The Fox and her Bear (Mating Call Dating Agency, #2) (6 page)

“Embarrassed, feeling dirty and loving it? What better time to waltz into a bar and get myself a bear?” Angie told her empty car. One more deep breath and then she was outside of her late model Camry with one mismatched door, and pedaling her feet toward the door. She glanced down at her phone and saw it was half past four. “Well, if this guy turns out to be a drooling idiot, at least I’ve got to work at seven.” She exhaled the rest of her breath and blinked hard.

Pushing open the door of Tenner’s, she heard an old timey jingle and peered around the dark wood paneled bar. “It’s like this place fell out of 1920,” she said, surprised at the sound of her own voice.

“Hiya little lady,” the walrus, who must be Tenner, announced. He was wearing suspenders, a garter on his arm, and his incredibly manicured mustache also was straight out of time. “What can I do for ya?”

The big bear was still just tickling the keys. An almost sexually-charged sound filled her ears, filled her soul, but she saw he was absolutely lost in his own world. “I, uh,” she stammered. “I smelled some food. And...”

“Damn!” The bear she knew was Dawson Lex, stood up, knocking the bench over backwards. “I forgot the chicken!”

He dashed back to the kitchen, almost falling over himself as he half-leapt and half-fell, through the swinging doors to the kitchen.

“I think I’m here for him,” she said with a completely abashed grin.

“I figured,” Tenner said. “Nice to meet ya, Angie, I’m Tenner. And, uh, that’s Dawson. He hasn’t shut up for the last three hours. I’ve never seen him like this.”

“I hope I’m not messing things up for you. I don’t want to be a prob—”

“Oh, little lady,” Tenner said in his friendly, tired way, “if you can make him happy, there isn’t anything you could do that would bother me. But right now, I think he might need some help back there. He gets a little panicked when you’re dealing with grease fires.”

Angie took a drink of her Coke. “Wait, really? Are you serious?”

“No,” Tenner said, “but I’m sure he’d like some help anyway. You have no idea how long this bear has needed someone in his life, and if Eve thinks you’re right for him, well what the hell, she don’t tell me how to pour drinks, so I’ll trust her.”

Angie shrugged. “If you say so,” she said in a consciously uninterested monotone. She hated the idea of giving too much away, or even really admitting to herself how much she was looking forward to all this. She didn’t even know what
this
was, except that it probably wouldn’t be as horrifically comical as her last date. Anything was going to be a step up from that circus adventure.

Then again, as she started thinking about how she really had no clue in the world what she was stepping into, she got a little of that percolating anxiety that reacted like most people get acid reflux. It kind of bubbled up in her throat, and gave her prickly, strange sensations from the top of her head all the way down to her fingertips.

“Go on,” Tenner said. “No one is expecting anything from you, just go talk to him, he’s a good guy.”

The old walrus went right back to cleaning glasses and when he was done with that, to idly wiping his bar cloth along the top of the massive, oak bar. He found a small splotch that bothered him, and worked at it for a few moments.

She found her feet moving toward the big, back and forth swinging saloon style door that led to the kitchen. “God that smells good,” Angie said as she pushed open the door and watched her mystery bear plucking pieces of chicken out of a giant vat of oil. “Did you make it?”

“Mhm,” Dawson said, carefully sprinkling salt over the steaming, golden-brown pieces. He chased the kosher salt with some paprika, some chili powder, and a squeeze of lime. “My grandma did it this way,” he said as he held out a drumstick wrapped in a cloth napkin. “Try it? Might want to hold on to it for a minute before you—”

She couldn’t. There was some kind of cosmic force that made Angie bite into that chicken leg without any regard for decency, safety, or dignity. The batter crunched like a bunch of incredibly crispy, extremely flavorful cornflakes. Her teeth sunk in, straight through the perfectly juicy chicken, and she heard herself let out a long, low groan of pleasure. “How did you... this is...”

“Grandma Lex would be proud,” he said with a smile. “Although she always made it better. Back in those days you could use lard and not have anyone frown at you and silently judge.”

Before she knew it, Angie had managed to lick the chicken bone clean. “How did you
do
that? It was so crispy and—”

“Don’t over beat the batter. That makes it all thick and weird. By the way, I’m Dawson Lex.” He went to shake her hand, but then put a hand on her shoulder instead when he noticed the slick of what grandma Lex called ‘flavor’ on her hand. “Nice to meet you. Hope this isn’t too much excitement. The bar and all.”

He had burning green eyes. He had a growly voice that reminded her of jagged stones in a river, washed smooth but still gravely. His cheekbones stood out beautifully against the slightly tanned skin of his face, and then... “Holy shit,” Angie gulped.

“What’s up? Or did you not mean to say that out loud?” The dark blue shirt he wore was open at the first two buttons. Not in a disco-time leisure suit way, but just a comfortable, cool look. The barest hint of chest hair was close cropped against his obviously muscular torso, but was still visible.

“Yeah, that might be one of my more unappealing traits,” Angie said. “It’s nothing, I just have these dreams and I can’t ever forget them. Anyway, I... you know what? Nah, don’t worry about it.”

She decided to keep from acting outwardly bonkers by informing this man she just met that she’d been dreaming about him off and on for months. She couldn’t admit it to him, and more than that she couldn’t admit it to herself. Hell, it made
her
feel crazy to think about. Angie smoothed down her jeans like they were a skirt. They left a greasy streak, but she wasn’t worried about that just then. “Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing,” she said again, more to herself than to him.

Deep down, Angie thought she was going from zero to completely nuts faster than a Mercedes hits sixty.
This is too much. Psychic dreams? Throwing myself on some guy in a kitchen? What in the hell is wrong with me?

She made a move to back away, but stopped after a half step. Dawson saw her confusion and tilted his head just a little to one side.

“You’re all right,” he said, wiping his business hand and clapping her softly on the arms with those huge hands. “I’m pretty out of practice with all this stuff too. No reason to be nervous.”

Somehow his soothing voice, and the slow gentle motion of his hands against her upper arms calmed the anxiety that almost always haunted Angie. In a way it was unbelievable that he’d managed to calm her nerves with just a touch but in another, it made perfect sense. She’d known this guy a lot longer than she’d
known
him.

“There,” he said. “Now it’s my turn to freak out,” he said with a smile. “But seriously, it’s been approximately forever since I’ve dated, so yeah nothing at all to be nervous about.”

“Thanks,” she said, eyeing the plate of chicken. “You gonna eat all that?”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “But I’ll share.” He took a breast, she took a thigh, and they hit their chicken together like they were toasting drinks before taking bites. “So, Eve told me you were a police dispatcher? That must be a hell of a job.”

She chewed while considering her response. “Yeah,” she said. “Although I’m sure it’s a lot crazier in some big city. Here I mostly deal with people losing their pets or complaining about neighborhood cubs of one sort or another throwing eggs at a house or shoe-polishing some dirty words or dick pictures onto someone’s windshield.”

Dawson snorted a laugh, and for a second, she thought he’d sucked a hunk of chicken into his lungs from the color he turned. When he started wheezing, Angie slapped him on the back. “I killed you, didn’t I?”

Dawson rolled his eyes back and let his head hang limply on his neck before sticking out his tongue in a universal gesture of being dead.

“I have no idea why I’m going to do this, but I’m going to tickle you,” Angie said.
I mean, of all the idiotic things to do, I’ve already started down a laundry list of them
.
Tickling this guy would just about top the list. If he was going to realize how crazy I am and just bolt, this would certainly do it
.

“Brrr?” the fake corpse mewled, and scrunched his eyebrows. “Hunh?”

For some reason that she will never for the rest of her life be able to understand, Angie wiggled her fingertips and stuck them straight into Dawson’s ribs. He erupted in laughter. He sounded like a bunch of firecrackers exploding one after the other. As he laughed, he started
actually
choking on air, sucking it in so hard he couldn’t get much back out. The giant bear fell over backwards, first into a rolling office chair and then when that fell out from under him, he bellowed a roar and fell flat on his ass.

Without really meaning to, Angie fell with him. It was only when she was on the ground and in his lap that she realized his hand was locked on her wrist.

“You pulled me down!” she said with pinpoint accusation. “You made me fall down!”

“You tickled me!” Dawson laughed again. “Nothing that happens is a person’s fault if they’re being tickled. That’s just how it is!”

The two of them laughed until they were howling. Out front, Tenner just smiled. When Wally walked through the front door and ordered a beer, the two of them listened to the joy.

“There was a time when I acted like that,” Tenner said. “Although it’s been so long I can’t particularly remember what it felt like.”

Wally Hartman, one of Tenner’s oldest friends, smiled broadly. “I do,” he said. “It feels good. Real good. So good that I imagine if I felt like that again, I’d keel over dead and start foaming at the mouth. At least that’s what my mate says.”

Where before there were two laughing, suddenly there were four. Tenner and his friend, Angie and Dawson, all of them laughing for different reasons, but all of them laughing true. For those few moments, her anxiety and his reclusiveness didn’t matter. They didn’t exist.

*

A
s the time rolled by, and she listened to a few of his best songs, Angie was slightly surprised when she happened to look down at her watch and notice that somehow, time had ticked away with such rapid procession that she thought it was half past six, but it was quarter of seven. “Shit!” she yelled, over the slight din of noise that filled Tenner’s. “I gotta get to work. I can’t believe time flew like this.”

Dawson turned his beautiful face to her and unconsciously played a scale as he smiled. “I hope I’m going to see you again,” he said. “I don’t think I’d like it much if I didn’t.”

She caught herself staring at him, and before she could go anywhere, one of his hands grasped hers. With the other, he kept playing the scale. “Call me when you get off tomorrow morning?”

“You can’t be serious,” Angie said. No matter what she
said
, her heart thumped heavily in her chest as she imagined that he might, in fact, be serious.

“I work nights too,” he said, kissing the back of her hand. She felt her knees go wobbly, like they were made out of Jell-O. “And I like being up anyway. I never liked sleeping much, I always feel like I’m missing life. And now that I’ve met you? I really,
really
don’t want to miss any more life than I have to.”

“Oh,” she said with a smile. “That’s quite a line you have there. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you got it out of a book.” She remembered poor, helpless Jake and his horrible sunglasses and completely misguided method for getting her attention. There wasn’t a shred of that in Dawson, though. This guy was so alpha that he didn’t need to bother acting like it. You just
knew
he was in charge. “You didn’t, did you?”

His response was just a smile that remained on his lips even as he dropped her hand and went back to playing, a jazzier tune this time; peppier and livelier than the scale. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t even know what section you’d look at to find one of those. I gotta admit though, you made it easy for me to feel comfortable. I’m never like this.” He took a drink from his beer, and set it back down on the coaster. “Laughing with you, acting stupid, playing around, I haven’t done anything like that in—I have no idea how long. I don’t know if I ever have. You made me feel... at ease. That’s not something I can say for many people.”

She didn’t know how to react to that, so she did the only thing she could – stared at his face and smiled. Angie felt her eyes beginning to moisten. “You too,” she said. “I’m not exactly the most socially dynamic fox in town. So thanks, you made this really easy.”

“Play me a song, piano bear!” Tenner’s friend Wally, who was slowly getting stoned, shouted. “Make it a good one, I’m feeling all right and need to sing!”

Dawson shrugged and Angie laughed. Once again, he took her hand, but this time, pulled her down and kissed her cheek. “Call me when you get off?”

As she wandered toward the door, she waved again. “See you soon.”

By the time the door shut behind her, a rousing rendition of the
Cheers
theme song was filling Tenner’s Bar. She didn’t think it was ironic, and for once she had nothing cynical to say. For once, Angie felt like things may well just be going her way.

––––––––

“W
hat is it with me?” During the first break of the night, Dawson shook his highball. The ice cubes in his whiskey clanked against the sides of the glass. He preferred it neat, but Tenner never remembered and he wasn’t going to complain about free booze. “Why can’t I just take a good thing at face value?”

Tenner shrugged. “It’s a thing we do, us rambling, restless men. A life of adventure calls us, and we can’t help but answer.”

“You’ve been married for forty-eight years, Ten,” Dawson said, draining the last of his drink. “The hell would you know about it?”