I watch the dog gobble down the bacon and then place the tray beside me on the bed, doing what he says. I have no freaking clue what Dex has planned. We don’t tend to go all out on each other’s birthdays, which keeps things really low-pressure for the both of us.
I hear him come into the room, feel his presence beside me.
“Open your eyes,” he says.
God, it’s going to be his dick, isn’t it? I knew that butt stuff would come back to haunt me.
But when I open my eyes, it’s not his cock he’s holding.
It’s a motherfucking Twinkie with a cigarette.
“What on earth?” I say, laughing.
“Happy birthday, kiddo,” he says to me, placing the small plate in my hands. “I’ll get rid of that.” He plucks the lit cigarette out of the Twinkie, and pops the end into his mouth, giving me a salacious grin. “Mmm, sure beats menthol.”
My eyes go wide as he inhales. “What are you doing? You can’t smoke inside.”
Or, like at all, considering he’s quit a million times already.
“I’ll put it out,” he says, the smoke falling from his mouth as he smiles at me. “Just let me have my moment.” Then he gets up, heading to the kitchen. “You better eat the damn thing. It’s symbolic.”
I pick up the Twinkie and peer at it. Never did understand the appeal.
“Put the cigarette out!” I yell, knowing he’s taking his sweet time trying to suck back as much of it as he can. “And don’t tell me you had to buy a whole pack just for this.”
I hear the sink run and then he comes back into the bedroom, looking proud rather than sheepish.
He moves the tray out of the way and gets on the bed beside me, so we’re sitting shoulder to shoulder, then he takes the Twinkie and breaks it in half, handing me one part. He smells like smoke, and the scent of that combined with the yellow confection takes me way back.
“Can you believe this was four years ago,” I tell him, cautiously nibbling on it. I can taste the chemicals.
“Time fucking flies,” he says.
I turn my face to his, marveling for a moment at how far we’ve come. If I stare at him long enough, I can imagine his eyebrow ring back in place. He does wear it sometimes. He’s more beardy now than he was then, but aside from some laugh lines around his eyes and a little grey scattered in his hair, he looks the same as he did back on my twenty-third birthday on D’Arcy Island.
Only difference is now I know what every little scar or mark on his face is from, I know how many different shades of red and gold are flecked in his dark brown eyes, I know that his eyelashes get longer in the summer (the fucking bastard, it isn’t fair), and that there’s a tiny patch on his beard that just doesn’t seem to grow in as thick as the rest. I know that his mouth is just as expressive as his eyes are and what every little curve and twitch and movement means.
He raises a brow, conscious of how close I’m staring at him. “Admiring how handsome I am?”
My heart feels like it’s blooming. “Why does it feel like I just met you? And when I first met you, why did it feel like I’d known you my whole life?”
His mouth curves into a warm smile. “I know you believe in soulmates.”
“Don’t you?”
“I didn’t until I met you,” he says, placing his palm on my thigh. “But to be honest, sometimes I think there’s something deeper than soulmates. That’s just shit that someone made up. Probably Hallmark.”
“Then what do you think it is?”
He shrugs. “Maybe we knew each other in another life.”
“Like a past life?”
“Or a parallel one. All I know is that I have you in this one. I can only hope that all those other versions of myself are just as fucking lucky. They’d be nothing without you, baby.”
My blooming heart continues to unfurl.
Dex, I want to start a family.
The words dance on my tongue. Everything in this moment is right and I’m this close to just projecting those words into his head so I don’t have to conjure up the courage to say it.
But then he takes my half of the Twinkie, pops it into his mouth, and grins at me with his mouth full, like a complete goofball.
“I can’t get too sappy you on you,” he says as he chews, climbing off the bed. “I’ll lose all my street cred.”
“You’re a moment ruiner, you know that?” I mumble.
“So I’ve been told,” he says cheerfully. “Come on, we have a bit of work to do before we head to Portland. And you have some brandy to finish off. I want you good and drunk all day.”
The drunk part sounds good, especially after what happened last night. But I play it safe. Yes, I have another cup of coffee with brandy in it, then Dex and I get to work. I answer a few emails from clients, schedule some videos that Dex has to shoot in the coming weeks, then we sit down together and go over some of the footage that we shot last night.
It’s pretty fucking good. I mean, I sound like a total amateur but we can just cut me out and do some voice over work instead. But the blood running under the door, the banging, the EMF meter going nuts, the door down the hall swinging open by itself, all of it is on here. Of course, people will say it’s fake, but even if a literal ghost showed itself to us on camera, people will dismiss it and say it’s CGI anyway.
“Well, what do you think?” he asks me as he turns the computer off. “Think we have something here?”
“Maybe. The start of something anyway. If she communicates with us.”
“I have no doubt she will. There’s something about that house that…”
“What?”
“I don’t want to freak you out because so far, I’m really loving how involved and interested you’re being in all of this. But with Atlas and Harry lying about god knows what, the mysterious mother, not to mention whoever else the fuck is in that house, well…I just think there’s a lot going on and a lot to uncover. It might get fucking scary.”
“Might get scary?” I repeat. “Don’t pretend you weren’t scared shitless when you got locked in that room.”
He studies me for a moment. “And you were surprisingly calm and collected, considering.”
I give him a tiny smile. “Someone has to be.”
He laughs, eyes wide. “Okay, now you’ve earned two spankings today.”
He makes a grab for me, but I giggle and run out of our office and into the bedroom to pack.
Even though we’re just staying at my father’s house for a night, we’ve got two nights at Cannon Beach after at some super romantic resort that Dex booked. I’m not sure what super romantic means coming out of his mouth, but maybe it’s where we were supposed to stay for our wedding anniversary a few weeks ago, which got postponed.
Either way, I’m looking forward to getting away for a few days. Rebecca and Lucinda are staying here to take care of the dog, so really it’ll be like our first vacation in a long time.
When I’m packed, and Dex has just thrown a bunch of shit in a duffle bag and called it a day, we bid adieu to Fat Rabbit and head down to the underground garage. We have just stepped off the elevator when Dex tells me he’s forgotten something. He gives me the keys to the Highlander and gets back on the elevator.