Something tight and scratchy starts clawing at my throat, making it hard for me to swallow while my dad continues telling me stuff I wondered about over the last week but didn’t know with absolute certainty. I haven’t had to put out my dad and Davidson’s fires over the last week, because Dax has been doing it. Literally.
“I’m scared,” I finally admit after a few quiet minutes. “I like him. What if it doesn’t work out? I don’t exactly have a great track record.”
“Do you think if I’d know your mom and me weren’t gonna work out, that I would have done things any differently? That I wouldn’t have taken that chance?”
“It would have saved you from having an emotionally stunted daughter and a loser for a son.” I shrug.
“I am not a loser!” Davidson yells from somewhere in the kitchen. “Dax says I’m just not living up to my full potential!”
“Oh my God,” I mutter when my dad laughs.
“See? Look at all the good he’s done in just a week. Imagine what he could do with your brother in a month or even a year?”
“Dax isn’t here to teach Davidson how to become a fully functioning adult,” I remind him.
“Of course not, it’s just an added bonus. I also got to cuddle an otter the other day. I’d like to continue doing that for the foreseeable future, so try not to forget his name anytime soon.”
“Seriously,” Davidson says, sticking his head back in the room from the kitchen. “Don’t screw it up. We like him. He uses his inside voice with us. You’re mean.”
“Fuck off.”
“See?” Davidson complains. “Dax would have told me to kindly remove myself from the room. So that’s what I’m gonna do before you say something to me you’ll regret.”
“Fuck. Off!” I yell at the top of my lungs when he goes back in the kitchen, just because it feels good and it’s better than crying with all these overwhelming emotions I’m feeling.
“You’ll be fine. Just keep remembering his name, and everything will work out. Left the mail there on the cabinet, if you want to go through it.”
Grabbing the stack of mail from the top of the filing cabinet, I flip through it quickly as my dad goes back over to the couch to finish reading his paper. When I see two postcards in between the bills and junk mail, I set everything else down, wondering who we know that went on vacation. One’s from Texas, with a picture of the Alamo on it, and one’s from Virginia Beach, with a picture of the hotel boardwalk and ocean on it. Flipping them over, I quickly read the messages on the back of them, my heart starting to beat a little faster with excitement.
Grabbing a brownie out of the Tupperware container and popping it into my mouth, I groan in satisfaction when the chocolate hits my tongue. Putting the lid back on, I wave a quick goodbye to my dad and head to the door. Thinking better of it, I backtrack halfway there to grab the brownies to take with me before racing outside.
At least now I’ve got a valid reason to go to The Backyard, instead of just to discuss the delicious brownies Dax dropped off and to tell him I think I’m agreeing to go on a date with him.
Glancing back down at the two postcards as I get inside my car, I smile to myself, tossing them onto the passenger seat with the brownies.
I also get to tell Dax we finally have a break in his missing otter case.
Stopping right outside the door to the otter habitat that leads to Dax’s office, I pause and look down at my legs, wondering why they suddenly feel so weird and not attached to my body. Staring down at my them just makes me dizzy, so I look back up at the door and close my eyes.
“Oh hell… that was a bad idea,” I mutter, my eyes flying back open as I lean forward to rest my forehead against the cold metal of the door while I stare down at the ground and silently will everything around me to stop spinning.
I was perfectly fine when I came up the walkway from the parking lot a few minutes ago, until the entire ground I was walking on started tilting and my head started feeling fuzzy.
“Fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy….” I mutter, laughing to myself until I hear shouting coming from the other side of the door.
“Bullshit! You came here to make sure I’m not fucking anything up!”
Jerking my head back from the door when I hear an angry, muffled shout on the other side of it, the ground starts tilting again when I move too fast, and I stumble backward a few feet. I have to fling my arms around the trunk of a small tree next to me to stop myself from falling.
“Harley, is that you? Why are you hugging a tree?”
I know that voice, and I know that voice to be Nanci. Nanci is wise, and Nanci will stop the earth from tilting.
“I don’t know why I’m hugging a tree, Nanci.” I sigh, refusing to let go of the tree when she walks up to stand next to me.
“Dax is in there with his father. They’ve been arguing for the last half hour. It’s a good thing you’re here,” she informs me.
I hear more shouting inside the building. It’s all coming from Dax, and I don’t like it. He sounds hurt, and really mad, and I need to tell Nanci I have to go calm him down.
“I need to go in there, because I like cheese.”
Nanci just looks at me like I’m crazy, and I shrug.
“I don’t know either, Nanci. I’m unable to control the things coming out of my mouth right now, and your name is fun to say. Wow, I really don’t think my legs are there anymore,” I complain, hugging onto the tree tighter as I look down at my legs that are surprisingly still there.
Before I can stop Nanci and try to figure out why my brain suddenly turned into mashed potatoes a few minutes ago, she walks away from me and my good buddy the tree to yank open the office door.
Two sets of matching hazel eyes whip to me at the sound of the door opening—one looking completely pissed off and about ready to flip his desk, the other with a few more age lines around the corners of his eyes, looking frustrated and sad.
“My legs are fine!” I yell to both men in greeting, wishing I had the power to stop talking.
I also can’t stop staring at Dax when he walks out of his office and stalks toward me, pausing just a few inches away. With my cheek smushed against the rough bark of the tree, I stare up into his gorgeous eyes, finally taking a minute to appreciate the happy, floaty feeling I’m experiencing now that Dax is near.
“Any particular reason why you’re standing outside of my office, hugging one of my trees?” Dax asks, a smile tipping up the corners of his mouth instead of the angry scowl that was there seconds ago when the door flew open.
“Why do people keep asking me that?” I complain. “Look, I was fine. F-I-N-E fine… until I got here. I was just driving over here, minding my business, and I ate the present you left for me, and now I think someone has removed my legs from my body, and we should go find them.”
Dax lets out a soft laugh, reaching up to brush a piece of hair out of my eyes.
“Thank you,” I purr like a kitten when his fingertips brush my forehead. “I couldn’t see around that thing, and didn’t know how to remove it without falling. You’re a gem.”
Dax laughs softly again, and I give the tree another squeeze.
“Did you say you ate the postcard I left for you?”