Chapter 25
Biology Class
Day 49
Mr. Gray began his lecture at two minutes past the hour. It wasn’t unusual for Dax to be late. I slouched in my seat, my hand holding up my chin, and kept my gaze forward. Our conversation from yesterday ran through my mind on a constant shuffle.
The words I had said on repeat.
He never came.
Beau flipped on the light in a large room at the police station. A low hum sounded before the small island’s version of a jail lit up in fluorescent lights. The room boasted two small holding cells tucked side by side against the wall. They were cage-like and gave the impression of sturdy chicken wire wrapped around all sides. Honestly, it looked like something anybody could order off the internet. Each cell had a twin-sized bed with a questionable blanket and pillow sitting skewed on top and a metal toilet right there in the open room.
The cell on the right looked like it had been used more as a storage room than to hold prisoners. Boxes, old books, and a couple of dusty printers that looked like they’d come directly from the 1990s lined the floor and bed. Directly across from the holding cells was a large desk with a tidy stack of papers, a computer, and a plaque that said Officer Beau Palmer .
“Are you serious?” Dax asked, after we had a chance to soak in our immediate future.
“I had four calls from the retirement center alone, telling me about a car sighting, and at least seven other calls from people around the community.”
“How about we just —“ Dax began.
“Nope!” Beau held up his hand in front of Dax’s face. “You guys dragged me out of bed at three in the morning for something as dumb as this. I’ll be doing paperwork all day tomorrow, and I’ll probably still be taking calls all night.”
It appeared that Beau was still grumpy.
As if on cue, Beau’s phone began to ring. He picked it up, glanced at it, and groaned before silencing the ring.
“Sorry you got dragged into this, Ivy,” Beau said. “But if I make him stay, I’ve got to make you stay too.”
“It was my idea. I should be the one staying.”
Seriously. Why wasn’t I worried? This whole thing still felt like it was some grand adventure. I was still on PROBATION from the last time I screwed up. This was serious stuff. But also, I just had the best kiss of my life.
So…
That was probably where the wires were getting crossed.
“Alright, pick your cell,” Beau said, striding forward to the first cell without all the boxes and shoving a key in the lock. “And yes, you are sleeping here tonight. I’m that annoyed.”
The door opened with a squeak and a clank. He moved to the next and tried all seven keys on his chain before kicking the cage in frustration.
“Shouldn’t you have a keypad or something?” Dax asked, his arms folded and amusement pouring out of him. “Can’t every halfway decent criminal pick locks nowadays? ”
Beau turned toward his friend. “Can you?”
Dax made a face. “I plead the fifth.”
“Do you even know what the fifth is?”
“Yeah. It’s the one where I don’t have to say anything.”
At this point, I was internally pleading with Dax to shut up, but we both saw the moment Beau snapped.
“That’s it. You’re sharing this cell. Dax, you’d better be a gentleman and let her have the bed.” He motioned us to move forward.
“I told you I’d let you drive it for a week,” Dax said, the humor not quite gone from his face.
“You didn’t even tell me you had a car on the island. For two years?! I’m going to need it for at least a month before I even think about getting over this,” Beau said.
We humbly stepped inside the cell as Beau quite dramatically locked us inside.
“If you need it, the toilet is conveniently located next to the bed. It’s the middle of the night, so I don’t have to get you any food.” He strode to the mini refrigerator sitting next to his desk and pulled out two water bottles. He hesitated half a second before muttering a string of words under his breath and grabbing a half-eaten bag of Tootsie Rolls. He handed us both a water bottle and me the bag of candy before backing away.
“Don’t share that with him,” he told me, pointing at Dax. “And I’m not staying here, for your information. After what I just saw in that car, there’s no way.” He shot Dax a stern look. “And just so you know, there are cameras all over this room. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Are you talking about that one camera right in the middle of your desk?” Dax asked, watching his friend in some amusement.
Beau stiffened, glancing quickly behind him. “There’s more.”
Dax laughed, giving the bed a kick with his foot. “What’s the year on this bad boy?”
“It’s definitely older than any of us.” He turned off the light, which immediately kicked on a few yellow security lights, casting a golden hue about the room. “But you’ll be on the floor, so it doesn’t matter. Sweet dreams. Hopefully I’ll remember you guys are here in the morning.”
“The accommodations are lovely. Thank you,” Dax called pleasantly.
There were more inaudible grumbles before the door slammed shut.
A moment of silence passed between us where Dax stood almost sheepishly running his hand through his hair as he looked around before his gaze fell to me.
“I’ve never brought a girl here before.”
A laugh bubbled out of me as I looked around our home for the next few hours. The frumpy-looking bed held almost zero appeal. The toilet looked clean enough but was missing a few walls around it. But Dax was here with me. It was all a big adventure. A dream. We couldn’t be in trouble if it felt this easy to be here.
Right?
I pulled out a Tootsie Roll from the bag Beau handed me. “Do you think he’s more upset because we drove the car on the island or that you had a car and didn’t tell him?
“Definitely the second.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I asked, popping the candy in my mouth.
He shrugged. “That’s a lot of information to put on a cop. Are you planning on sharing that bag, Books?”
I pretended to think. “I don’t know… Beau specifically told me not to.”
“Ten hours to the first person who can knock over the camera on his desk.”
I laughed, looking at the small camera facing us. “Do you think he’s watching us right now? ”
“All I know is that I’m not peeing in here with that thing pointed this way.”
I shot him a look that made him laugh. “You better not be peeing at any time in this cell.”
He nodded toward the candy bag. “Ten hours?”
“Fine.” I pulled a handful of candy out of the bag before handing it over to him. There was a narrow slit of a window in the center of the cage door. It was wide enough to deliver meals to people sitting inside and toss Tootsie Rolls toward the desk. My first attempt glanced off the corner of Beau’s desk.
“Pathetic, Books,” Dax said as he lined up his shot. I laughed when his attempt didn’t even make it to the desk.
“Eh, I’m not too worried,” I said, getting into the game. My enthusiasm began to wane, however, when after five minutes of trash talking and goading, the closest we’d come was wiggling the camera a bit.
“Are you regretting driving the car?” he asked, throwing another shot, his candy landing in a pile on Beau’s desk.
I thought for a moment. “No. I keep waiting for regret to show up, but so far…I’m still on a high.”
Dax shot me a look. “Maybe the high is from something else.”
Heat bloomed on my cheeks as wide as I took in a shaky breath. I needed to get a grip. I was in jail with Dax Miller.
JAIL.
This was not a time to flirt. I needed casual Dax and Ivy back if I was going to survive the night here. Currently, I had enough energy zipping through my body to power a small building.
“You mean when I actually got to drive the cult classic 1969 Chevy Chevelle?”
“The second-best thrill of the night.”
He leaned casually against the cell door, one hand in his pocket as he studied me. Every part of me wanted to walk up to him and bring us back to where we had left off in the car. Judging from the smoldering fire in his gaze, I’d bet he’d be willing.
Instead, I clasped the wall of the holding cell to keep me from moving toward him.
But my brain had already taken flight, soaring high in the clouds. I relived the strength of his arms pulling me onto his lap. The softness of his fingers brushing the hair from my face. His warm body pressed against mine, and the?—
“Are you leaving on Monday?”
His careful question pulled me from a car of tangled limbs and back to reality. His stormy eyes on mine.
“According to my dad.” I threw another candy, and to my shock and amazement, it was a direct hit. The camera tipped backward. I raised my hands in triumph.
Dax smiled. “Ten hours.”
Suddenly, I felt hollow inside. Like I’d spent all of my money riding a carnival ride that ended too quickly and left me feeling empty and slightly nauseous. The hours didn’t mean anything anymore. This past week, I had gotten really good at fooling myself into thinking that reality didn’t exist for me. That my summer on the island would never end. I walked farther into the cell, still not tempted by the frumpy bed and instead, sunk down the wall onto the cold ground at the foot of the bed.
“Do you want to go?” Dax sat against the opposite wall from me, his legs stretched out in front of him.
Did I want to go?
That was the question of the hour.
“I’ve worked my entire life to get a job like this. I finally get to teach a class. I don’t think I have much choice.”
“After the class, though? From what you told me on the boat, you’ll be doing more research.
“But I will be teaching one day,” I insisted. My voice was strong and clear, though in direct contrast to my cloudy thoughts. “Look, I know what I told you on the boat. It probably sounded bad. It’s a great career, and it’s paid for now, and I think I’ll enjoy it. It’s just hard to find jobs right out of graduation, so I…it’s hard to…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say or how to end it. My brain was a mess of words and numbers. My heart hadn’t even entered the chat.
His jaw clenched slightly as he looked away. “As long as it’s you that wants it. That’s great. But life is hard enough without trying to manage somebody else’s expectations.”
I didn’t have to ask who he was referring to.
“Look, things with my dad go back a long way.”
“Tell me.”
I scoffed. “We’re literally in jail right now. We don’t need to get into all of this. We need to sleep.”
Dax nodded toward the bed of questionable sheets. “You first.”
When I visibly wavered, he pushed one more button. “I’m guessing that it was your daddy issues that got us here, so it seems fitting to talk about.”
“We’re here because I wanted to finish my hours. How nice of you to figure out a way for me to?—”
“Ivy.”
He was waiting for me to speak. I could feel my body slowly shutting down slowly as the excitement from the night began fading.
I waited a moment before I spoke, doing my best to sort through twenty-eight years of complicated emotions into something I could tell Dax.
“It was hard growing up with my dad. You know how he is. Nothing I ever did was good enough for him, so I always knew I had to be something great for him to love me. Or do something great.”
“How did you know that?”
“Know what?”
“That you had to earn his love?”
“What do you mean? ”
He shrugged. “Even after everything with my parents, I never doubted they loved me. Why did you?”
A memory from long ago bubbled up to the surface. It wasn’t a moment I’d forgotten. It was the opposite of that. I couldn’t have forgotten it if I tried. And I had tried. It had been repressed, pushed down, and even denied on occasion. But never forgotten.
“I think I was nine. My parents were fighting in the kitchen, and I was hiding in my room under the covers. I remember hearing my mom walking down the hall, probably to go cry in her room, but my dad followed her. He probably forgot I was even home, or maybe he thought I was asleep, but I overheard him tell my mom that getting her pregnant with me was the biggest mistake of his life.”
Dax didn’t move, his body tense except for the smallest tick in his jaw.
“They had been about to break up, but then they found out they were pregnant with me, so they got married instead,” I said, a humorless laugh billowing out of me. “I’ve unpacked a lot of that in therapy already, but it’s easy to see how my entire childhood was spent proving my worth to a man who would never see it.”
He moved his hand across his mouth as he watched me. I grew self-conscious at his sympathetic gaze, turning me into a water spout that refused to turn off.
“I was doing really well in Tennessee—or so I thought. But since coming to the island, I’ve realized I only thought that because I wasn’t around him. Anyway, I know he doesn’t have the capacity to feel love in that way. I know this. My mom knows this. Angela will figure it out eventually. So I can’t figure out why it still hurts so much?”
“Because he’s your dad,” Dax stated softly.
I took a breath, fighting for control of my emotions, before adding, “It’s kind of funny… After all my therapy, I can diagnose ev erything he says and does. I know all the narcissistic behaviors. I know he won’t change. I can name all the emotions I’m feeling whenever I’m around him, but I can’t seem to ever fully overcome them, and it sucks. So, when you ask me if I want to go to Tennessee? I have no idea. I’m so lost in not knowing if I want to go because it’s really something I love, or if it’s something I think I love because it’s what he wants for me.”
I sunk down on the floor, curling on my side, my head resting on my arm. I had run a marathon tonight, between the adrenaline, the kiss, getting caught, and now sitting in a cell. I wanted to sleep, but my brain whirled too much to settle just yet.
And then Dax spoke.
“It’s interesting how people move in and out of our lives...how they kind of…shape us. There’s a lot of potential havoc to be had just from being close to someone.”
Though his voice was light I could feel the pain behind his words.
“Do you think you’d be different if Mason hadn’t left?” I asked softly.
After a moment, he cleared his throat, bending one leg at the knee to rest his arm on it. “I wonder if I would have turned out more like Trent.”
“A doctor? I don’t know… I’ve seen your handiwork with a scalpel. I wasn’t that impressed.” I sent him a teasing smile, sensing that we needed a moment to regroup.
He shook his head, a reluctant smile forming on his lips. “After all my work in biology, it’s ironic that you’re the one with the doctor tag on your name.”
I laughed. “So you think you might have been different if Mason was still here?”
“I don’t know. I was on track to be like Trent before Mason left. I wasn’t as hard core with the books, but I was a pretty good student. Never caused much trouble. But when he left, everything changed. Keith saved me in a lot of ways because he taught me how to be good at something. And I loved it. I love taking things apart and fixing them with my hands. The mechanics of how things are built just make sense to me. So maybe I would have been exactly the same either way.”
“Or maybe you found what you loved because of Mason.”
There was a pause in the air as we both contemplated the idea of that statement.
“So, if I ever see Mason again, I should be thanking him, huh?” His voice was soft, reminding me once again about hope.
“I think you became exactly who you were meant to be. And you should be proud of that.”
“So, extremely good-looking and smart?” he teased.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t even say it sarcastically. I meant it too much.
“Thanks, Doc.”
I laughed, my head feeling fuzzier by the minute. “I thought you said you weren’t going to call me that unless I could operate on your leg.”
“I’ve said a lot of things. I can’t be held responsible for all of them.”
“I wonder what I would have been like if my dad had been different,” I said.
“You probably would have been a lot funner in biology.”
A soft laugh escaped me. “If you were closer, I’d kick you for that.”
“Get over here then.”
I bit my lip as his words tempted and toyed with me. Notwithstanding the fact that he would be a much more comfortable place to lay my head than the cold floor, I had a strong suspicion I would have a hard time letting go of Dax if I were to crawl over there now. And there was too much unknown whirling in my mind for me to be another person wreaking havoc on his life when I left .
“You light up whenever you talk about teaching. It’s in your blood. I watch you at the cafe. You like people, and people like you. With or without your dad, I think you’re right where you’re supposed to be.” The words were said with such softness. Achingly so. As if he were preparing us both for something.
“Guess we’re both better off than we thought.”
That statement was going to be my last. I could feel myself slipping, until the tiniest little nugget of information from his brother came flying back into my conscience. It knocked and clanged noisily until I had to get it out. Now. Not tomorrow. There was something about talking in the dark that made a person brave. I’d be too chicken tomorrow.
“Dax?” I asked.
“Hmm?” His voice was heavy with sleep.
“Did I really help you graduate?”
The room fell silent except the sound of a ticking clock somewhere on the wall. He waited so long to speak I thought he had fallen asleep.
“I was about to quit. The counselor told me I had to take biology and an English class to graduate, and I didn’t want to do either one of them. I told Keith I would get my GED later, and that would be good enough. He told me I had to try it out for three weeks to see how it went. I was on my final week, just messing around, until I could tell Keith it didn’t work out. And then Mr. Gray switched my partner.”
A flame dipped low in my belly, sending sparks zipping though my veins.
“And she must have been sweet and smart and a really good influence—“ I began.
“She was the bossiest, most annoying girl I’d ever been around,” he interrupted while I broke off, laughing.
“She made me work, didn’t put up with my crap, and had a smile that lit me up for days. I couldn’t have gotten her out of my head if I tried. ”
I covered my face with my hands. It was too much. More than I bargained for. More than I was ready for. But I snatched the words from the air and kept them anyway.
“Dax,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You lit me up too.”
It wasn’t wasted on me that I used past tense when the way I was feeling currently made me yearn to use present, but my heart was still fragile. This awakening in me was still new, and there were still so many unknowns. So, I kept to myself the fact that Dax Miller had done a number on me this summer.
But I had a house and a job and a life in Tennessee.
“I’m going to regret telling you this,” he began, “but I’m half delirious right now. I know you Googled the tattoo of my car, but have you ever looked closer?”
“Huh?”
“Maybe you should.”
“Wait. What?”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Goodnight, Caroline.”
All of a sudden, the tune of “Sweet Caroline” was being knocked on the floor of the holding cell. With a grin on my face, I made a mental note to examine Dax’s tattoos more thoroughly in the morning, and with my body half numb from lying on the concrete floor, I slipped off to sleep.
Sometime later, I felt myself being lifted up off the hard ground. I became slightly more aware when Dax placed me gently on the bed.
“Ew. I don’t want to use the pillow,” I mumbled, trying to move my head away.
“I’ve got something covering it. Relax.”
Carefully, I let my head fall back, waiting for something to eat me. Instead, I was enveloped in a soft, uneven pillow that smelled exactly like Dax. His shirt. His hand brushed a hair out of my face, and I felt a soft kiss on my forehead before he moved away.
“Dax?”
“Yeah?”
“I thought you didn’t kiss girls who are leaving.”
“Are you leaving?” His voice was as soft as his caress.
“I don’t know.”
“Then there’s your answer.”