“Shut the fuck up and carry a damn box.”
Just then Jax opened up the front door and poked her head out. “What are you guys doing out here? You’re taking forever. Do you big, tough guys need me to help you?” She teased.
“Nah, Ky was just sharing with me the passionate nature of your guys’ tantric love making. Gotta say baby girl, I’m shocked. You look so sweet and innocent. Who knew?” I winked at her as I took the steps in one stride and brushed past her inside.
“Babe, I swear he’s lying. I didn’t tell him shit,” I heard Ky trying to reassure her. I just chuckled and continued up the stairs with the boxes. When I came back down, Jax was waiting and swatted me upside the head.
“I’ve got to pull muffins out of the oven. I was going to give you some to take home, but now I’m not so sure you deserve any.” She narrowed her eyes at me and swiveled around toward the kitchen.
“Oh come on baby girl, you can’t withhold muffins from me.” I inhaled deeply. “Are they apple cinnamon? You know that’s my favorite.”
She stopped and smiled at me over her shoulder, “Mmhmm. They are.”
“Do they have that sugary crumb stuff on top?”
“Yes, they do.”
“You’re killing me. You know you made those muffins for me.”
She just chuckled and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Umph” I grunted as the breath was knocked out of me by Ky’s sucker punch to my side. “If she starts withholding something else because of your comment, not getting any muffins is going to be the least of your worries, asshole.”
I laughed.
“Not funny.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around their house, trying to charm Jax into giving me the muffins. I listened to her recap their time in Australia and Greece. She had hundreds of pictures, and after looking through them all, it reminded me of the picture I still had on my phone and the gift I had picked up for Sadie on our last day in Hawaii. I asked Jax to help me print the picture, and when I told her my plan and asked for her help with the rest of it, she was like goo in my hands and those muffins were mine.
“Aww, I knew you had it in you. It’s so sweet. She’s gonna love it.”
Jax and I worked through a plan to get the other thing I needed for my surprise. Later that evening, when they came over to the house so Ky could play through the new songs and we could all work through adding our parts, Jax asked Sadie to sit in on our session with her. After a few minutes she used the bathroom excuse to slip away to Sadie’s room to get what I needed. She gave me an affirmative nod when she returned to the room, and over the next week she used her girly artistic skills to help me create what I hoped would be a nice surprise. Mostly Jaxyn just ordered me around, telling me where to cut and paste shit, but when we were done it looked pretty damn good.
Jax helped me to wrap it up nicely, and then a few days later, after casually making sure Sadie would be around for the evening, I kicked the rest of the guys out of the house. It was her day off and she mentioned that her only plans were doing laundry and getting through season five of Supernatural. I had Jax to thank for getting her hooked on that show. It wasn’t actually so bad, the music was good and the car was the shit. My baby was a nineteen sixty-nine, so I had love for Dean’s sixty-seven Impala.
I had to stealthily plan our date so that it all seemed casual, since she didn’t even realize it was a date, and by the time she did, it would be too late. Jax gave me an easy recipe for chicken parmigiana and I only had to call her twice to make sure I wasn’t screwing it up.
I think Sadie was a little bit suspicious when I served her the dish served with pasta and bread, as well a glass of her favorite red wine, which Jax also told me to pick up, but she didn’t say anything as we sat down to eat in front of the television. I figured since Sadie cleaned her plate, I must not have screwed it up too bad. It tasted good to me, anyway.
I took our dishes to the kitchen and then started gathering the tools we’d need for what I had planned next, and then I ran out to my truck and hauled in the most important parts. “Hey Sadie, can you come in here?” I hollered.
“If you’re calling me in here to wash the dishes –” she stopped when she stepped into the kitchen and saw my pumpkin carving set up. “Oh!” she exclaimed.
“I thought it would be fun to carve pumpkins for Halloween. I haven’t done it since I was a kid,” I told her and she had no objections and even seemed excited at the idea. We started in on digging out the guts of the two large pumpkins. I was just about finished scooping mine out and turned to see how Sadie was coming along when a glob of pumpkin goo hit me in the face and slid down to my shirt. Sadie stood in front of me, pumpkin covered spoon in hand, with eyes wide and a grin threatening to break out on her face.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I swear it was an accident. I didn’t mean to fling it at you.” I could hear the laughter in her voice even as she apologized.
“You think this is funny?” I asked. She bit her lip and nodded, still fighting to hold back her laughter. I reached into the bucket we’d been scooping the goop into and pulled out a small handful.
“Don’t you dare!” She pointed her finger at me in warning.
“You started this war sweetheart, I simply mean to finish it.”
“It was an accident,” she squealed as I flung the mush and seeds at her. She tried to dodge, but it still managed to land in her hair. She made a move for the bucket, but I was a step ahead of her and grabbed it, raising it out of her reach.
“Uh, uh, uh. I don’t think so darlin,” but it didn’t stop her. She reached her hand inside of her pumpkin. “You might want to think carefully about your next move,” I warned.
Ten minutes later we were cleaning pumpkin guts off the floor, counter and appliances. Ivy, who had appeared in the kitchen during our fight, and who I might also mention was a traitor, because she had jumped all over me trying to defend Sadie, was licking some of the pumpkin splatter off the floor. Weird dog. Sadie tried and failed to stifle her giggles while we cleaned.
“You’re awfully amused for someone who just got her ass kicked in a pumpkin battle.”
“I’m not the one with pumpkin in my ear,” she laughed.
I stopped cleaning and stood. “Well then, I think you need to help me wash it off.” Her brow furrowed, and before she had time to react I pulled her forward and then lifted her over my shoulder.
“Ace, put me down right now.”
“I don’t think so, sweetheart.” I swatted her backside, and chuckled at her outrage. Ivy jumped excitedly at my heels, thinking it was playtime again, and followed us all the way into my bathroom. Sadie squirmed and made empty threats the whole way about how sorry I was going to be if I didn’t put her down. I walked straight into the open shower and stood under the shower head, turning it on and blasting us both with a drenching spray of cold water. Sadie took the brunt of it and let out a high pitched screech that brought Ivy rushing into the shower to her rescue. She circled around us trying to avoid the spray of the water. I held Sadie under the waterfall a little longer while she continued to beat on my back and threaten me every which way, and Ivy tried to jump up my legs to get to her. When I finally set her down, she was soaked from head to toe and shaking. I turned the water to hot and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into my chest.
“I hate you,” she said through chattering teeth.
“No you don’t,” I laughed. Ivy laid on the tile of the shower floor, out of reach of the water pouring down and I held Sadie in my arms while the hot water warmed us both. Slowly she started to relax in my arms and lean into me, her head coming to rest on my chest. I heaved a deep sigh and tightened my hold on her. Even though we were both sufficiently warmed up by then and the pumpkin mess was washed away, I was reluctant to let her go. I kept her there a moment longer, but as much as I wished otherwise, we couldn’t stay in here forever. We hadn’t even carved our pumpkins yet.
I reached be
hind her and shut off the water, then pulled away just enough to bring my hands up to brush the strands of wet hair out of her face. My own were pulled back. She tipped her chin up, penetrating me with those deep eyes that today looked gold with flecks of green. Her hands clutched the front of my soaking wet shirt and I held her face gently in my palms. I wiped the water from her eyes with my thumbs and placed a soft kiss on her forehead.
“What is this?” She whispered.
“Go on a date with me,” I told her, and until that moment I hadn’t realized just how badly I wanted to take her on a real date, not some almost date that I had to trick her into.
“Okay,” was her soft reply, and for a moment I thought I had to be dreaming.
“Really?” I asked, praying she didn’t take it back.
She didn’t. “Mmhmm. I’ll go on a date with you.”
“When?”
“I get off at three on Saturday.”
“Saturday is perfect.”
She smiled at me and I swear my heart wanted beat right out of my damn chest. I left the shower and grabbed us both towels. I wrapped hers around her shoulders before letting her disappear to go change. I pulled my hair loose and dried off, then threw on a pair of sweat pants. I ran my towel over Ivy’s wet fur so she wouldn’t shake all over the house. “Good girl,” I told her. This night was turning out even better than I hoped. I retied my hair back and then went to find Sadie.
She emerged from her room in a pair of sweats as well, and a loose sweatshirt. Even then she still looked beautiful. We returned to the kitchen and this time actually managed to carve our pumpkins. We sat on opposite sides of the island counter so we couldn’t see what the other was carving. She finished a few minutes before me and sat patiently while I finished up my sweet design. When I was finally done, we both turned our pumpkins, showing them off at the same time.
Sadie had gone with a traditional Halloween design, a ghost with some bats. It was cute, and I told her so.
“It is not cute,” she argued. “It’s spooky. Ghosts and bats are spooky.”
“Whatever you say.”
“It is. Besides, ghosts are better than Frankenstein,” she said, looking at my pumpkin.
Frankenstein?
“For starters, it’s Frankenstein’s monster, not Frankenstein, and that’s not even what I carved.”
“Then what is it?” Her face scrunched up as she scrutinized my carving.
“It’s obviously Iron Man.” I’ll admit, the design was a little tougher than I’d thought it would be, and I wasn’t exactly a pumpkin carving master, but still, I thought it was pretty clear what I’d done..
“Well sorry, I couldn’t tell.”
We spent the next few minutes debating whose carving skills were better. She claimed that hers were superior because her design was clear and unmistakable, but I claimed that was only because the difficulty level of her carving wasn’t as high as mine. I’m not really sure who won, if anyone did, but eventually we ended up in the living room again. She started Netflix up where we’d left off, and that’s how the rest of the evening passed, on the couch, finishing up season five of Supernatural while Ivy slept at our feet. I wanted to pull her into my arms again and tuck her body into mine, but I wasn’t sure if she’d let me, so I settled for pulling her feet into my lap and giving her a foot rub. It was the most innocent night I’d spent hanging out with a girl, besides Jax, in a very, very long time, and yet it was still one hell of a night. I couldn’t wait for Saturday. Sunday was another story. I didn’t want Sunday to come. For the first time ever, I wasn’t looking forward to going back out on tour.
I remembered I still hadn’t given Sadie her gift, so I got up to go retrieve it from my room. I was more nervous than I should’ve been. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, but I wanted her to like it, and I felt like every time I took a step in this direction, putting myself out there for her, I was only setting myself up for rejection again, because, as much fun as we’d had and even though she’d agreed to the date, she was still holding so much back. I had a feeling that if I hadn’t caught her in such a vulnerable moment in the shower, she might not have agreed to it so easily.
I returned to the living room, package in hand, and took my seat next to her, grabbing the controller to pause the episode we were in the middle of. “This is for you.” I held it out.
She looked back and forth between it and me before finally taking it from my hand.
“What’s it for?”
“You. I just wanted to do something for you,” I told her. Her expression was unreadable. I held my breath while I waited for her reaction as she began unwrapping it. When all the wrapping and tissue paper had been removed, I watched the corners of her mouth pull into a subtle smile.
In a little gift shop in Lahaina, I’d found a scrapbook. It was made of some soft Hawaiian wood that looked a lot like bamboo, and dried palm and banana leaves, held together with braided hemp. Some darker leaves and hemp had been used to create a little sea turtle in the bottom corner and a palm tree that ran up the binding of the album. The center was cut out in a small square big enough for a photo. I had picked the one of her and the dolphin that I had taken without her knowing.
Her eyes and fingers raked over the surface of the album before she finally looked up at me. “This is beautiful.”
“Open it.”
She did, and I watched her slowly flip through the pages and pages of pictures from our trip. Jax had helped me collect pictures from everyone to fill the book up. She’d also slipped the undeveloped underwater camera out of Sadie’s room and a few of the pages were devoted to those pictures. She chuckled when she got to the picture of the two of us with Barnaby. When she was done looking through it, she set it on the coffee table in front of us and turned her gaze on me.
“Thank you,” she said softly before wrapping her arms around my neck and pressing a sweet kiss on my cheek. I wanted to hold her there forever, but reluctantly I let her pull away. I had to let this happen in her time.
“You’re welcome.”
“You planned all this, not just the carving, but all of this didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked even though I already knew.
“Tonight, everyone being gone, dinner.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to give you a night where you weren’t stressed about your family and could just have fun.”
Her eyes locked on mine, they were swirling with emotion. They briefly flitted to my lips and then back. I leaned in a little closer until we were sharing breaths. Her chest heaved, but she didn’t pull away. Yes, this was really happening. My eyes never left hers, checking for any sign that this wasn’t what she wanted, as I brought my lips to hers, but before I got the chance to taste her, a loud scratching noise at the glass patio doors behind us, followed by Ivy’s bark, startled Sadie and she jumped back.
I sighed and pulled away.
Perfect timing Ivy.
I got up to let her outside. The moment was officially over.
“Traitor,” I whispered as I opened the door for her.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Sadie said as I sat back down beside her, “where did you get the name Ivy? It seems unusual for a dog.”
“I named her for Poison Ivy, the character from Batman,” I answered, grinning as I thought about the reason I’d chosen it.
“Why would you name a dog after a comic book villain?”
“Sexy red head with a kiss that brings men to their knees? What’s not to love about that?” I watched her blush and then look away. Damn, she was so adorable when she did that.
Chapter 12
Sadie
The house was quiet, too quiet. Danny was at the radio station and Ace, Spade and Chris were gone. It was just me and Ivy. She was snuggled up beside me on the couch with her head in my lap. Since her daddy was gone she could get away with being on the furniture. It would be our little secret. We had this giant h
ouse all to ourselves and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t call Jax for a girls’ night because she was gone too.
I had one friend from work, Sam, who I could have called to hang out, but I didn’t feel like going out and I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to invite anyone over. I hadn’t actually asked. I’d bring it up to Ace the next time he called to check in. We’d only just talked two hours ago and already I was anxious for his next call. They left yesterday morning and it had affected me more than I’d anticipated, and now it would be six weeks before I saw him again. I hoped it would go by quickly, but I feared it would drag. In two weeks the guys were playing The Garden in New York for Halloween. Danny, Bas and everyone else was going, but I didn’t know if I would be able to swing it with work yet.
For whatever reason, my boss didn’t hide the fact that she wasn’t my biggest fan. She liked to schedule me for the worst shifts, so getting Halloween off would take a miracle. It was a large chain music store, just like I’d worked in Portland. I started there just after moving out here, and still I hadn’t managed to get Melinda to warm up to me, but at least I had a job, even if Jax thought I should quit and look for something else. I’d considered it a few times, but I was comfortable there. It was familiar work and it allowed me to play music, even if it wasn’t my own. I enjoyed the days I gave lessons and didn’t usually mind the customer service end of the job on the other days. Tomorrow when I went in, I would put in the request for Halloween and Thanksgiving off, but I didn’t expect it to go over well.
I was getting regular texts from Cait asking if I’d made a decision yet, and even though I had, I was reluctant to give her an answer. I felt better knowing I still had the option of changing my mind and backing out. Jax was standing by her offer for her and Ky to accompany me as backup, and as much as I hated to ask her to give up her first married Thanksgiving with Ky, I would probably take her up on it. I just didn’t think I could walk into that house, hell I didn’t know if I could set foot in that city without knowing I had someone in my corner.
Chasing Ever After Page 12