Chapter 118: Thinly-Veiled Wild
- RAYA -
While Dex is gone on his errand, which I am super curious about but am trying to keep out of my mind and purposely avoided requesting details about, I am able to create the skeleton of a website for Liz’s company. It’s so exciting having the ability to do this, especially because I believe strongly in the benefits of the Verdure line she has created.
I keep forgetting to try the samples Liz left for me, but I’m going to make sure to try them tonight. That way I can give her feedback when she comes to the office Wednesday. If I’m this excited about the crazy new ideas she has for bath and body products, then I know other people will be, too. And I can’t wait to help her make it a success.
Jay comes by, glancing at Dex’s empty office before placing a coffee on my desk.
"It’s welcome back coffee. You deserve for someone to finally bring you coffee once in a while since you were always doing it for everyone else."
"Thanks, Jay," I smile brightly. "What else is new since I’ve been gone?" I pick up the cup and take a sip and realize it’s exactly the kind I like from Moxie. It’s good, but the reminder of Moxie turns my stomach, and I do my best not to show it—placing the cup back down on the desk.
"Everything has been very strange. Laurel has been nicer. She has hardly even been seen with one frown, I swear. There was a counselor in the office last week, and people were pouring out their hearts, leaving the office crying. Mr. Lawson has hardly been here. Mr. Dex has hardly been here. You weren’t here. Jeremy isn’t here today. Well he was here and then left. It is a very strange time, and now with Mr. Lawson having explosive diarrhea in some other country..." he shakes his head as if what he just said is entirely fact and not two separate rumors he threaded together into one, "who knows what this company is going to come to."
"Everything is going to be fine," I say with a small laugh. "It will go back to normal."
"Maybe," he sighs and then his eyes go wide, and without another word he walks off back in the direction he came.
"Hey," Dex says, arriving by my side but watching Jay retreat.
"Hey," I smile, and I’m not exaggerating when I say my entire being smiles seeing Dex back again. "That was a quick errand."
"Yeah, I got something for you." He takes that something out from under his arm and lays it on the desk.
"My journals!" I gasp, grabbing them and pressing them against my chest. "How did you get them back?"
The tears that come are immediate. It’s such a relief to have them back, but it’s also so disturbing to know that they were in Lawson’s possession. It’s like they’re unclean now. Not that their contents were ever clean by any means, but it feels like they’ve been defiled of some inherent sacredness that they held.
They were dreams that predicted Dex’s arrival. They were dreams that knew of his existence before I did.
"They were in his apartment," he says, a muscle visibly feathering in his jaw as he bites back the powerful emotions he’s obviously feeling. I can feel them, too—the anger he had on Saturday that was simmering under the surface is back.
"Thank you so much," I whisper, stuffing them into my bag in my desk drawer and closing it. "I’m going to... burn them tonight or something. I’m going to get rid of them so this never happens again."
"I want to read them first," he says quietly, which surprises me. And he’s completely serious.
My cheeks heat when I look up and see the thinly-veiled wild in his eyes, and I bite my lip, imagining the humiliation of having him read those renditions. I don’t even recall exactly what I wrote. The point was to not recall it so that I could go about my day without obsessing over those details. The emotions they left me with were so powerful and consuming—I had to find a way to make them stop.
Dex is staring at me, waiting for me to agree. "Will you let me?"
His voice is so deep. It almost sounds dangerous even though I know him not to be—at least not to me.
"If that’s what you want," I whisper, entranced by that feral flash that’s now in his eyes. It makes a primal recognition stir within me—awake and restless deep in my center where my desire also lives. That part of me wants him to read them. I’m not sure why. It’s the most embarrassing thing I can imagine.
Dex nods once, satisfied by my answer, and then returns to his office without so much as a smile. His anger at his brother has come back with a vengeance, and I’m not sure how to tame it. I’m not sure how it was tamed before—I suppose it was when we met with his family that it subsided quite a bit. And then he was able to take his anger out on the peeping Tom neighbor-turned-stalker last night. How do we satisfy it this time?
When I return my attention to the Verdure website I’m working on, I can’t regain my concentration no matter how hard I try. All I can think about is the time on the clock in front of me and how much longer it will be until the hour finally comes when we can leave for the day. Dex is going to read my journals tonight, and I’m going to watch him. I won’t be able to not watch him, because I’m going to be a nervous wreck about it.
How is he going to react? What if he’s disgusted by the dreams I had before I even met him? What if it makes him even angrier at his brother knowing that Lawson read the same things that I wrote?
"God, how did I end up in this position?" I whisper, grabbing my Nana’s locket and nervously fidgeting with it between my fingers. "It’s not my fault. The dreams just happened. I really hope Dex doesn’t think less of me or look at me differently."
