Chapter 7 Storm
Storm
I slept like crap. No matter how many times I tried to clear my head and fall asleep, I couldn’t do it. Dixie’s words kept running through my head on repeat.
She can't honestly think I don’t have feelings for her, right? She has to realize there’s a special pull I’ve always had to her and I’ve never felt that towards any other woman.
I roll over to face her, more than ready to talk this out. I'm not letting her run away from me… Except the spot next to me is empty.
“C’mon, Dix,” I hiss as I scrub a hand down my face.
When could she have snuck out? I only slept for a few minutes at a time. How could she have timed her escape so perfectly?
Pulling myself out of bed, I know I'm going to be in a terrible mood today. I'm not sure if I'm angrier about the lack of rest, about Dixie’s disappearing act, or how she doesn’t think I care. Each option is completely valid and they’re all piling up in my mind, making it hard to think straight.
I'm showered and dressed in less than five minutes. Then I'm tugging on my cut and stomping out of my apartment. I head straight to Dixie’s apartment and bang on the door until a sleepy and hungover Oakley answers the door.
“Can you just… not? My head is killing me.” She rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. Her black hair is a wild mess, sticking up in every direction. She looks like she had a rough night too.
“I want to talk to Dixie.”
“She isn't here, Storm. Jeez, you really had to bang like that because you were looking for Dixie?” She glances down at her watch and winces, grabbing for her head. “It’s seven o’clock in the morning. Where do you think Dixie could possibly be?” She rolls her eyes and slams the door in my face.
I let out a growl of frustration and head towards the mess hall. I don’t bother getting in line for the delicious smelling food or talking to any of the guys. I go straight to the kitchen and let the door slam behind me.
Dixie slowly lifts her gaze to meet mine before turning her attention back to whatever she was working on. It looks like some sort of dough. She’s stretching it in one direction, then folding it back on itself.
I don’t understand how she never flinches or jumps when there’s a loud noise or someone barging into the room. Somehow, she always looks bored when I feel like I'm seconds away from punching a hole in the wall.
“You left without telling me,” I growl, folding my arms across my chest and staring at her with narrowed eyes.
She doesn’t say a word. She keeps stretching the dough and folding it back into a ball. As the seconds tick by, my skin gets itchy. It feels too tight for my body and I feel like I'm seconds away from going insane.
“I'm talking to you, Little Fox.” I take three large steps towards her. The only thing separating us is the island and granite counter top.
“I believe I told you last night, I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” she mumbles without any sort of emotion. If I didn’t already know she was mad at me, I wouldn’t know based on her tone.
“Are you kidding me?” I roar, knocking an empty bowl onto the ground by accident.
I thrust my fingers through my hair and tug on the ends. I don’t know how she has the power to make me feel so unhinged, but she does.
“My memory is a little fuzzy, but I distinctly remember being mad at you and telling you I don’t want to talk to you.”
“And why were you mad at me? What did I do to deserve this?” I plant my palms on the cool surface of the counter and lean in until our faces are only an inch or so apart.
“I don’t remember,” she says simply.
She spins around and grabs a tea towel. After sprinkling it with flour, she places the perfectly round dough in it and wraps it up. It’s put in a bowl and covered with something else before she pushes it into the corner and begins working on another lump of dough.
“So, you snuck out of my bed and are refusing to talk to me, yet you don’t even know why?”
“I'm sure I know somewhere in the back of my brain, I just can't remember right now. It will come to me sooner or later. Until then, I'm mad and I’ll figure out my reasoning later.” She lifts one shoulder in a shrug and continues working.
“Why’d you sneak out of my bed?”
“I think that goes back to the ‘I’m mad at you’ thing. Plus, it’s a little weird. I don’t remember much from last night, but I woke up wearing one of your shirts and my clothes were all over the floor.” She scrunches up her nose in disgust and I want to scream.
I thought Dixie had a thing for me. I always suspected she had a little crush on me, but right now, she’s making me feel like I'm practically invisible to her. An annoying little gnat at best.
“I didn’t touch you like that,” I growl.
“Oh, I wasn’t implying you did.” She smiles down at the dough, completely oblivious to how I'm unraveling. “You’d never do anything to hurt Daddy’s view of you.
You care too much about him liking you to ever touch any of the Reeves triplets.
We’ve known that for a long time. I'm just wondering why I was in your bed to begin with. Daddy probably wouldn’t approve of that. ”
“He’s the one who asked me to take you to my place. He wanted me to watch you because everyone was too afraid you were going to choke on your own vomit with how drunk you were.”
“That’s right,” she draws out the word as her brows pinch together and she starts piecing things together. “And now, I remember why I'm mad at you.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” I drop onto the stool and stare at her.
There’s no way this is really happening.
I just wanted to talk to her and clear the air.
I planned on us having a real conversation.
A heart to heart where I would lay it all out on the table and we could see where the cards fall.
“See, I really don’t want to talk to you because now I remember why I'm mad. I’d like it if you left my kitchen.” She points in the direction of the door and I let out a humorless laugh. She has to be messing with me.
“No. I think I’ll stay. I have some things I wanted to talk to you about and they’re concerning why you were mad at me last night.”
“Wait… You knew I was mad?” Her brows pinch together as she finally moves her attention to me.
“Yes?”
“And you weren’t going to tell me? Wow, Storm. You can be a real jerk sometimes.” She spins around and wraps this dough in another tea towel and repeats the process with a third lump.
“I wasn’t going to remind you. That would be crazy. I'm trying to make you less annoyed with me, not more.” I shake my head, focusing on the wrong thing isn't going to help here. “But I wanted to talk to you about how you were wrong with what you were thinking last night.”
Holy crap, I feel like I'm talking in circles and it’s making me more and more agitated. I just wanted to clear the air between us. I want to tell Dixie how much she means to me and make her understand.
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“You’re not sure you want to what?”
“Listen to you yammer on and on about how I'm wrong. I have a lot of work to get done before dinner.”
“How are you even standing right now? Oakley could barely even keep her eyes open when I stopped at your apartment and she wasn’t nearly as drunk as you were last night.”
“Well, Roxy has this theory. She says because her and Oakley drink more often than I do, they get hungover. Where I rarely drink, my body processes the alcohol more quickly and I don’t get hungover… though I'm still a little drunk.”
“Should you really be using sharp objects then?” I motion to the knife she just picked up to start cutting vegetables.
“Probably not, but who else is going to do it?”
“Stop it. Sit down and relax. I can help for a while before anyone is going to look for me.” I move around the island so I'm standing next to her and carefully take the knife out of her hands.
Dixie stares at me until I nod towards the stool and after rolling her eyes, she finally moves around to sit down with a huff.
“You’re not going to do it right.”
I pause with the knife midair, ready to slice into the carrots. I lift my gaze just enough to meet her eyes through my lashes.
“I know how to cut vegetables, Dixie. Remember I have a whole fourteen years of experience on this earth more than you do.”
“Yeah, but you don’t cook. So, your old age doesn’t help you here.”
“I know how to cook. What are we making for dinner anyway?”
“Stew. What else would these idiots possibly want?” She groans, dropping her head onto the countertop.
“If you could make anything you wanted for dinner, what would it be?”
Dixie rolls her head to the side so she can stare up at me without lifting her head. Her eyes are narrowed and she’s examining me, but she doesn’t look angry, just curious.
“What does it matter? I'm not allowed to make what I want, Storm. You know that. I get to cook stew, meatloaf with potatoes, chili, sloppy joes, and tacos. If I'm really lucky, I get to make soup.”
“Humor me. Tell me three meals you’d like to cook.” I eye her as I continue cutting the carrots into slices for the stew.
“Chicken pot pie.” She takes a second to keep thinking. “Fried rice with egg rolls and chicken… and… stir-fry.”
“So, why can't you make those?”
“Because every time I try to cook something different, someone complains and I get told to stick to the oldies but goodies. It was a waste of my time going to culinary school. I should’ve taken over the bar like Roxy did.
Or asked to run the shop like Oakley does.
Anything would be better than being stuck in this kitchen day in and day out cooking things I hate.
You’re all so predictable. Even the two days a week I don’t have to cook, you all eat burgers and hot dogs.
There’s no variety! You’d think for a bunch of men who can't commit to a relationship, you wouldn’t want to commit to the same food every week. ”
“Who says I can't commit to a relationship?” I arch a brow.
“Well, you’re not in one.” She gives me a ‘duh’ look.
“Just because I'm not in one doesn’t mean I couldn’t be.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
“I’d have to find someone I want to be with. That’s not exactly easy. And she’d have to want to be with me too. Which makes it even more difficult.”
“Oh, please. I'm sure you’d prefer to stick with the bike bunnies.” She rolls her eyes. She does that a lot around me.
I almost want to laugh at her term bike bunnies.
Roxy, Oakley, and Dixie started calling the girls who hung around the club hoping to sleep with one of the members’ bike bunnies.
We’ve tried so many times to tell them that isn't what they’re called, but they insist on using the name. They say they like it better.
“I don’t touch the bike bunnies,” I mutter under my breath.
I see she thinks very highly of me. There’s no chance of her seeing me as anything more than a player.
You can't have her anyway.
The voice in the back of my head reminds me of the one thing I like to forget. No matter what I do, Dixie can never be mine.