have been resignation. “I know it’s tough being a single parent, Diana. I don’t mind helping,” he said. He shrugged those broad, muscular shoulders. “You three remind me of my family when I was a kid,” he explained, smiling almost sadly. “It’s no huge burden helping you out and getting fed at the same time.”