Otterly Scorched

by Tara Sivec

  This might be the only silver lining in all of this. Seeing how undomesticated I am might get Dax to stop asking me on that stupid date he wouldn’t shut up about on our drive over here, in between my rage-screaming with each new picture my brother texted to me.

  “What. In. The. Actual. Shit. Happened. Here?”

  My words come out short and clipped, since I’m clenching my teeth so hard I’m afraid I might crack every last one of them.

  “Bill down at the taxidermy place was busy.” My dad shrugs. “I had an abundance of muskrats—thanks to the neighbor and his muskrat problem—that were going to start rotting if Bill couldn’t get to them, sooo….”

  “Muskrat!” Davidson shouts again, pumping one bloody fist into the air.

  “Why in the hell do you have to keep shouting that?” my dad complains.

  “I don’t know. It’s just fun to shout. Word to the wise, don’t use a Dremel for the initial incision. The fur on those little fuckers gets caught, and they just spin and spin.” Davidson laughs before getting serious again as he points at me. “Seriously, how do you not own a smaller blade for the saw, specifically for incisions?”

  “I’m never gonna get these blood stains out of my good shirt,” my dad complains, looking down at himself and all the blood.

  Oh no. No worries about what Dax will think about where I live. I’m too busy worrying about how I’m going to get muskrat chunks out of the grill of my riding lawn mower, all while I try to find two missing otters, return fifteen work calls, answer twenty-seven work emails, try to remember if I paid my electric bill, actually pay the electric bill for the Claws and Effect office, and get the blood stains out of my dad and brother’s clothes.

  “I think this is it.” I nod to no one in particular. “I think this is what it feels like to have a nervous breakdown.” I start to laugh a little hysterically when my phone rings in my hand, and I quickly look down to see it’s a phone call from a zoo I’ve been waiting a week to hear back from about an abused black bear case.

  “Of course this call is coming in now. Why wouldn’t it come in now, when there are muskrat guts falling from my garage ceiling?” I mutter as my dad and brother start arguing with each other again at the top of their lungs.

  Right when I think that sitting down in the middle of my driveway to have a good cry sounds like a great idea, Dax suddenly lets out the same loud, short whistle he did with the otters earlier.

  My phone rings again, and I watch in amazement as my dad and brother both immediately shut their mouths and turn to look at Dax standing next to me.

  “Davidson, remove all of your bloody clothing, leave it there on the floor, then go inside and take a shower—without touching a goddamn thing in Harley’s house,” he orders him before glancing at me. “Do you own a PlayStation?”

  I just nod, having no fucking idea what’s happening here as my phone continues to ring.

  “Take your work call, and I’ll handle this.”

  Dax turns away from me to address Davidson again.

  “You have one hour before I kick your ass in Modern Warfare. Mr. Blake, if you’ll do the same, I’ve got a great recipe we can use to get all those blood stains out of your clothes.”

  My phone rings again, and I watch in awe as my dad and Davidson do exactly what Dax asks without any complaint, stripping down to their boxers in my garage before disappearing inside the house.

  “Seriously, go take your call on the front porch, and do whatever else you need to do, for however long it takes. I’ve got this.”

  I quickly answer the call before it goes to voicemail, watching Dax walk through the bloody carnage of my garage and scoop up my family’s disgusting clothing without even wincing then disappear into my house. It takes a few seconds for my brain to catch up and for me to start talking to the person on the other end of the line, but once I do, I wander over to my front porch, sit down on one of my porch chairs, and get to work.

  “How in the hell did you get the blood off the ceiling by…?” My voice trails off when I step into my kitchen from the sparkling clean garage several hours after I last saw it.

  Just moments ago, as I was ending my last of several work calls, I thought when I closed my eyes, all I would see forever was the bloody massacre left in my garage, but I was wrong. Walking into my kitchen to see a shirtless Dax standing next to my dad, bent over the sink as he cleans the shirt he was previously wearing, will be burned into my eyeballs for all eternity.

  “And then once it’s soaked long enough in the ice-cold water, I like to use a toothbrush and a sprinkle of Oxyclean to really get at it.”

  I now have a perfect view of the tattoos that were peeking out of Dax’s shirt and up around his neck the day I took him down at The Backyard. They cover every inch of his back, the muscles under all of that beautiful artwork along his shoulder blades and down both his arms flexing and tightening with each movement he makes. I gawk until I can feel a little drool sliding out the corner of my mouth.

  “Girly man got some blood on his clothes while he was cleaning, so he’s giving me a stain fighting lesson,” my dad says, stepping away from the sink to grab a towel from the counter and dry his hands.

  “Really, you can just call me Dax,” the shirtless Greek god sighs as he takes the towel from my dad’s hands and uses it for himself as he turns away from the sink to face me.

  The front of Dax is just as muscular and gloriously tattooed as the back, and I force my eyes away long enough to see that my dad’s bloody clothes have been washed, dried, and put back on his body.

  “We’re starving. How about you order some pizza?” my dad suggests before wiping at something on his chin while he looks at me. “You’ve got a little something right there. Looks like drool.”

  Dax chuckles, because of course he does, and I glare at him as I bring my phone up closer to growl at Siri, asking her to call our favorite local pizza place.

  Technically, I glare somewhere in his abdominal region, because holy washboard abs….

  No! His eyes are up higher, you idiot! Look. Up!

  My dad starts telling Dax about the stupid muskrat party box design he had in mind, while my eyes slowly trail up Dax’s torso as the call starts to ring. When I finally get to his eyes, they’re locked on me, not paying any attention to my dad’s blathering. As the call is answered, I have to remember who the hell I was even calling and why I’m holding my phone up to my mouth.

  “Uh… I… pizza. I need two large pizzas,” I spit out when Dax finally takes his eyes off me to quietly answer something my dad asked him. “Half pepperoni, half… m-m-meat.”

  Both my dad and Dax’s heads whip back to look at me when I can’t remember the goddamn word I need.

  Why the hell can’t he put a shirt on?

  Dax is grinning, and my dad is looking at me like he’s ashamed we share the same DNA, and I’m still holding the phone to my mouth, muttering the word “meat” over and over, until the pizza shop guy finally takes pity on me and realizes what I’m trying to say. I finish my order and hang up before they can tell me how long the delivery will take.

  “Have a little trouble there, did ya?” my dad asks.

  “Shut up. I forgot the word for sausage. It’s been a stressful day,” I complain, angrily tossing my phone on the island in the middle of the kitchen.

  The two idiots standing in front of me both start laughing at my humiliation.

  “It’s not funny! The word literally left my brain. It was no longer there. In its place was a black hole of nothingness.”

  And by black hole of nothingness, I mean abs. Fucking abs.

  “Sounds like menopause to me,” my dad helpfully and sarcastically suggests.

  “I will gut you like a goddamn fish,” I threaten, making him turn to look at Dax.

  “I’ve actually seen her gut a fish before. Very quick and efficient.”

  “Dad!”

  He just shrugs with his palms up.

  “What? I’m just saying you
have very capable hands for gutting a fish. We could have used you out in the garage today.”

  “Here’s an extra shirt for you to wear, girly man,” Davidson announces, chucking a balled-up T-shirt at Dax as he walks into the room, also wearing freshly cleaned and dried clothing.

  Thank God this man is finally going to cover up. I need my brain cells back. I also need to go back in time to that moment before I realized Dax not only cleaned up my garage and kept my dad and brother out of my hair so I could work, but also did their damn laundry.

  “Seriously, just Dax is fine,” he complains again as he easily catches the shirt Davidson threw before it smacks into his face.

  I absolutely do not hear porn music playing when he pulls the cotton over his arms then lifts them above his head, stretching out his muscular, tatted-up torso to tug the material over his head and down. A small, humiliating whimper escapes me when all that pretty is covered up again.

  It’s my turn to laugh and finally pour a bucket of cold water over my raging libido when Dax gets the shirt on, standing with his fists on his hips as he stares down at it.

  I’d like to say this is the first time my dad and brother have broken into my home and made a mess of it, but it’s not. One of my spare bedrooms is used just to store the extra clothing they pig up and then leave behind. At least that means there’s always a spare shirt for someone to wear.

  The old, bright-yellow T-shirt of my dad’s that says I’m a Ray of Fucking Sunshine across Dax’s chest is the cherry on top of the shit sundae that this day has become. It makes it a little easier to not get turned on every time this man looks at me.

  Dax gives me a smile that is finally not filled with absolute glee that I haven’t been able to stop ogling him since I walked in the door, clapping his hands together twice. “All right, boys. Harley needs to take a shower and relax before the food gets here.”

  Dax herds both of them out of the kitchen and down into the basement, and I do what he says without any complaint, grabbing a beer out of my fridge as I go. When I’m showered and wearing a comfy pair of leggings and a hoodie, I walk into my living room to find my dad and brother digging into the pizza that was just delivered.

  That shower I took gave me all the time I needed to clear my head and remind myself that sure, while I might not exactly hate Dax Trevino anymore, I still don’t want to date him. Or any man—but particularly Dax. I couldn’t come up with one sufficient reason why I don’t want to date him, but I don’t, and that’s the end of it.

  You can go on the internet and google a body like that. You don’t need him.

  Ovaries: We will gut you like a goddamn fish.

  Dax pats a spot next to him on the floor in front of my coffee table, since my dad and brother are sitting on the futon, the only other piece of furniture in this room. While I flop down next to him, he grabs two pieces of pizza, tossing them onto a paper plate and then putting it down in front of me. I watch him unscrew the top from a bottle of beer and set it in front of me as well.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, looking down at the food and beer while he also sets a napkin next to everything.

  “Giving you pizza and a beverage?” Dax replies, questioning why I’m asking him such a stupid, obvious question.

  My dad and brother are already on their second helping of food, and I watch as Dax puts two more slices of pizza on another paper plate before setting it down in front of him.

  “You didn’t eat yet?”

  “I was waiting for you.” He shrugs.

  He just shrugs. Like it’s totally normal someone waited for me to get to the table to eat—and even served me—before he served himself.

  Shit! I don’t want to date him. Dating is another complication in my life I don’t need.

  Ovaries: He pulled muskrat chunks out of the spokes of our bicycle tires.

  I know.

  Ovaries: With his bare hands.

  I know! I still don’t want to date him.

  Ovaries: Remember that time when he was shirtless?

  “So, girly man,” my dad suddenly speaks around a mouthful of pizza. “I heard you guys have made a bunch of new changes at The Backyard.”

  Dax swallows the bite of pizza he took, wiping off his mouth with a napkin as my stomach growls, and I grab a slice from the plate in front of me. I refuse to think about how this pizza is the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life, all because someone else served it to me. Delicious pizza is no reason to reconsider my stance on dating.

  “Um, yeah. We’ve made some changes.” Dax shrugs.

  “Well, let me hear ’em,” my dad encourages, grabbing another slice of pizza out of the box in the middle of the coffee table.

  “Oh, you know… some building upgrades… landscaping….” Dax trails off, his head dropping and his hair shielding his face, but not before I saw a faint blush spreading across his cheeks.

  Dax is suddenly really interested in picking at the crust of his pizza, and I’m suddenly really interested in these changes and why he seems reluctant to brag about what he’s done. I asked Nanci during our tour this morning, but she just said they were all Dax’s ideas, so I’d need to talk to him about them.

  Dax finally looks up from his pizza to see all of us staring at him, waiting for him to elaborate. He finally blows out a breath of air, brushing his hair out of his eyes before speaking.

  “I’m sure you guys know the history of the place. The Backyard was a family farm around forty years ago, and when the owners passed away, the kids turned it into an animal sanctuary in honor of their parents who loved animals. It was just a place for abused or neglected animals to go to be rehabilitated and enjoy the rest of their lives, being spoiled on the farm or to be adopted into forever homes. Over the years, family members passed away, no one really wanted to run it anymore, and the place lost most of its funding and was only able to keep a handful of animals,” Dax explains, and we all nod, familiar with the history of The Backyard. Even Davidson, who is surprisingly respectful and quiet when someone else is speaking for once. “Well, we’re still doing the animal sanctuary, rehabilitations, and adoptions for the animals, but I also wanted to turn it into a place for people with special needs and for veterans needing therapy animals.”

  He pauses to clear his throat before looking over at me and continuing. “Do you remember my friends DJ and Phina? The ones who were at the station the day of the great coffee dumping?” Dax asks, to which I nod. “They have a daughter. Her name’s Shaleh. She’s four, and she’s on the autism spectrum. She recently became the proud owner of her very first therapy dog, and it made me do some research into the positive effects animals can have on people with special needs. And being a veteran myself, I already know a lot of other vets who have benefited from therapy animals. So, I hired a couple therapists to work with our employees, to help us come up with programs we can run, and to figure out all the ways we can use The Backyard to enrich the lives of anyone with special needs or veterans looking for a different kind of therapy. While also giving a home or finding a home for as many neglected animals as possible.”

  When Dax finishes with his explanation, he digs right back into his pizza while my dad starts firing off more questions, and I’m suddenly wondering what the hell is in my eyes and why they’re watering so much.

  “What about the otters? How did those come into play? The Backyard has never had exotic animals before,” my dad wonders. “Harley showed me some videos. Cute little bastards. I kinda get why you cried now.”

  “Thank you?” Dax replies unsurely.

  “I mean, I wouldn’t have cried, but I get why you did.”

  Dax smiles an adorable stupid smile, and I just start shoveling pizza and beer into my mouth as fast as I can to try to get rid of this stupid lump in my throat that won’t go away. Who cares that the changes he made to The Backyard probably forced the heavens to open up and immediately grant him sainthood? And who cares that he doesn’t act like a little bitch every time my dad gives him
shit. I still don’t want to date him.

  “The otters were actually what convinced me to move back home,” Dax says, unscrewing another bottle of beer and silently sliding it across the top of the coffee table toward me. “They all came from a zoo that was shut down for animal abuse. I couldn’t abandon them after what they’d been through.”

  Oh, God. I am otterly fucked.

  CHAPTER 9

  It’s a Fucking Frittata

  Harley

  The smell of bacon makes my eyes fly open, and I bolt up in bed, my disoriented, sleep-addled brain looking around my bedroom in confusion. I quickly fling back the covers and jump out of bed, even more confused when I look down and realize I’m still wearing the same clothes I had on yesterday—skinny jeans and a plain white T-shirt. I spot my flannel shirt folded up neatly on the foot of my bed and my ankle boots placed next to each other on the carpet directly below it.

  Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I try to remember what the hell happened last night. I remember ordering pizza, finding out Dax is a fucking saint, and sucking down beer like it was water while listening to my dad and Dax trade cop horror stories.

  Shit! I must have passed out.

  I don’t know how in the hell I got to my bed last night, and I can only assume drunk, sleepwalking Harley turned into a neat and tidy person who suddenly stopped flinging her clothes off and leaving them wherever they landed on the way to bed. I’m pretty sure there’s still a purple bra out on the hallway floor from a week ago. But right now, I’m more concerned that not only do I smell bacon, but I can also hear it sizzling and popping while it cooks on my stove out in the kitchen. I sure as hell know I didn’t start drunk sleep-cooking bacon and then come back to bed. I don’t even have bacon in my fridge. I don’t think I have anything edible in my fridge. Most of my meals are eaten in my car in between appointments or at my dad’s house.