I let out a low whistle when he finishes talking. “Your dad?” I ask him in shock.
“Yep.” He nods.
“Holy shit. Did hell freeze over and no one told me?”
The corner of his mouth tips up in a barely there smile, and I quickly realize I made yet another mistake with this man. The last time I saw him, I was busting my ass trying to pretend I didn’t remember one minute of our night together at McCallahan’s or anything that was said between us. My shock that his father is the anonymous donor just blew that right out of the water.
“No one touched Bart’s top hat, did they? It needs another hour to dry, and I ran out of glue,” my dad announces as he walks down the steps from off the kitchen, and hustles right by Dax and over to his desk, where he removes a little bottle of glue from a brown paper sack in his hands.
I don’t know why I was so worried about hiding the boxes of horror before Dax got here. The pure confusion on his face as he looks around the office and suddenly realizes he’s been surrounded by animal corpses this entire time, frozen in joyous poses, is worth all my previous stress.
“You like my party boxes? I sell them for one-fifty a pop,” my dad tells him as he glances up from his desk to find Dax still looking around the room with his mouth wide-open. “You look like a bargaining man, but I won’t go any lower than one-twenty-five.”
“Dad, no one wants to buy your party boxes.” I sigh as my father walks over to stand next to Dax, who moved to get a closer look down into a box on the floor next to one of the file cabinets.
A box filled with two taxidermy white mice sitting at a tiny wooden table with a lace doily covering it and has a miniature candelabra and Ouija board on top of it.
“That’s Agnes Micerton and her friend Merlin Squeaks, trying to summon Merlin’s grandmother, God rest her tiny soul. You look more like a reptile man,” my dad states, turning his head to look Dax up and down. “I can show you something in the frog orchestra variety down in the basement if that piques your interest.”
Realizing I need to intervene, since Dax still hasn’t figured out how to form words again yet, I walk over to the two men, grabbing Dax by the arm and pulling him away from the dead mouse séance. Pointing him in the direction of the old leather couch and two waiting room chairs surrounding the coffee table in the far corner, I silently invite him to take a seat, far away from the pet cemetery boxes, before turning away from him to deal with my father.
“Dad, I need you to take whatever box of horrors you’re currently working on and leave the office. I have a client.”
“Call them horror boxes one more time, and you won’t get the goldfish Mardi Gras parade I’ve been working on for your birthday,” he warns me with a wag of his finger.
“Oh darn,” I reply with an expressionless face.
“I even got tiny little beads, and tiny little plastic Hurricane glasses for them to drink out of in the streets, while they do unmentionable things for the beads. Have some respect.”
I open my mouth to tell him to get lost again, when his eyes suddenly narrow and he takes a step closer to me.
“There’s something different about you,” he ponders, studying my face.
“Yeah, my hair.” I sigh in exasperation. “Can you find somewhere else—”
“No. It’s not your hair,” my dad interrupts, still looking at me curiously.
“It really is my hair. It’s blonde now. Nice to see you’re paying attention.”
“Nope, definitely not the hair. It’s your face. There’s something different about your face.”
My scalp gets all tingly and itchy under his perusal, and I want to punch myself in the face for acting like such a girl today.
The cream, cable knit, oversized sweater I paired with light-brown suede ankle boots and skinny jeans looked cute enough when I left the house this morning. The sweater now has a giant coffee stain right over my stomach after Davidson smacked my arm holding the cup while I was driving, and the jeans now have a huge ketchup stain on the thigh from when I was trying to eat my lunch in the car while driving between appointments. I didn’t have time to change my outfit, but I could at least make my face somewhat presentable.
God. Dammit. He doesn’t notice my hair for forever, but he notices I put on some makeup in the car on the drive over here for this stupid meeting with Dax. Like a girl!
“Okay, nice chatting with you, Dad. Like I said, I have a client,” I remind him, nodding back over my shoulder in the direction of the sitting area, hoping to pull his attention away from my stupid, girly, makeup-covered face.
“Hello,” I hear Dax’s deep voice greet my dad from entirely too close behind me, when he’s supposed to be on the other side of the room, relaxing on the damn couch.
“He’s a client? I thought he was a new boyfriend, what with your face and all.”
I let out a low groan when I hear Dax chuckle softly behind me.
“He’s definitely a client, not a boyfriend,” I speak through clenched teeth.
“Good,” Dad says before addressing Dax over my shoulder. “She tends to neglect those.”
“It’s time for you to go now,” I warn him again.
“I’m just saying; it’s good for him he’s just a client. At the very least, you’ll remember his name. Is this the guy with the bear issue? He looks like a guy who could wrestle a few bears.”
“Dax, this is my father, Charlie Blake. Dad, this is Dax Trevino,” I regrettably introduce him to my father, giving Dax a quick look of apology over my shoulder before looking back at my dad and lowering my voice to a whisper. “From the 9-1-1 phone call this morning.”
“Awww, fuck,” I hear Dax mutter when my dad’s face breaks out into a huge smile.
“The girly man who wouldn’t stop crying? No shit? You aren’t gonna start crying again, are you?”
Dax clears his throat behind me, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him move around to stand next to me, holding his hand out for my father to shake.
“It’s nice to meet you, sir, and no. No, I will not start crying again. I think I’ve managed to get ahold of myself now,” Dax reassures him as my dad drops his hand.
“Just making sure. Harley has a tendency to make men cry.”
Dax chuckles, and I scoff in protest.
“Do you have any idea how many men I’ve had to console over the years?” my dad argues.
“Give me a break. The answer is zero. Also, this is completely unprofessional and not something that should be discussed in front of a client,” I mutter, hoping he’ll finally shut up and go away.
“No, please, continue,” Dax encourages my father with a smile. “Pretend like I’m not even here.”
It only took me fifteen minutes to regret wanting the old Dax back. That’s got to be a record.
“Todd Shaffer,” my dad states, holding one finger up in the air as he nods at Dax. “He had to spend the night on my damn couch after she broke up with him, because he was crying so hard. Couldn’t trust the kid to drive himself home.”
“First of all, this happened like fifteen years ago. And in my defense, his dog was hit by a car that day.”
“Do you need me to explain what the word defense means?” Dax asks, looking down at me with one eyebrow raised, and surprise, surprise, the stupid smirking dimple in his cheek.