Chapter 17
Biology Class
Day 26
“What do you call a DNA that’s chilling?” I whispered.
Dax looked blankly at me, but I thought I detected the slightest flare of humor behind his eyes. Or it could just be annoyance. Either one worked great for me.
“Ivy. No talking,” Mr. Gray called out, looking directly at me.
I slunk back in my seat, immediately chastened. Dax waited until Mr. Gray’s attention had moved elsewhere and leaned toward me, catching the scent of my weakness in the air and pouncing.
“What’s the answer?” he pressed.
“Shhh,” I whispered, my eyes following Mr. Gray’s movements.
Dax looked pointedly at our teacher. “You scared of getting in trouble, Books?”
“Nope.” I swallowed.
“You started this,” he said, not bothering to whisper. “Now I’ve got to know the answer.”
“Shh.” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat as Mr. Gray glanced at me again. When he had looked away once more, I hissed, “You don’t really care.”
“I care so much.”
“It’s cool genes, alright? Now shut up.”
“Dax and Ivy,” Mr. Gray called again. “Is there a problem?”
“No, sir,” I stated, and with a raised chin I ignored Dax’s teasing eyes for the rest of class.
T-minus 26 days to exit
Dax hours remaining: 153
CAT
You coming? Game starts in 20.
ME
I don’t have time to go, so obviously I'm coming.
CAT
Perfect. I’ll pick you up in ten. You at Dax’s shop?
ME
Where else would I be on a perfect summer evening, other than indoors playing with Legos?
CAT
Ha, see you in a few.
I stood from my spot on the concrete floor, stretching my back as I did so. Even with the twenty-five hours from the fake tattoo, the math was not mathing. Dax’s hours weren’t going down as fast as they needed to be, but the evening looked too beautiful to waste.
The other night, I had been ready to accomplish the entire list. But since the other two items included theft, driving a car illegally, and damaging property, I was understandably stalled in my plan .
Dax sat on a metal barstool at one of the workbenches, filling out an invoice, when I walked in. A song I’d heard before but couldn’t remember the name of played softly in the background. He glanced up, his dark eyes almost making me trip over my feet.
“I’m leaving early. Cat and some friends are playing volleyball at the beach.”
Call me crazy, but a shot of disappointment seemed to flash across his face. It was gone so quick my only conclusion was that I imagined the whole thing. He turned back to his paperwork.
“You sure you have the hours to warrant a night off, Books?”
I scratched my time out on the calendar. “Don’t care either way.”
“That’s the attitude.”
He stood and sauntered over to where I stood, reaching up high on the shelf next to me to grab an oil can. His proximity and the smell of oil and cologne spiked my heart rate, and I took a step back.
“If you get bored, there are a bunch of Legos in the other room. They’re really fun to play with.”
He smirked but said nothing as he shuffled past me.
I walked all the way to the front door in the lobby before the song about loneliness hit the chorus. A small dose of guilt gnawed at my insides. Dax wasn’t lonely. Right? Sure, he worked a lot, but his friends came to visit him all the time. He was too tough to be lonely. He didn’t need anybody. He wouldn’t even want to play volleyball. He would probably make fun of me for doing it tomorrow.
So why wasn’t I moving?
Before I could overthink or change my mind, I turned around and strode back toward the garage, bursting into the doorway. Dax startled at my entrance as he stood on a fishing boat, the can of oil in his hands .
“Do you want to come?”
His eyebrows raised. “Play volleyball?”
“Yeah.”
He raised his arms, basically giving me full permission to comb my eyes all over him. “Do I look like I play volleyball?”
My eyebrows raised as I eyed his muscles and tattoos peeking out of the bottom of his sleeve and asked, “Have you ever seen Top Gun? ”
He smiled and took a seat on the boat. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
“You chicken?”
Laughing, he said, “I guess so. Have fun, Books.”
Suddenly, I wanted Dax to come play volleyball more than anything in the world. Other than when he came in for lunch sometimes at the cafe, I had never seen him anywhere else. He was at the shop until ten most nights. I did know he occasionally watched a game with Beau and Phoenix at one of their houses, because I’d heard them talking about it. And except for the night he took me to get a tattoo, I’d never seen him leave early before. From all appearances, Dax Miller should be lonely.
“Two hours.” My eyes widened at what I blurted out. I counted my hours every night in my head like dollar bills. I couldn’t just throw them away. And yet…
“Huh?” His voice was muffled.
“I’ll give you two hours back if you come with me.”
He set the oil can down and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t think you have two hours to bargain.”
I didn’t. If I had any sense in my brain, I’d be spray painting a building right now, but something about being with Dax made me forget all about the hours.
“I’m now sporting a tattoo, and I brought you a hamburger AND a drink the other day. Two hours.”
“A fake tattoo. And you drank half of it.”
“Not my problem. ”
I heard a huff of laughter before he stood to look at me, his hands resting on his hips. “Five.”
I scoffed. “It will only take one hour to play the game.”
“Four.”
“Two, final offer. If you don’t accept, I'll make your life miserable in this place.”
He glanced up at his clock made from old boat propellers. “How so?”
“Say goodbye to all your tools neatly in place on your walls, that’s for sure.”
Still he didn’t move, so I tried again.
“My songs all over your playlist.”
A hint of a smile appeared just then. “You’ve already done that, and I’ve erased them all.”
“I heard Bon Jovi earlier.”
“Must have missed one.” His soft voice caused a hitch in my breath. I forced myself to focus on my task of forcing Dax to have fun.
“Just come. Are you afraid you’re going to have fun?”
He sighed, dusting his hands off on his pants. “Fine. Two hours, and if I do have fun, you’re going to be in big trouble.”
I held back my squeal and shot Cat a text, telling her I’d meet her there.
Surprisingly, Dax didn’t make us wait to leave. He jumped down from the boat, and within minutes, the lights were off and the garage was closed. After a quick stop at the duplex to change clothes, we were headed south to the public beach.
It felt like we were skipping out on something, playing hooky even though we were leaving well past Dax’s closing hours. I had hardly spent any time on the beach, and my body craved the sun—as did Dax’s.
“Those legs are disturbingly white for an island boy,” I said, eyeing him.
“I will turn this cart around, Books. ”
The vision of Dax wearing green-and-gray striped board shorts and flip-flops along with his white tank top gave him such a boyish charm it was hard to look away. It lightened something dark and became so appealing it had my face heating.
Families and sandcastles lined the beach when we pulled into the parking lot on the south side of the island. There were kids flying kites in the breeze, and the smell of cotton candy and hot dogs coming from somewhere made my mouth water. The breeze lifted my curls, and I immediately reached into the pocket of my shorts and pulled out the hair tie I always had there. My hair was almost tied in a top knot when I looked to Dax, startled to find him watching me before his eyes flicked away. He looked out toward the volleyball courts, a look of trepidation crossing his face.
I spotted Jane and Cat and Holland, along with several other friends, and began walking toward the court.
Dax fell behind me a few paces, looking slightly ill at ease as we grew closer.
“Come on,” I said, lightly gripping his arm. “These are all your friends, too. They’ll be excited you're here.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I gave him a light push. “It’s true.”
“Because of my sparkling personality?”
“I mean, I don’t like you, but that doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same.”
His reply was cut short when we were spotted by Beau and Phoenix, who immediately beelined toward us.
“Holy crap. Is that Dax Miller?” Beau’s loud, friendly voice caused a smile to break out across my face while Dax’s flushed with color.
“This is now worth five hours,” Dax whispered.
I tried to tug my facial expression into something that wasn’t a smile. All I wanted to do was grin at this moment, and I wasn’t sure why .
Beau punched Dax lightly in the shoulder and looked at me, an awed expression on his face. “How’d you get him to leave the shop?”
“I threatened to key his golf cart,” I said.
Beau nodded approvingly. “Threats and blackmail. I like it.” Suddenly, his gaze locked on to my bare arm.
“Is that a tattoo?” His excitement quickly drew a crowd, and soon everyone was admiring my bookish beauty.
“Is that real?” Jane asked, glancing between me and Dax curiously.
“Ten bucks it’s a fake,” Cat stated, wearing one of our old volleyball team shirts tied in a knot a the waist.
“I don’t know. She’s been hanging out with Miller for a while now,” Beau remarked. Suspicion laced his voice as he held Dax’s gaze.
“You’ve got to pick better friends, Ivy,” Phoenix stated, still looking as dapper as possible in jeans and a t-shirt—which must be his casual outfit. Everyone, including Dax, laughed.
Dax made a point to not be on my team. When we met across the net from each other, he leaned in closer.
“Five hours for whoever wins,” he said.
I smiled. “Deal.”
He wasn’t the loudest or the fastest, or even someone who really looked like he knew what he was doing, but Dax Miller had the body of an athlete. Watching him try to hide how his face would light up after scoring a point or saving a ball was the icing on the cake for me.
We faced off at the net, where he hit it over and into a blind spot where my team, aka me, didn’t get to it. Apparently, when one sits at a desk most of the day, one’s vertical does not continue to gain height.
Dax raised his hands out like he scored points all the time. Newsflash: he didn’t. “Weren’t you on the volleyball team, Books? ”
“That was a mercy point,” I insisted, adjusting my sunglasses.
He laughed and waited for the next serve. It took a couple rounds, but I finally got my chance for revenge. Willing my legs to jump like they did ten years ago, I approached the ball Cat had set perfectly in my direction. Dax squared up opposite me, ready to block. My arms swung back, forward, and then connected with the ball at that perfect angle that felt amazing leaving my hand. The ball torpedoed down, humming past the hands Dax threw up in his attempt to block before burying itself in the sand behind him.
A beautiful kill.
I locked eyes with Dax and gave a little bow. Amusement lined his features, while he shook his head. On and on, we played like that. Even while the game and chatter played out around us, he was all I saw. I held a complete conversation with Holland, laughed at jokes I didn’t actually hear, and gave the impression of a twenty-something-year-old woman hanging out with friends, but my mind was otherwise engaged. I knew when he felt out of place, because he’d cross his arms in front of his chest. I could tell when he forgot about feeling out of place, because he’d be laughing and high-fiving Beau and Phoenix. I knew, at any given moment, exactly where he was and who he was talking to.
I had no regrets on the hours spent to get us here.
Though he was careful to keep it hidden, I felt his eyes on me as well.
My team won, winning me back the hours I gave up to bring Dax here.
So, all in all, it was a wash.
Eventually, we ended up down by the water, standing in a cluster, some wading in to their ankles or knees. Beau and his older brother, Tristan, and a few of the other guys began regaling us with stories from the old days. Naturally, Dax’s name came up in ways that got us all, including Dax, laughing. I wasn’t sure why watching him joke and interact with our friends brought a burning sense of accomplishment to my chest, but it did.
There was something different about us that I couldn’t put my finger on while we were there. But now, as we said goodnight and climbed into his golf cart, I realized what it was. There was an awareness between us that hadn’t been there before. We went together. We left together. And all the time in between had been filled with covert glances, knowing smiles, and inside jokes. When it was time to go, Dax looked at me to see if I was ready. It felt intimate in the most casual of ways.
And something very much like…friends.
For the record, I wasn’t lying in bed waiting for the goodnight knock. Since arriving home, I had given myself a pep talk, promising myself that I was going to stop getting distracted by Dax. I had a job to do, and I intended to do it. There was only pain in my future if I allowed myself to get attached to him. I didn’t live here, and I didn’t ever plan to.
I just happened to still be awake when he knocked. The end. When my phone lit up with a message a moment later, I only answered because there were definitely three distinct taps in that song, and he might be getting murdered. It was my neighborly duty.
DAX
Any guesses?
ME
Summer Girls by LFO?
DAX
I had to look that up. You’re so embarrassing.
ME
Baby Got Back?
DAX
Nope. I think we’re done for the night.
ME
White and Nerdy? By Weird Al?
DAX
You’re definitely getting closer.