“Yeah, I’m done for the day. Other things to do and all that.”
She looked between Ema and me, her eyes sharp, as if trying to read invisible signals in the air.
“You’re done when I say you’re done.”
“Actually, I leave when I damn well please,” I replied, taking a step toward her. I enjoyed that my eyes sat slightly above hers and she had to look up at me. “I have a feeling you got whatever you intended to get out of today. You’re the one who’s behind in keeping up with your end of the bargain. If you’re no help in getting information on the children’s home, then there’s no point in me continuing to come,” I said as I stormed toward the gate.
Except there was a point, and that was Ema.
“She’s cooking something,” I said back at Steamy Sips, pulling my grey hoodie off over my head and joining Breeze on the sun-drenched doorstep. I exhaled as the warm light caught my sleeveless arms.
“She’s always cooking something,” Breeze replied, thrusting Taco the therapy dog into my lap. “That’s her speciality.”
I cradled the tiny white ball of fur against my stomach.
“Mm. Hey, you got rid of all the bags!” I said, noticing the empty lawn.
“Yeah, Dax came over earlier for lunch. Made quick work of it.”
“Dax was here?” I asked, trying not to sound like I had unexpected FOMO.
“Yeah, after his class.”
“The volunteer one?”
“Yup. For the youth who’ve aged out of state care.”
Hold the phone. “What?”
She sighed, pulling her dress higher to let the sun warm her legs. “If you shut your mouth once in a while, you might actually learn something. I tried to tell you that you two have more in common than you think.”
My lips curved deep, the dimple in my cheek making its debut. I loved straight talkers—especially when they were disguised as kindly café owners.
“Sorry,” I grinned. “I promise to listen now.”
She didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know all the details, but there’s this one class. Usually the one he’s on the…” She raised her hand and mimed a phone to her ear, as if saying the word out loud would offend me. “It’s a life skills course for kids who’ve aged out of the system. He teaches them how to budget, to use cash instead of cards so they know how much they’re spending, that sort of thing.”
I smiled thinking of the neat piles of exact change Dax always paid in.
“Some of them want to go into law enforcement or become lawyers or social workers so they can make a difference in the lives of other children going through what they did. Because Dax has had two of those careers, he creates mini trainings to help them see if they want to pursue the study. Plus his time in combat helps him relate to what some of them have been through.”
That I knew.
Something swirled into my stomach like a feather, gliding down until it hit the bottom. Here was a group of young adults, kids really, who had come out of the faulty system of state care, and they’re wanting to go straight back into it to make it better.And what had I done about it except try my hardest to pretend the whole thing never happened?
“What was the other career he had?” I asked.
“Law. Ithoughtyou were listening,” she said, mock grumpy. “Before the military. He still takes pro bono cases when he can, though now that he’s a detective, he has to be careful it’s not a conflict of interest. Most of the time, it’s youth from his programme.”
I remembered Dax’s joke about needing help to collect money from clients.
“What’s the job he needed help tracking down payments for?”
She snorted. “None that I know of. That was purely to get a rise out of you.”
My jaw dropped. The cheek. Although… he had nailed it. Maybe my reactions needed some fine-tuning.
I blew a puff of air from my mouth. “He’s a bit of an overachiever.”
