Just Kidding

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  But God, I still wanted him.

  Something in which he read in my face.

  “I’m fairly sure that I’d love to do that again,” he murmured. “But I have to be up in three hours for work, and I should at least get some sleep.”

  I reluctantly agreed.

  When I came back out of his bathroom, my panties were nowhere to be seen, and Dax was in bed with the covers pulled up to his chest.

  He watched me walk toward him with an intense look on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer, only studied me in his sweatshirt and nothing else.

  “I’m thinking that I’m never getting that sweatshirt back.”

  I snickered. “No, you’re not.”

  Chapter 11

  Keep it up and you’ll be fertilizing my vegetable garden.

  -Rowen to Derek

  Rowen

  “I’m not sure how to do this drop-off thing,” I said to my boss and new friend. “Are you sure I’m qualified to do it?”

  Jenny looked over at me with amusement.

  “I don’t think anybody knows how to do the school drop-off thing,” she admitted. “Honestly, everybody runs around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

  That wasn’t the news I was looking to hear.

  “Okay.” I squinted at the four older children staring at me with small smiles on their faces. “Let’s do this.”

  Jenny had a court case to get to and Junior, the baby, was home sick with Clancy. Leaving me to take their kids to school.

  Sure, I didn’t have to or anything, but I’d volunteered anyway.

  I was a nice person like that.

  “Let’s do this.” I clapped. “Jenny, keys?”

  She tossed her entire purse to me.

  I caught it with a grunt, surprised at how heavy it was.

  “What do you have in here? Bricks?” I teased.

  She looked at me with amusement on her face. “I have five kids. I have everything but the kitchen sink in there.”

  She did.

  I’d dug past a Lunchable, a full-sized flashlight and a tub of Vaseline before I got to the keys.

  Once they were in my hands, I led her four eldest children outside.

  When they were all in, I got in myself, and felt like I was in a boat.

  “This is big,” I announced.

  “It’s a van,” the younger version of Jenny said from her seat beside me. “Not a boat. Exactly like your car. No wider or longer.”

  I’d have to agree to disagree. When I was in my car I felt like I could fit anywhere. Sitting here behind this beast, I felt like there was too much space. Like I could host a rave inside of the cab.

  “Everybody buckled?” I asked, turning to look at the other three in the back.

  Jenny’s twins both nodded. Twin boys that looked exactly like their daddy.

  The one in the very back was impatiently waiting with his arms crossed over his chest.

  Turning back around, I put the van into reverse and backed out.

  “Hey, I can see everything.” I pointed at the backup camera.

  “Look at this,” Caley said. Then she pressed a few buttons and I could all of a sudden see everything that was surrounding the car.

  “Oh, cool,” I breathed.

  “We’re going to be late,” the surly pre-teen muttered.

  Realizing that the kid was right, I pulled forward then went farther into the road and started the short drive to school.

  “Mom usually takes the back way,” Caley said, pointing. “But if you want, you can go the front way like Dad goes. He swears it’s faster, even though there’s always more traffic this way.”

  Since I only knew the one way—the front way—I did what I intended to do and started toward the school. The closer I got to the school zone, the worse the traffic got.

  Stopping at the stop sign that was the first obstacle that would lead to the school, I waited. Then waited some more for the car in front of me to pull out.

  “Jesus Christ!” Caley popped in. “Fucking pull out!”

  I looked over at the girl with surprise in my eyes.

  “Ummm,” I said. “We should probably watch your language.”

  She waved my concern away. “Mom lets us cuss. As long as it’s in the car or at home. We’re not allowed to do it in public, though. Especially not around Grandma.”

  That came from the young twin in the seat behind me.

  I glanced at him in my rearview mirror, then turned my eyes back to the road.

  “Interesting,” I said, still waiting for the moron in front of me to pull out.

  “Go,” I said. “Go. Go. Go. Go.”

  After his fourth missed attempt, I started to creep forward.

  Then I just started getting pissed.

  “Listen, dude,” I said to the car. “These people are going twenty. You can pull out in front of them. Go.”

  Still the car didn’t go.

  Suddenly a truck horn sounded from behind me and the car finally decided to go, realizing that he was holding up the line.

  “I think he was shaving,” Caley said. “I can’t be certain, but that’s what it looked like to me.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Idiot,” I growled.

  Now I could see why Clancy had been frazzled when he’d come back from school drop-off.

  “Just wait, it gets better,” Caley continued.

  It did get ‘better.’

  But not in the way that she meant.

  The highlight of my entire drop-off experience was seeing Dax, full SWAT gear, directing traffic.

  “Ho, boy,” I said to the teenager at my side.

  The fourteen-year-old said, “Hubba, hubba!”

  I snickered and looked my fill of the man.

  Dax had his hands up. One was raised in the air, his palm flat, directed at the line of traffic. The other was waving the little kids across that were all of four at most.

  “Aren’t they a little young to be walking to school?” I wondered.

  Caley shrugged. “Yes.”

  I watched, flabbergasted, as two young kids much younger than the two in the car with me crossed the street. One stopped to hug Dax’s leg, and he patted the kid’s head before he urged her on her way.

  “He’s here a lot,” Caley said. “Do you know him?”

  I was already nodding. “I do.”

  “Have you slept with him?” she asked.

  I nearly choked on my spit.

  “Caley!” I cried. “You can’t ask people questions like that!”

  Caley shrugged, unrepentant.

  “It was just a question,” she pointed out.

  It was just a question. An invasive one at that.

  “There’s your turn.” Caley pointed.

  I saw it and began to creep forward as the school’s drop-off line moved at the speed of a snail.

  “I can see why your father was having problems the other day when he came into the office.”

  The traffic was moving until we got to the actual line to enter the elementary school.

  I was at least thirty cars back, and the line wasn’t even moving.

  Growling in frustration, knowing that I had to be somewhere in thirty minutes, I worried that I wasn’t going to make it.

  “It looks like it’s going to take a long time, but it’s not,” Caley said. “Instead of dropping me off with the other kids, I can get out at the crosswalk. I have band first period and it’s a shorter walk if I get dropped off there.”

  Doing as she asked, she quickly bailed out of the van.

  I watched as she got out so quickly that she nearly tumbled over her own two feet as she swung her backpack over her shoulders.

  The next thing I had to conquer was the drop-off line.

  “Ready?” I called back to the kids.

  “Yes!” all of them said,
tones bored and even.

  I snorted and reached back, closing the video monitor.

  “Aww, come on! That was the best part!”

  Snickering at the twin’s comment, I slowly crept forward.

  “Get out already,” I urged the young girl that was about Caley’s age getting out and taking her sweet ass time.

  “What the absolute fuck?” the eight-year-old from the back seat said. “This is a goddamn drop-off zone. Not a kiss your fucking kid zone.”

  I blinked, then looked into the rearview mirror.

  “Umm, Beanie-Weanie. Let’s not call them fucking kids, okay?”

  “Why?” Beal, the eight-year-old, asked. “Mom and Dad say it all the time.”

  “Well,” I hesitated. “What if the teachers heard you?”

  “The teachers can kiss my ass,” Beal said.

  I would not laugh. I would not laugh.

  I loved these kids.

  I hadn’t known them for long, but seriously, they were the greatest.

  The teachers could kiss my ass. Jesus Christ, it was inappropriate to laugh!

  Before I could say another word, they were climbing out of their seats and bolting out the door before I could say goodbye.

  “Have a good day,” the teacher who’d opened their door said.

  I waved and crept the minivan back into traffic, vowing to myself that if I ever had kids, they’d be riding the freakin’ bus.

  The drop-off/pickup thing was extremely sucky.

  The only highlight of my morning was seeing Dax again.

  He didn’t see me drive by since I was in the minivan, but I did slow down long enough to roll the window all the way down and whistle at him.

  His head whipped around, and an annoyed look crossed his face until he realized who’d done it.

  Cracking up at Dax’s wicked grin, I waved and continued back to the office.

  Once there, I told Jenny that she could fire me if she wanted. And that there was no way in hell I would ever go to another drop-off for the rest of my life.

  ***

  Dax and I met at a restaurant when he got off work later that evening.

  He was grinning as soon as he walked through the door.

  “What’s that look for?” I asked curiously as he made his way inside.

  “That look is because I’m happy to see you,” he told me. “I like the hat.”

  The hat I was wearing today was a cowboy hat. Jenny and Clancy’s daughter, Caley, had given it to me.

  “They got it at Disney World,” I told him. “She said she didn’t wear it anymore, then put it on my head. It’s a wee bit tight but other than that I think it’s adorable.”

  He took the seat across from me and gestured at my plate.

  “Did you eat without me?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No, just got here, actually. My dad happened to be here when I got here, so I sat down with him and waited until he was finished eating. He left about ten minutes ago, but they haven’t been by to pick up the trash.”

  He stood up and offered me his hand. “Let’s go to a booth then. They’re more comfortable, and there’s a wall to my back.”

  “My dad was exactly like that, too,” I told him. “But that was the only table available. So he was forced to take it.”

  It was as we were getting seated and comfortable that I happened to look over and see Dax’s ex-girlfriend two tables over eating pizza with a fork.

  “Ex-girlfriend, two o’clock,” I murmured, keeping my eyes averted.

  Dax didn’t even pretend to see the move for what it was.

  They didn’t look the least bit comfortable in the joint.

  The restaurant we were at served bar food and beer. They didn’t even have a wine list or hard liquor.

  And Rachelle and her husband were definitely wine drinkers. I had a friend that frequented wineries, and it had come up in conversation that it was rare that Rachelle and her husband didn’t show up every Friday night.

  “Great,” Dax supplied. “This is just perfect. Get off a long ass shift, sweaty as hell, wanting to see my girl, and then I have to see her? That’s just cruel and unusual punishment.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “I saw her today at the precinct. Also saw her when she walked across the crosswalk to take her nephew to school. That’s why I scowled at you at first when you’d whistled. I thought it was her,” he said.

  I made a gagging sound.

  “When was the last time you saw her before that?” I asked.

  “I think I saw her at the grocery store last week,” he answered. “But that was only in passing. She came through the doors as I was exiting them. She gave me a smile, and I ignored it and walked to my bike.”

  I nodded, taking a surreptitious glance in Rachelle’s direction.

  Only, I froze when I caught her glare and stayed there.

  “I bet she’d stab me in the eye with her fork if she could get away with it,” I mused.

  “She’d have to go through me first, and I would never let that happen.”

  I felt all warm and gooey inside due to his words.

  “That was very sweet of you,” I told him. “I like that I’d have you on my side.”

  He rolled his eyes and ran his fingers over the length of my forearm, making me squirm until the waitress finally came over with a couple of waters and a basket of bread.

  “What can I get y’all to drink?” the waitress asked.

  I gave her my drink order, followed shortly by Dax ordering a beer.

  When she was gone, I looked back over at Dax again.

  “It was really sweet watching you get those kids across the street,” I told him. “Do you do that every day?”

  He nodded. “Most days. There are some days that I have to miss due to SWAT calls or training, but mostly that’s my every single morning spot. I took it upon myself to start doing it. After running a speeder down a couple of weeks ago, and witnessing him nearly hitting a kid, I decided right then and there that it had to be fixed.”

  “It did,” I agreed. “Have you ever given a family member a ticket before?”

  Dax let go of my hand, and I leaned back in my chair in just enough time that the waitress could set our drinks down.

  “Anything to eat?” she asked.

  Dax rattled off his order, and I placed an order for a grilled chicken salad.

  “Grilled chicken salad? I’ve never seen you eat a salad before,” he told me.

  I shrugged. “Sometimes I need a change of pace from the bad food. I like to shock my system every once in a while by feeding it good, healthy food.”

  He took a sip of his beer, and I nearly leaned forward so that I could wipe the foam from his beer off of his mustache.

  He did it for me, though, and I’ve never been so jealous of another person’s hand in my life.

  “What are you looking at?” He smiled.

  I tapped my upper lip with one finger and said, “You had a beer mustache, and I was contemplating wiping it away with my fingers before you did it yourself.”

  He watched me, then picked up his beer, leaving another mustache.

  “Now you can take care of it.”

  Dinner was pleasant despite Rachelle and her man’s attendance.

  Speaking of, I saw her stand up and excuse herself.

  As she stood, her eyes caught mine once again, and she stared. Dax’s arm was lying casually on top of the table where he gripped my small hand in his big one.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I gestured toward Rachelle who was getting closer and closer to us.

  “Maybe she’ll just go to the bathroom,” I told him hopefully.

  Dax grunted out a ‘Yeah right’ and took another sip of his beer.

  I leaned over and wiped it free before bringing my wet index finger to my mouth and sucking it clean.

  Dax hissed.

>   “Keep that up and we’ll be going to the bedroom and not anywhere else,” he murmured. “Not to mention I’ve already been thinking of my cock inside of you—”

  Dax was interrupted by Rachelle clearing her throat.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, trying not to sound as bitchy as I felt.

  Rachelle grimaced and turned to regard Dax.

  Then she pulled something out of her large satchel and handed it to him.

  It was a calendar. The calendar.

  “How did you get this?” Dax asked suspiciously. “I don’t even have one.”

  “I work for the city,” she said. “All of your boxes of calendars were delivered there. Can you sign the picture? I want to send it to my mother.”

  Dax shook his head and handed it back.

  “No, thank you. Maybe another time, but I doubt it. But I’m out on a date right now with my girl.” He sounded as if he was trying to control his anger.

  I didn’t blame him.

  It took nerve for a woman that fucked a man’s life up so thoroughly to ask for a favor.

  “It won’t take but a minute…” Rachelle said. “I…”

  “I said no,” Dax said. “And honestly, I probably wouldn’t have signed it even if I wasn’t out on a date with Rowen.”

  I choked on my gulp of tea and spit all over the table in my haste to draw a breath.

  Dax looked at me with concern.

  But I was busy looking over Rachelle’s shoulder, seeing her husband barreling down on us.

  “Um.” I gestured with my head. “Your husband looks kind of pissed. You might want to run along now.”

  Rachelle frowned hard but didn’t bother turning around to watch her husband stalk this way.

  “What the hell happened to your hair, freak?” Rachelle hissed.

  That was when I realized that, during my coughing fit, I’d knocked my hat off.

  “I decided to shave it because I was getting too hot,” I lied.

  Rachelle sneered. “Well it looks terrible. Just sayin’.”

  Dax got up then and moved in such a way that it pushed Rachelle away from the table and also kept her from getting too close to me.

  I wasn’t sure what he thought she was going to do, but he was preparing for it nonetheless.

  Then the husband finally arrived, and he looked pissed.

  “What’s going on over here?” he snapped.