Only in My Dreams by Darcy Burke Page A

her hands. “And judging from the condition of the edges, I’d say it’s a little more than a habit.”
    â€œA compulsion, you mean?” She felt a jolt of defensiveness. Most people didn’t get the things she did to regulate herself—the fiddling, the squeezing and compressing, the lingering in quiet corners. “It’s part of my sensory disorder.”
    â€œWhat disorder?”
    â€œYou don’t remember from high school?” People may not have known the specifics, but she’d been Quirky Sara with her odd ticks and aloofness.
    â€œNo. Tell me.” He’d been a senior when she was a freshman, so it was likely he’d never been aware of her reputation. In fact, nobody might have been aware of her at all if it hadn’t been for Liam, Tori, and Kyle, who’d been insanely popular.
    â€œIt’s kind of hard to explain.” And she didn’t really want to get into it, especially with him when she was trying to keep things professional. “Forget I mentioned it.”
    â€œI think this is the second time you’ve brushed this off. If I’m remembering right, you were going to say something about it at Sidewinders.”
    She cast him a sidelong glance. “Uh-oh, you broke the Vegas Rules.”
    He laughed. “My bad. I guess we should be pretending we didn’t meet each other that night at all.”
    Should they? That’s what Vegas Rules sort of implied and that whole night was supposed to be locked in a vault. Too bad it kept leaping into her head at the slightest provocation. “I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty hard for me to do. I can separate it from our relationship now, but I can’t forget it.” I hope . She stopped herself before she said anything more, like how great it had been.
    She snuck another look at him, saw him watching her, and quickly snapped her gaze forward.
    â€œI get you. Vegas Rules in full effect.”
    Eager for a safer topic, she asked, “Sounds like you and my mom had a good chat on your drive.”
    â€œI don’t know if it was good, but it wasn’t bad. Actually, I offered to distract her, but I wasn’t very good at it.”
    She sensed from his tone that his heart was in the right place. “I’m sure you tried. It’s hard to avoid the subject. It’s consuming her.”
    â€œI can see that. I gave her some advice from the army. Rely on yourself, find inspiration within.”
    â€œThat’s what the army taught you?”
    â€œAmong other things, but yeah. Trust and believe in yourself. All that crap.”
    She laughed, slowing for a red light. “You gave my mom crap advice?”
    â€œNo,” he said with a touch of humor. “It sounds like crap, but it actually does work. At least for me.”
    The light turned green, and she pressed the accelerator. “Tell me about the army.”
    â€œThere’s not a lot to tell—bad food, tedious assignments, really boring outfits.”
    She laughed again, enjoying his company more than she wanted to. It would be so much easier to keep him at arm’s length if he weren’t charming and funny. “You cared about the clothes?”
    â€œOkay, not that much. But my ex complained about doing the laundry. She stopped doing it after the first year.” He winced slightly, as if he wished he hadn’t said that.
    Sara didn’t want him to feel bad—she dealt with enough of that already. He was her light spot, someone she could forget about her troubles with and . . . be someone different. Wait, was that true? “So she divorced you over laundry? I can see that. I’m putting that in my prenup—each spouse must do his or her own laundry.”
    â€œI don’t mind that. I actually don’t hate laundry. You should see my washer and dryer.”
    Was that some sort of invitation? Or at least the verbalization that maybe someday she’d