Otterly Scorched

by Tara Sivec

  I might be in touch with my feelings now, but I’m still me.

  CHAPTER 15

  Lather, Rinse, Repeat

  Harley

  Dax: I’ll pick you up at 7. Wear something nice.

  Dax: I did not mean that you don’t always wear something nice. It’s customary for the man to give the woman a time for the date and to make sure she feels comfortably dressed for where they’re going.

  Me: Stop being weird. I’ll be ready at 7, wearing something NICE, since I’m so hideous every other time.

  Dax: There you go! That’s the spirit! But please, for the love of God, don’t eat any brownies.

  Me: *middle finger emoji*

  I stare down at my phone with a cheesy smile on my face, looking at the text exchange Dax and I had earlier. After I dropped him off at The Backyard when we were finished with breakfast, I went to the office to check out the new postcard that came. This one was from Minnesota, with a picture of a woman carved out of butter on the front. All three postcards had the exact same message, typed up onto a label and affixed to the back of the postcards:

  Doing fine! Don’t worry about us! Love, Chris and Lincoln

  No other message or demands for anything, and no word on whether or not whoever has them will bring them back. Nothing but what looks like two otters who went on a damn vacation. I called my private investigator and had him add Minnesota to the other locations when looking into anyone associated with The Backyard who might have traveled to those places recently.

  Now, I’m pacing back and forth in my kitchen, waiting to go on a date with Dax after already looking in the mirror eight hundred times since I finished getting ready. I’m still not a hundred percent certain the long-sleeved, cotton, very short, flowy dress that ties behind my neck with a large hole showing off some of my back that I paired with a pair of brown, knee-high heeled boots is nice enough for wherever Dax is taking me, but it’s nicer than what I usually wear.

  A fist pounds three times against my front door promptly at 7:00, according to the clock on my microwave, which finally has the correct time on it since I bought it, thanks to Dax.

  I shove my phone into a small clutch, and butterflies start flapping around in my stomach when I walk from the kitchen through the living room, my heels clicking against the hardwood. Pausing in front of my door, I set my clutch down on a side table in the entryway, take a deep breath, and press my palm to my stomach. I’ve never experienced this nervous-excitement going anywhere with a guy before. Dating was always a stressful situation, because I knew I was taking time out of my day I didn’t have, to do something I didn’t really want to do. I’m so excited to go on a date with Dax that I don’t know whether to do a little dance before I open the front door or vomit into the black-and-white ceramic umbrella stand next to it.

  When in the hell did I get an umbrella stand? Did he seriously get me an umbrella stand when I wasn’t looking?

  Grabbing onto my door handle and flinging my front door open to ask him just that, I’m stunned stupid when I see Dax standing on my front porch.

  I spent a month working with Detective Douchebag, and even though he was annoying, he sure was pretty to look at in his tailor-made designer suits every day. I’ve seen Dax cleaned up before plenty of times. But I have never seen LumberDax, with his soft, neatly trimmed facial hair, fitted white button-down with the top two buttons undone, showing off the tattoos around his chest and neck, sleeves rolled up to his elbows for more of that tattoo forearm porn I guess I like now, with a fitted black, pinstripe vest, black skinny jeans, and black motorcycle boots.

  Ovaries: We’ve got nothin’. We are deceased.

  “Jesus, you’re beautiful,” Dax whispers, saying exactly what I’ve been thinking while I ogled him.

  His eyes slowly trail over me from my head to my feet. The way he’s looking at me so appreciatively making me happy I stuck with the dress I did, while I try not to fidget at his perusal.

  I have to hold onto the doorframe to stop my knees from giving out when he steps into the doorway with me, bringing us chest-to-chest. In my heels, he’s only a couple inches taller than me, which means our mouths are conveniently closer together now.

  “Why did you get me an umbrella stand?” I ask, needing to say something before I pass out from how good he smells.

  “The better question is, what kind of a person doesn’t already own an umbrella stand?” He scoffs. “I also got you one other thing.” Dax pulls something out from behind him and steps back a little to hold it out in front of me. “I got you a fern.”

  “I see that.” I nod, looking at the small green plant in a small blue pot in the palm of Dax’s hand.

  “I counted eight dead houseplants in there yesterday.” He nods behind me to the interior of my house.

  “So you thought I needed to murder a ninth one? You’re an enabler; that’s what you are.”

  “Give it a name,” he orders, holding it out closer to me.

  “What? Why?”

  “Studies show that if you name a houseplant, it won’t die, because it becomes a pet and not just an object, and you’ll remember to take care of it. I’m supposed to get you flowers, but you don’t look like a woman who would give a shit about getting a bouquet of flowers, so I got you a fern. Take the fern, and name the fern.”

  Realizing he’s trying to be sweet, I’m supposed to be allowing that to happen, and I really do hate getting bouquets of flowers from guys, because it’s so dumb and cliché, I snatch the fern out of his hand.

  And immediately drop the fern to the ground between our feet.

  “Okay, in my defense, I didn’t name her yet, so really, this is your fault. You shouldn’t have passed her off until a name had been decided on, going by your rules,” I complain, listening to Dax chuckle as I bend down. “Come here, Marilyn Mongrow. Welcome to the Thunderdome. This is where plants come to die.”

  Scooping the soil back into Marilyn’s pot, I stand back up and stick her on the side table right inside my front door, grabbing my clutch as well as the little something I got for Dax. Turning to face him again, I hold out the small, sealed, see-through plastic bag.

  Dax takes it from me, looking down at what’s in the bag.

  “It’s an Emotional Support Limb,” I tell him, pointing to the bright orange label that has been stapled to the bag that clearly states in big, bold letters Emotional Support Limb.

  “I can see that,” he says, the corner of his mouth tipping up in amusement as he rips open the sealed bag and pulls out the small, plastic baby doll arm that’s inside.

  “I’m not very good at the whole giving thing. Or receiving. Or relationships as a whole, to be honest,” I remind him.

  “I know. I got the memo.” He smirks, turning the plastic doll arm around in his hand to study it.

  “You’ve only heard the tip of the iceberg. I don’t think you actually—”

  “I’m not kidding,” Dax interrupts me, pointing the tiny, plastic baby arm at me. “Your dad literally sent me a memo about why you are awful at dating. There were bullet points.”

  I groan, closing my eyes and dropping my head forward.

  Dax immediately slides one of his arms around my waist, and I open my eyes just in time to see the baby arm come up under my chin and force my face up, which of course makes me laugh through my misery.

  “Am I supposed to jerk off with this tiny plastic doll arm or what?” Dax asks, giving me that stupid sexy grin as he scratches his beard with the doll hand.

  Snatching it out of his hand with another laugh, I hug the plastic doll arm to my chest.

  “If you don’t like the Emotional Support Limb, you don’t have to keep the Emotional Support Limb!”

  I laugh even harder when he takes the fake baby hand away from me and starts rubbing the hard plastic up and down my cheek.

  “I like it; don’t worry. And you like it too, don’t you? Such a soft, smooth little baby hand on your cheek.” Dax chuckles as I swat the thing away wh
ile still being held securely in one of his arms.

  “It was a dumb thing I saw when I was running some errands today, and I thought you should have it,” I tell him, the laughter finally dying down between us when Dax slides the doll hand in his back pocket. “Just remember you have that Emotional Support Limb when I start sucking at being emotionally supportive.”

  Dax’s face softens, and he cups my face in his free hand.

  “You’re doing just fine.”

  “I just want to make sure you know that I’m not going to be any good at this. The last time I was fully dedicated to something other than Claws and Effect was when I was a member of the Ricky Schroder Fan Club,” I admit.

  “Sooo… last week?”

  “Funny,” I scowl.

  “I believe he goes by Rick Schroder now,” he informs me, dropping his hand from my face. “Wow, do you even read his newsletters?”

  I’m still laughing at how ridiculous he is, when Dax leans forward and puts his mouth right against my ear.

  “I really, really like you, Harley Blake,” he whispers.

  My throat clogs with emotion when he pulls back and smiles at me, removing his arm from around my waist to bend his elbow for me to take.

  Once I’ve closed and locked the front door and slipped my hand through the crook of Dax’s arm, he leads me down the stairs and over to his car. After we spend a few seconds arguing about how he doesn’t need to open car doors for me, because it’s just a waste of time when I’m perfectly capable of opening my own doors, I finally give in when he won’t stop muttering about how he’s supposed to do it.

  Our drive to the restaurant is relaxed. We never run out of things to talk about, and it mostly feels like every other time I’ve been with him, aside from us being dressed up and Dax continuing to do things for me that he claims are “supposed to be done.”

  “How does my car look? I was supposed to get it cleaned, I guess.”

  “Here’s my phone. I made a playlist for this evening, like I’m supposed to.”

  “Stop fighting me on opening doors and pulling out chairs, or I will hogtie you and throw you in the trunk. It’s supposed to happen.”

  After listening to a lovely medley of ’80s rock ballads on the way to a nice Italian restaurant I’ve never been to and letting Dax open the damn doors and pull out my stupid chair, our drinks have been delivered, and now he’s acting weird again while we look over the menu. His foot is tapping nervously against the floor under the table, and he keeps eyeing me uncertainly over his menu.

  “What is wrong with you?” I whisper, lowering my menu when I hear him mutter an “Oh, shit” when our waiter gets back to our table to take our orders. “Do you need me to rub your face with the baby hand?”

  I laugh to myself when Dax leans across the small, two-person table toward me, and I do the same, trying not to get distracted when I can smell his yummy cologne and his mouth is close enough to kiss.

  “I’m supposed to order for you, and I don’t think that’s going to end well for me.”

  I pull my head back a little in confusion to watch him glance up at the waiter and give him a nervous smile.

  “Just give me one second. Trying to decide if following the rules is worth getting an appendage slowly sawed off with a butter knife,” he tells the young, confused man holding a pad and a pen in his hand.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, wondering if he came in contact with some brownies on the way over here when I wasn’t looking.

  “A gentleman should be polite and courteous on a date, while being firm and manly by listening to what his date would like to eat and then ordering it for her,” Dax informs me, holding his pointer finger up to the waiter while he grabs his water glass and chugs half of it before setting it back down on the table.

  “Why are you talking like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like… you’re Google, and I just asked you how to go on a first date. In 1952.”

  Dax quickly picks his menu back up and looks down at it.

  “Chicken parm sounds good.”

  A few more previously dead brain cells join the smart living one, and I tell the waiter to give us a couple minutes. The confused young man walks away, and I lean forward to rest my elbows on the table, take the menu out of Dax’s hands, and set it down on the table off to the side.

  “Dax Trevino. Did you google how to go on a date?” I ask softly, never knowing before this moment that my heart could actually feel like it’s melting in my chest.

  Dax sighs, leaning forward in his chair to cross his arms and rest them on the table with me until our faces are a few inches apart.

  “You’re goddamn right I did.” He nods with conviction, all of the nervousness finally gone from his face now that the truth is out. “Harley, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here either. I’ve never dated anyone. I’ve never wanted to date anyone, or make them feel special or like a princess on a date. I know you’re not really the princess type, but I want to do this right, and I’m fifteen steps into Twenty-Five Ways to Date Like a Gentleman. I’ve had my car detailed, I’ve taken extra time to properly groom myself, I’m wearing an outfit that gives me confidence, I’m maintaining eye contact, and I’ve prepared a list of topics for us to discuss in case there’s an uncomfortable lull in dinner conversation.”

  Dax reaches over, grabs my fingers, and tugs my hand to his mouth, kissing the top of it.

  “Now, let me order dinner for you without you stabbing me, and then just sit there like a good girl and let the nice man I paid play the violin right next to our table and make it super awkward while we eat the main course.”

  My eyes widen in horror, and Dax laughs, leaning forward and kissing the tip of my nose.

  “I’m just kidding,” he reassures me, letting go of my hand to signal the waiter while I relax back into my chair. “He’s not coming out until dessert.”

  “You keep staring at my tattoos.”

  I take another bite of my strawberry cheesecake, not taking my eyes off Dax’s forearms while he brings his own fork up to his mouth and takes the last bite of his tiramisu.

  “They’re hot. Of course I’m staring at them. You’re lucky we’re in public or I’d make you take your shirt off so I can look at the rest of them.”

  Dax smiles, wiping his face off with his napkin, tossing it on his empty plate, and pushing everything to the side. Once I finish my cheesecake and our waiter comes back to clear off the table, Dax leans forward to cross his arms and rest them in the middle of the table.

  “Do you want to ask me about all the tattoos and why I got them?”

  Grabbing my half-empty wine glass and taking a sip, I lean forward in my chair and join him, resting my elbow up on the table, holding the glass in my hand, and swirling the red liquid around. “Only if you want to talk about all the tattoos.”

  He shrugs, and I keep a close eye on his smile to make sure it’s still easygoing and not fake or tense. I really don’t need to talk about anything he’s not ready to talk about, no matter how curious I am about what’s been going on with him the last five years.

  “I want to reassure you that I’m perfectly fine talking about all this, and I will spend as much time as you want, whenever you want, telling you every little detail,” he starts. “But for the sake of this being our first date, and one of those twenty-five steps is not putting your date to sleep, I’m just going to make this as quick and painless as possible right now. Is that good?”

  I nod, giving him a reassuring smile before taking another sip of my wine.

  “Before I begin, let’s just remember that Douchebag Dax was 100 percent motivated by money, every minute of every day. To a trust fund baby, not having money is like killing off everything we’ve ever loved, slowly, and with a lot of sharp, rusty weapons, while we watch.”

  I laugh at his analogy, and he begins.

  “Okay, here we go. Dad cut off my money after I spent all of high school throwing ragers,
sleeping with every girl and her mother in my school, trashing his house, and not giving a shit about anything related to my future, because what I really wanted to do, he thought was ridiculous and a waste of time. He forced me to man the fuck up, get my shit together, and join the army, or I’d never see another dime again. Did as I was told, because… money. And like I was actually going to work to earn it.” Dax scoffs and then shrugs. “Got my revenge by spending all four years of my enlistment working and training as an Animal Care Specialist, doing everything he spent my entire life calling me a pussy about and refusing to support, in the place he forced me to go.”

  Dax picks up his beer and clinks it with my wine glass. Sharing satisfied smiles with our cheers about the revenge he got on his dad in his own way, we take sips of our drinks, and then he continues.

  “I came home from the army, and Martin Trevino was not too happy I spent my time there taking care of animals, instead of getting ‘real training for a real career.’ So, I gave even less of a shit about doing something with my life and became cockier than ever. Lather, rinse, repeat, ragers, day drinking, and women, and then bye-bye money. ‘I pulled some strings and got you into the police academy. Don’t fuck it up, stop yammering about animals, be a fucking man, and then you can have the money back,’” Dax says in a deep, gruff voice that is supposed to be his dad. “I did finally become a responsible adult with a job, but it also just gave me a gun and a badge to do stupid shit legally. Like impress women and get them to sleep with me in the back of my cruiser. Along with having dollah-dollah bills again, yo.”

  He gives me a wink, and I roll my eyes and laugh at him, waving my hand for him to continue.

  “Same thing after the shit that happened with my friend Phina.” A little of the humor leaves his voice, and I set my wine glass down, reach over, and rest my hand on top of his.

  Dax flips his hand over on the table, and I trace soft circles with the tips of my fingers in his palm, trying to soothe him the only way I can in the middle of a crowded restaurant.