The Fox and her Bear (Mating Call Dating Agency, #2) Page 8

  “Sorry, I can take it back, I—”

  “I. Asked. A. Question.”

  The orderly gulped. Angie had the same sort of tension built up inside her that reminded her of really having to pee that one time she’d been on I-20 in the middle of a complete lockdown for eight and a half hours. Except this time, she wouldn’t have to figure out how to use a coke bottle.

  “Er... grits?”

  “No, son,” Dawson growled the same way he must’ve right before he tore that guy up who attacked Tenner. “Asparagus. I love grits. Thanks! Cheese on ‘em?”

  The small-framed orderly let out a rattling laugh, as though he was testing the laughter waters. “I, er, yes I think so. And some ham.”

  “Ha! I really got you!” Dawson boomed again, and then let out a pained groan, clutching his side. “I got him, Angie! Did you see him squirming?”

  Angie took a couple of steps across the room and put her arms around the poor, still-shaking orderly. She hugged him tight and whispered a thank you in his ear. The young guy smiled, though he wasn’t exactly sure why.

  She knew though, somehow, that this massive bear of a man just needed to laugh. She knew that everything in his comfortable little world had come apart at the seams in the past couple of days, and this was as good a nervous prophylactic as anything.

  Dawson dug into his grits, happily chomping away at the cheesy mess, and then swallowed four biscuits with one bite apiece. She watched him, slightly amazed at the destruction on the tray. When he was finally done, he let his head flop backward against his pillow and let out a long, pleased moan. “God that was good,” he said, wiping some crumbs off his face. “Better than... er, nah never mind. Nowhere near as good as sex.”

  He said that right as Hibby walked in, so Angie had to staunch her own nervous laughter for the third time that morning. “Good news,” the nurse said. “Doctor has cleared you to go home, so you can do your dry humping there tonight. But you’re going to need someone to look after you since you probably won’t be able to get much done on your own until that bear healing kicks in a little more.”

  “Yeah,” Dawson said with a smile. “Yeah, that’s gonna be—wait, what? What did you say? Dry humping?”

  “Oh honey,” Hibby said with a grandmotherly smile. “If you think there’s anything I haven’t seen in this joint in my thirty some-odd years of service, I’d be amazed to find you right.”

  “But she... How did? The curtain, I—”

  Angie laughed so hard she started snorting. “She’s the one who closed the curtain,” she said. “So say ‘thank you, Miss Hibby.’”

  “Well, yeah, uh,” the poor guy was so red he looked like he shared DNA with a lobster. “I guess I should thank you for preserving my dignity.”

  She smiled again. “There’s no dignity in here. You’re wearing an ass-less gown. But you’re welcome, you two make a nice couple. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone so cute together since... well, probably me.” She laughed again. “Either way, you can go ahead and get out of here as soon as the nurses come around and unhook you. You’re a damn lucky bear, you know. A few inches higher and that broken bottle probably would have cut something important. Anyway, sign this please.”

  She held out a clipboard with a small pile of paper and a pen attached. “Yeah, all of them,” she said when she saw Dawson’s confusion. “Thanks.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess there’s not much question what’s gonna happen,” he finally said as he took Angie’s hand. “Thanks for everything you did for me. I... I’m gonna get serious here real quick, is that okay?”

  She nodded, squeezing his hand.

  “I never thought I’d feel like this. It’s nuts, but I feel like I hear people talking about falling for their first love in high school or whatever. I saw you, and my stomach got all fluttery.”

  She squeezed harder. “You’re coming home with me.”

  “I’m what?”

  A tear ran down her cheek. “I’m not letting you go. I can’t take that chance. I feel like you’re just going to vanish as soon as I let you out of my sight. And anyway,” she wiped her cheek and sniffed softly. “Hibby said you’d need someone to take care of you.”

  “Oh no, no, I can’t do that,” Dawson said softly, staring into Angie’s eyes. “I can’t take something that’s so good and turn it into some weird nursing home.”

  At that, she burst out laughing. “Are you kidding? Why would you being around be like a nursing home? All I have to do is change some band-aids and bring you Gatorade and opiate pain killers. How hard can it be?”

  “No, it’s not that, I just don’t want to be a big piece of furniture living in your... House? Apartment? God, I don’t even know what sort of place you live in. I hardly know anything about you, aside from the way you get my heart going in a way that reminds me of when I had acid reflux. I can’t ask you to do something like that.”

  “You aren’t asking, I’m telling. And I’m sure you’re going to be repaying me plenty,” she said with a sly grin. “Anyway, I’d do it for any of my friends, and you’re something... very different. I don’t even really know what you are, but I know this is special and I know I’m not taking any chances.”

  “All right kids, break up the serious time,” Hibby said as she walked back in. “I’ve drawn unhooking the bear duty. And Dawson? She’s taking care of you. No questions, no complaints. I can’t let you go unless I know you have someone to go to and your boss isn’t in any shape to do much except lay here and be high on painkillers for the foreseeable future. So, yeah, you’re going with her and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

  “What about Tenner?” Dawson asked. “Can I see him before we go?”

  “Better not,” Hibby said. “He’s real laid up. As bad as you had it, he had it a hundred times worse. He’s gonna be fine, so don’t worry about that, but he’s real messed up. I’ll call you two when he comes out of his post-surgery stupor and is awake enough to talk?”

  Angie nodded. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “He’s got the best around taking care of him. I know how much he means to you, but I’ll take your mind off it.”

  Dawson grumbled, but he got over it as soon as Angie kissed him and smiled. “We’re gonna have fun! It’ll be like a slumber party except with lots of sex!”

  The poor bear blushed heavily and stared straight at his toes. Hibby and Angie laughed loud and hard. “You know,” Hibby finally said, “for someone as big and obviously strong as you are, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone blush so much. You really should work on that. Even if it is kinda cute when your ass turns red. Sorta baboon like.”

  “Come on,” Dawson growled, trying to appear angry, to very little avail. “Let’s get out of here before I lose my last, flimsy, paper-thin shred of dignity.”

  They looked at each other again for a long moment when they emerged from the hospital, Angie pushing Dawson on his insurance-required wheelchair. Neither of them said anything, but they both knew without a shadow of a doubt that the world, for the two of them, was never going to be the same.

  8

  “Okay wait a second.” Colton was slightly confused, to say the least. “After the hospital you took him home? Is he an unwanted puppy?”

  “No, although when he gives me those big puppy dog eyes, I would be remiss if I didn’t say he reminded me of one. Especially when he’s doped up on Oxycodone.” She laughed. “When he woke up today he ate an entire box of Cap’n Crunch mixed with an entire box of Cocoa Puffs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone devour that much children’s cereal at once, but he was happy.”

  Colton was quiet for a moment as he clicked a few buttons on his panel and sent an ambulance to Pine Street. “So are you,” he said without looking in Angie’s direction. “You might never have seen anyone eat like that, but I’ve never heard you with this little skip in your voice. Mixed metaphor, but you get my point.”

  Angie opened her mouth, beginning
to respond, but she just hung there for a second, jaws agape, considering what he’d said. Before she could answer, her headset jingled in her ear. Someone needed a police car to make sure no one was lurking in their bushes, which in White Creek was generally as serious as criminal activity got. The whole time she was talking, though, Colton’s observation was on her mind. It was several minutes later when she got the caller squared away, but as soon as she had, she turned to him. “I think you’re right.”

  This sort of detached, stop-and-go conversational traffic was just the way they did things. It helped to be really used to someone.

  “It’s the craziest thing,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea why I’m doing it, but it seems like whatever I’m doing is right.”

  He spun his chair, hunched over with his elbows on his thighs and stared at her for a second. “That’s because it is.”

  “Thanks, Confucius. Any more cryptic things you’d like to say?”

  “Make sure he doesn’t get any weird ideas about mating you forever, because you’re mine.”

  She laughed and threw an eraser at Colton’s head. Instead it bounced off his monitor and landed on the floor. She followed it with her eyes. “I’m not crazy am I? For going on this ride, I mean. I’m not doing some ridiculous thing that I can’t ever come back from?”

  “I’ll tell you this,” he said. “In my entire life – all thirty years of experience and brilliance – I’ve never regretted something I did more than something I didn’t do. Take that for whatever it is, but there you go. And I’ll tell you again, I’ve never seen you smile like this, so I’m guessing you’re onto something.”

  “That’s not what you said before,” she said.

  “Oh. Well, that’s what I meant. What did I say?”

  “I don’t remember, exactly.”

  “Great, two dispatchers who can’t figure out what the hell they were talking about five minutes earlier. How do we ever manage to get police to someone’s house before they’re murdered?”

  Angie grinned. “Brute force and ignorance, I think.”

  “Bull-headed stubbornness too,” Colton said. “Don’t forget that. Anyway, you’re lucky. Grab this thing and don’t let go. Look, I have no idea if this is going to stick, I have no idea if this you and Dawson are going to last, but what the hell? What’s the point of living if you’re not gonna take any jumps?”

  “Don’t you think it’s crazy?” she asked. “I know I keep asking you that. I just can’t get my head around it. I can’t get over the fact that I’ve known this guy for two days and it’s like I’m already married to him, you know?”

  Colton shrugged. “I know you think the dreams are bullshit, and I know you hate the idea of fate and all that, but sometimes it’s hard to think that things are anything but that, you know?”

  “I guess,” she said. “I just can’t help but thinking I’m rushing into something that’s just going to leave me hurt.”

  He leaned over on his knees, braced on his elbows. “What do you have to be afraid of? Seriously – what is it that you’re actually scared of?”

  For a moment, Angie just stared straight ahead, eyes glazed over with thought. “I don’t know. I’ve just never jumped into anything before. Why the hell do you think I’ve been in the same job for almost my entire working life?”

  “Because you know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re always in control, some way or another. Maybe it’s time to step off that ledge without looking down? Maybe it’s time to just believe that sometimes life works out for the best? I don’t know. Look, I’m the worst person on earth to take relationship advice from. Remember? I’m the one with the made up girlfriend from California?”

  Angie laughed. “Maybe it is. But damn if I can’t get it out of my head that I’m an idiot.”

  “You’re no idiot,” Colton was serious. “Of all the things that could possibly describe you, idiot isn’t one of them. You know what you’re doing, you’re just scared. It’s normal when you’re going into something new. I’m here though, right? And even if you haven’t known him long, doesn’t it feel like you have? Like you know him better than you possibly can?”

  “Or at least I can give it a chance, huh? But you’re right about the knowing him thing. It’s almost creepy.”

  “Love is very frequently creepy,” Colton said with a grin. “It’s worth all the creepy in the world though.”

  She nodded as her phone buzzed again. Only this time, it wasn’t the one in her head, rather the one stuffed in her pocket.

  “Got a surprise for you tonight,” the text from Dawson read. “I’m not gonna say anything else, but ABHT-hhthht.”

  Laughing out loud, she texted back, “Fat fingers?”

  It took a second for a response. “Like lniks of snausnage.”

  At this point she was laughing so hard it didn’t matter if he was full of it or not. The guy was somehow able to make her laugh in the most boring and most serious of circumstances, which for someone in a position as normally gravitas-laden as Angie’s, was pretty crazy. When she finally stopped, she noticed Colton was staring at her and shaking his head. “What?” she asked. “You’re staring at the side of my head.”

  “You’re laughing. A lot. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I heard you laugh this much?”

  “Never?”

  “That’s not really what I meant, but... yeah, probably never. Are you dating Charlie Chaplin? I mean, before the whole weird communist thing, anyway. Although I’m sure he was still funny, that whole thing just kind of put a sad clown damper on him.” When he realized that Angie was just watching him talk, he got defensive. “What? I was just saying that... oh to hell with it. You know what I’m saying.”

  She was just about beaming. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. And to answer you more honestly, I really don’t know how long it’s been since I felt like this. When we were in the hospital Dawson said something about feeling like a teenager falling in love for the first time, but that it was different – and both of us are closer to forty than teenaged.”

  “And you’re starting to see what he meant?”

  “I almost feel stupid saying this, but... yeah, I think I do. When we got home after the whole bar fight thing, I felt like we were just going home,” she emphasized the words to be explicit as to her meaning. “It wasn’t like he was just gonna come stay with me for a few days while his stitches healed, it was like... I’m rambling.”

  “You are,” Colton said, “but it makes sense. And I’m guessing from the way you were guffawing like Herman Munster over there, it was him with the messages?”

  She turned the phone around and showed him the screen, but not before a quick check to make sure there weren’t any naughty texts in viewable range. That was something she’d never in her life thought she’d have to contend with: worrying about someone seeing her dirty text messages.

  As Colton read the screen, and said something about how guys do that shitty-at-texting thing as an act because they know how cute it is, something deep and awful set in heavily on Angie’s chest. It was that same old nagging, awful feeling – why me? Not that she had any real shame about her appearance, or thought she was anything less than awesome, she did have her moments of self-questioning, like everyone else. And aside from that, this was a bear with a golden tongue, in more ways than one, she figured. The singing she knew about, the other... well, she knew it probably wouldn’t be very long until she didn’t have to guess anymore.

  “I know I already asked you once, but do you think I’m crazy?” Angie asked.

  “Yes,” Colton replied flatly. “You have to be to be as interesting as you are. But do I think it’s bad crazy? Hell no, not at all. I think you should roll the dice on this guy because unless you’ve made up all these stories like I did when I pretended I was dating a wolf girl from California when I was in sixth grade, I think he’s a keeper.”

  “You what?”

  “It’s a long story
. Okay not really, but it is embarrassing as hell and I already told you the most important part of it, so there we go. Angie,” he grabbed her shoulders. “Stop questioning yourself. You know how badly you’ve wanted this. You know it’s your turn to have something good. God knows you’ve earned it.”

  Listening to her friend say that made Angie’s cheeks burn. “Really? Why?”

  “For all the things you’ve done for this town? For the people you’ve helped and the lives you’ve saved with that steely nerve and quick brain of yours? For the fact that in the five years I’ve known you, you haven’t said anything negative about anyone?” He paused for a moment, considering. “Okay, well I’ll amend that by saying – nothing negative about anyone that wasn’t both true and constructive in the long run – which is far more accurate.”

  She laughed at that, and the smile lingered on her face afterward.

  “You remember that guy from the donut shop date? Whatever his name was? Jamie Danish or something?”

  Again, she started snickering. “Uh, Jake Lamar? That poor guy. I hope he ends up with some nice girl who acts submissive so he doesn’t feel like he’s being bossed around. Jamie Danish sounds like the lamest mobster in history.”

  “Right,” he said. “See? See what you just said? Anyone else would have something like ‘oh yeah, that asshole,’ or ‘right, that guy was a creep.’ But you? Of course not. You say that you hope he ends up with a nice girl who suits him. And you’re asking me why you deserve something good for once?”

  She sat back in her chair and interlaced her fingers behind her head. Her curls became a toy for a moment; she twisted her fingers among them, then pulled her hair and let it spring back into place. “Yeah,” she said, “I guess I do.”

  What she was thinking though was that she didn’t think anyone deserved anything. Everyone takes different things from college, and for Angie, it was existentialism. Well, existentialism and a lifelong love of Malbec and dark, stout beer. Those were the two things she couldn’t physically drink enough of to get a hangover of any note, so she had always felt pretty proud of herself for discovering those things.