“He said it’s cold there,” I repeated, keeping the rotation of my arm circling. This muscle ache could be due to the stress both men were putting on me as opposed to an actual strained muscle.
“Mr. Beau, is this rod in the backseat for Dash’s clothes?” Amelia asked. She’d taken responsibility for Dash’s clothing herself. She understood firsthand how carefully he treated them, so she wrapped each piece by itself, mindful of any potential longdrags. Since it’d be a while before he was able to commission a new bespoke anything, he had been silly careful with what he had available.
“What did she ask?” Dash questioned. My shoulders drooped in the beat down I was experiencing. What happened to my chirping birds and gentle breeze?
“She asked about the rod in the backseat, and yes, Amelia’s the only one hangin’ your clothes there,” I said, starting for the tailgate to jump to the driveway. “Why do you need to be on the phone through this phase of the move? It’d be so much faster…”
“Because I desperately wish I was there. I should’ve taken the day off and flown home,” he said, giving the perfect sorrowful inflection to his tone.
My response to the many different ways Dash had attempted to come home for this move played like a loop out of my mouth. “Since neither of us has a job, I think it’s best for you to stay put. I’ll handle this leg, but it’d be so much smoother if I could hang up the phone. These earbuds are startin’ to hurt my ears.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Dash said dryly. “The earbuds take time for the ear to adapt.” Like I thought, the sad tone was all a manipulation tactic. The new voice in place spoke of something more akin to “buck up, buttercup.”
“If Amelia gets lonely, me and Lauren and Daisy Mae can come stay with her,” Scott said good-naturedly.
“Do they need a place to stay?” Dash asked, apparently having heard Scott just fine. “Amelia won’t mind.”
I didn’t bother responding. That was the other side of the communication problem we were experiencing. Scott and I messed around with each other all the time. What Dash was missing was all of Scott’s facial cues. I’d have to explain those too.
“We started with about fifteen boxes to load then we’ll tie it all down. Amelia’s at least halfway through. Her short legs movepretty quickly. We’ll probably have to help there—” Dash cut him off.
“Please use care,” Dash reinforced. “How did you pack my shoes?” Oh man, like we hadn’t discussed these things at length, several times over.
“She put the shoes wrapped in tissue paper inside the shoeboxes. They’ll be on the floorboard stacked on top of each other to reach the ceilin’.” I felt the wind on my face while, rooted in my spot, I chose my words carefully. If I didn’t say exactly the right thing, I’d be in for a ten-minute instructional one-sided chat.
“Hush. I don’t have that many shoes,” he corrected, but he did, and we both knew it.
“I decided to pack your cologne collection. We had room for it,” I said and started inside to gather two more boxes off the stack.
“Good. I tried to be an adult about leaving those at home, but I’m all for mixing it up. Everything smells good on you.” As he rambled on, my eyes did a dramatic somersault into the back of my head. Luckily, I stopped just shy of labeling his words as the horseshit they were. I had to admit, way back when we first met, Dash was a primper in training. Now, he was determined to be a runway model every time he left the house. I found those fragrances had become his mood ring, and I was learning to crack those codes too.
“He gonna be on the phone until we get there?” Scott asked, shimming past to avoid my slow pace.
“Yes,” Dash called out in my ear. “I’ve got to go to class in about twenty-minutes, then I’ll be on the phone with you the whole way here. Tell him.”
I stared at Scott, nodding him back inside the house. “We’d most likely be on the road if I could concentrate and pick up the pace. Call us when you leave class.”
“The laptop comes with an internet stick…” Dash reiterated.
“Babe, you’ve gotta rein in the spendin’. Our cash is gonna run out too fast if you don’t,” I urged, plopping my load of boxes on the bed then hoisting myself up to carefully stack them alongside the others.
“I’ve been brainstorming some pet names for us. I like Bobo for you, what do you think?”
I couldn’t hold back my sudden howl of laughter, drawing both Amelia and Scott’s attention.
“I’ll never be called Bobo. Got it? You’ve called me handsome, babe, and cowboy, I believe. Pick from those.” This time, I went to the edge and jumped over the side. Before I heard Dash’s answer, the earbud dislodged and fell from my ear. “Hang on.” I worked the hard ear bud back into my now sensitive ear. “Before you repeat what you said, I feel like I like the wordbaby. Baby. It feels right on my tongue. What do you think?”
“I think it’s perfect. I like it a lot,” Dash said quietly. “I’m going to keep thinking about it. I want a special name. Something that rolls off my lips too. I’ll hang up so you can finish, but there’s no more breaks until you sleep on the ride. Then I still want to be on the phone.”
I stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of the yard and closed my eyes at all the effort it took to have Dash with us in this way. But no matter my irritation, I did like his willingness to spend his free time with me. Falling asleep with his face next to me meant the world to me. “We’ll see.”
“I guess we will.”
“Cocky, aren’t you?”
“Confident in my ability to persuade my guy.”
I laughed a crazy sounding chuckle, knowing no truer words had ever been spoken, and started for the house. “Be safe,” I murmured.
