I think I might black out.
Looking away from him again before I climb right on top of his lap in my front seat, I shake my head back and forth. “Sorry, can’t think about that right now,” I tell him, taking a deep, calming breath as I reach for my door handle.
“Oh yeah? And why is that?” The humor is strong in his voice, and I actually feel a little bad for crushing his dreams right now.
Ovaries: And ours. Let’s not forget about ours, you dream-killing bitch.
“Oh, because I have to make a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound German Shepherd, which only knows German commands, stop trying to eat my brother, who he currently has pinned to the ground in the middle of the street.”
I hear Dax mutter a quiet “Oh shit” as I scramble out of the car, saved once again from having to come up with a reason why I can’t date him.
I have officially run out of reasons.
CHAPTER 12
Why Are You Hugging a Tree?
Harley
Dax: I’m just saying, the next time you’re gonna shout German commands like a boss, you need to warn a man.
Me: You’re being ridiculous.
Dax: The situation in my pants last night was ridiculous. You were like a hot German dominatrix. My balls got excited and shriveled up in fear at the same time. It was fascinating.
Me: Why are you like this? There was nothing hot about me screaming at a scary police K9 to get off my brother.
Dax: You didn’t scream. You commanded. In the middle of the goddamn street, stopping traffic, with your hands on your hips and the wind billowing your hair out behind you, while on-lookers cheered your name when you effortlessly took control of the beast and saved your brother. Like a fucking German warrior queen. That’s hot.
Me: I was on my hands and knees in the grass, because I tripped over the curb. There was one guy on his porch who said, “Get off my fucking lawn, you weirdo!” And I mixed up the commands for “heel” and “attack,” because they both start with F. I still don’t know why in the hell the officer felt the need to even teach me the word for attack. That was just asking for trouble.
Dax: You are seriously ruining my fantasy. RUINING IT. Quick, yell at me in German.
Me: You’re exhausting.
Dax: I left a present on your desk that will perk you right up. When you get time today, stop by the sanctuary so we can discuss. Well, I left the present on the filing cabinet next to your desk. Your desk was filled with an alarming amount of crabs. With very large, googly eyes in place of their real eyes.
Me: Oh no. You’ve seen your birthday present. Act surprised when my dad gives it to you.
Dax: Fuck yeah! I’m getting a party box? He really does like me. Wait, crabs? Should I be worried that your dad is giving me crabs? Charlie Blake’s been a naughty boy it seems.
Me: First of all, never type or even think that sentence again. Second, he did some research and found out otters eat crabs, and you love otters, who eat crabs. So, there you go. I’m going to work now. Leave me alone and stop bothering me. Sitz! Bleib!
Dax: Marry me.
I’m still smiling as I walk into my dad’s garage office, staring down at my phone screen after telling Dax to sit and stay in German. I should have walked into the office fifteen minutes ago, but I’ve been sitting out in my car, continuing the text conversation Dax started with me when I woke up this morning. I try to tell myself I’m only in such a great mood because of the strawberry and blueberry cream cheese crepes I ate for breakfast that Dax gave me before I left him last night to return the German Shepherd to his owner, but that would be a lie.
I guess I’m done lying to myself now or some shit.
“What are you so smiley about?” my dad asks from the couch when the door slams shut behind me, the corner of this morning’s paper pulled back from his face as he looks across the room at me.
I quickly wipe the dumb grin off my face and shove my phone in my back pocket as I walk over to the filing cabinet.
“Nothing. I’m not smiley.”
Not done lying to my dad yet, I see though.
“Got a text from the girly man, did ya?” He chuckles, making my blood suddenly start to boil.
“Will you stop calling him that? It’s getting annoying. His name is Dax. Use it or stop talking about him.”
My dad slowly lowers the rest of the newspaper down onto his lap, and Davidson’s face slowly peeks into the doorway from the kitchen, an entire bagel sticking out of his mouth. At least I think it’s a bagel. It’s the same color as a hockey puck.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, turning away from both of their wide, stunned eyes to look down at the stack of mail and the small Tupperware container on top of the filing cabinet.
The silence in the room stretches on for so long that I can’t take it anymore. With a sigh, I look back over my shoulder to find my dad and brother still in the exact same poses.
“I’m gonna mess this up,” I whisper when no one says anything.
“No, you won’t,” my dad reassures me.
“Oh absolutely,” Davidson says at the same time.
My dad grabs a pillow from the couch and chucks it at Davidson, hitting him square in the face and knocking the hockey puck out of his mouth.
“Goddammit! It took me an hour and an entire dozen to not catch one on fire!” Davidson complains, snatching his burnt bagel from the ground before disappearing into the kitchen. “Five second rule, bitches!”
Once he’s gone, I turn away from my dad to pull the Tupperware container closer, the ones with the blue lids that Dax always uses. When I open one corner of the lid to peek inside, I moan at the smell of homemade brownies. Wondering why we need to discuss brownies at The Backyard today, I quickly close the lid when I hear my dad come up next to me.
“Dax helped me put all my party boxes in the basement yesterday, so they aren’t cluttering up the office anymore,” he says, making sure to stress the use of Dax’s name.
I glance around the room and realize that aside from the googly-eyed crabs cluttering the top of my desk, there aren’t any other dead animals staring at me in their wooden, dead animal boxes.
“The other day when he was dropping off that security footage, he ran me up to the emergency room so you wouldn’t have to.”
“What?” I shout, looking him over from head to toe for injuries.
My dad shoos me away with his hands when I notice one of his fingers wrapped with medical gauze and tape.
“It’s fine. It was no big deal. There was a crab I thought was dead that wasn’t really dead, and he didn’t appreciate the tiny T-shirt I was trying to put on him that said Don’t Be Crabby. In conclusion, I got two stitches in my finger when he clamped on and wouldn’t let go, and we now have a pet in the guest bathroom tub that Davidson named Leonardo Da Pinchi.”
My dad doesn’t even give me time to process this insane information before continuing. “He taught Davidson how to use the toaster.”
My eyebrows rise questioningly while I stare at my dad, wondering if the burning sensation I’ve been feeling in my nostrils since I walked in is temporary or if I’ll be smelling all the bagels Davidson torched for the rest of my life.
“Fine, so the toaster is taking a while to catch on.” My dad sighs. “But he’s got boiling water down pat, and that only took three hours for Dax to teach him on Monday, while you were meeting with that zoo all day.”