“I ate a postcard? What the shit? Get it out of me!” I shout in confusion, pulling my cheek away from the tree but still holding on tight.
“You said you ate the present I left for you. I left you a postcard I got from Chris and Lincoln that came from Virginia. I didn’t leave you anything to eat,” Dax explains, bringing his hands up between us to press his palms to either side of my cheeks.
Gently holding my face in his hands, he tilts it up and looks back and forth between my eyes for a few quiet seconds before letting out another soft chuckle when he sees something that amuses him.
Probably my legs. I bet they’re now attached to my head.
My brain is on the verge of exploding at this point while I try to piece together what he’s telling me, while also trying to remember all the words to the rap part in “No Scrubs” by TLC.
“Cookies!” I shout. “Wait, no, brownies! You brought me brownies. Man, they were delicious. I ate one at the office and one on the drive over. But they took off my legs. I ain’t got no legs, Lieutenant Dan!”
I’ve never giggled in my entire life, and now I can’t stop giggling.
“I’m sorry to say I did not leave you brownies. I left you a postcard.”
“Lies! I got two postcards, and you’re really pretty. Two postcards, from two otters, named Clinkon and Listopher. Lis and Clink. Chrrriiis… and Lincoln,” I finally manage to put together correctly. “They went to the Alamo! Isn’t that fun? I haven’t even been to the Alamo.”
Dax is still holding my face in his hands, and now he’s trying to distract me by rubbing his thumbs all soft and nice against my cheeks while he also smiles at me with that adorable, soft smile.
“Okay, so it sounds to me like maybe we each got a postcard in the mail, and they got mixed together. The one I brought over to your house this morning came from Virginia Beach, and I left it on your filing cabinet. I did not get one from Texas. And I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume Davidson reused one of the containers I left behind to store some of his… special brownies, which he also left on the filing cabinet.”
When Dax finishes, there’s suddenly a womp-womp-womp sound in my brain, and I’m not sure if it’s from all the brain cells I’m currently killing off here today from the brownies, or my dignity dying.
“Oh no,” I mutter.
“Oh yes.” Dax laughs again, lowering his voice so only I can hear him. “Your eyes are bloodshot, and your pupils are alarmingly dilated. You’re high as hell right now, sweetheart.”
For the first time ever, my body feels like it’s melting when he calls me sweetheart.
Or maybe it really is melting. It’s disappearing like my legs that are now attached to my head that I can’t feel.
“Care to introduce me to your friend?”
Dax growls, but his eyes never leave mine. His hands are still holding my face in them, and I glance over his shoulder to see who just spoke.
Oh shit! Oh my God, it’s his dad! He looks like an older version of Douchebag Dax from five years ago, with his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back with product, wearing an expensive suit and tie. I forgot about his dad! His dad is kind of my boss, if we’re being technical, and the father of the man I just decided to date this morning. And Dax is starting to get annoyed again, and goddammit, why is no one getting me any cheese?
“I can’t meet your dad when I’m high!” I whisper-yell.
The humor on Dax’s face and the bark of laughter from Nanci tells me I did not, in fact, whisper this statement.
“Oh that’s nice. This is the woman you hired to find the otters? Very professional.”
Dax’s hands immediately drop from my face, the humor vanishing as he whirls away from me to face his dad.
“Just like I said a half hour ago when I walked in here and found you snooping through my shit, I didn’t ask for your opinion. You can leave any fucking time now,” Dax seethes at his father.
Even though it takes me a minute to focus my eyes, I can see the tight clench of Dax’s fists down by his sides and the tension in his shoulders while he stands in front of me with his back to me. I need to do something quick to calm him down before this gets out of hand.
“I wasn’t snooping. I was just… checking on things,” Dax’s dad tells him, while I convince myself I can let go of the tree and I will not plummet off a cliff.
“Checking to make sure I’m not fucking anything up. You shouldn’t have given me this fucking place if you weren’t going to trust me to run it.”
Dax and his dad keep going back and forth, and I know I have to let go of this tree before Dax completely loses it and employees overhear, but there’s a cloud in the sky that looks like cheese, and now I want fondue.
Shit! Focus!
I don’t even hear the last thing Dax’s dad says to him. The only thing I managed to catch was my name, but it causes Dax to start charging in his direction. My arms immediately let go of the tree, and I stumble forward, quickly getting around and in front of Dax to press my palms against his chest and stop his advance.
“Look at me,” I order, grabbing his face in my hands and turning it toward me when he doesn’t listen.
When Dax’s eyes are finally on mine, he’s breathing heavy, and I can see he’s biting down on his bottom lip as hard as possible to stop himself from saying anything else to his dad.
Postcards and bagels on fire, saying yes to a date, and how Dax’s dad will probably give Claws and Effect a one-star review now all swirl around in my head, taking me a few seconds for my stupid pot brownie brain to catch up and remember why I’m holding Dax’s face in my hands.
Dax can’t beat up his father! Tell him no! Bad!
“Your beard is really soft and cuddly.” I sigh, running my fingers through Dax’s facial hair.
He smirks down at me, but his shoulders are still tight with tension, and his eyes flicker back over my shoulder every couple seconds to glare at his father, who is still standing behind us with Nanci, neither one of them saying a word.
“I’m not worth it,” I try again, my brain suddenly remembering that Dax and his dad were arguing about me and my ability to find the missing otters.
Before I realize the mistake in my choice of words with Dax and can backtrack, Mr. Trevino’s inability to stay quiet ruins it.
“See? Even she agrees,” the older man pipes up from behind me.
If I were anyone else, the angry roar that comes out of Dax would have made me shit my pants, but all it does is move me into action. Knowing I am way too incapacitated to try to trip him and take him down to the ground like I did the first day I saw him again, I do the only other thing I can think of to stop Dax from doing something he might regret.
With my hands still holding onto Dax’s face, I move up on my tiptoes and yank his head down, crashing his mouth against mine.
CHAPTER 13
No, I Don’t Want Your Goat Cheese
Dax
Harley’s tongue is in my mouth.
There’s something I was supposed to be doing, but Harley Blake’s goddamn tongue is in my mouth, and all I can do is wrap my arms around her waist and hug her to me as tightly as possible so this never ends.