Nothing But Wild (Malibu University 2)

My gaze absently falls on the small shark tattoo on his calf. “Do you miss playing…water polo?” He turns to look at me and it’s intense. I’ve never seem him look so serious. When he doesn’t answer, I press. “If you d-don’t want to t-talk about it––”

“That’s not it,” he says, cutting me off.

“Then what?”

He looks lost in thought––faraway. “It’s the first time anyone’s asked me.”

“Oh…do you?”

“Yeah”––he nods––“yeah, I do. You never really know how important something is until it’s gone.” He won’t get an argument from me.

I pull onto Ocean Drive and park behind the shelter. I’ve volunteered here the last two years and I have one more until I move back East and start over in New York. I’m already missing this place and I’m not even gone yet.

He seems to be in a strange mood, down when he’s usually trying to tease me. But some things are best left alone, so I don’t poke at it.

“Are you coming?” I ask as I get out of the car.

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Dallas, would you mind grabbing the poles for the fencing and bring them to Stuart. He’s starting on the outdoor kennels today,” Vi says. She’s in the middle of lugging a wheelbarrow full of loose rocks to the dumpster.

Seeing Vi, who’s maybe a hundred pounds wet, struggle to push the thing over the uneven terrain, Dallas drops the hose and goes to grab the wheelbarrow from her.

A month and a half has passed since he started working at the shelter. Three times a week. Spending all this time together has been both the worst and best thing that’s ever happened to me. On one hand, it’s absolute torture of the sweetest kind. On the other, I dread the day it’s over and I have to go back to seeing him sparingly and knowing how much fun it was.

And missing him. Because I will. I’ll miss him terribly. He completed the community service hours he needs for his plea deal a week ago. Vi and Mika told me. He hasn’t mentioned it once.

Vi makes a grateful face. “Thank you. My shoulders can’t take any more abuse.”

While he pushes it to the dumpster with ease, Vi and I take a moment of silence and watch. We’ve been working outside at the Abbott Kinney location, clearing garbage all morning, and his t-shirt mysteriously came off at some point. I almost fell on my face when I looked up and found it missing.

His bronze skin glistens with sweat, making the chain mail tattoo look like shiny metal, muscles straining in the best way possible. And his shorts…good lord, his shorts are slung low to the top of his curvy glutes.

“He is such a fucking catch. If I was straight…”

He’s great. He really is. So how do I get rid of this hopeless crush I have on him, one that I am one hundred percent certain I will take to the grave as unrequited, if I’m constantly having to face the reality that––aside from swearing way too much––Dallas is one of the most decent people I’ve ever known.

“You guys coming together tonight?” Vi asks, rubbing her skinny biceps. She sits on the picnic bench and pushes the short sleeves of her Marilyn Manson 1998 tour t-shirt over her shoulders, tips her pale face up to the sun. Her hair is pink today.

Vi and Mika, along with a bunch of Mika’s celebrity clients, are throwing a fundraiser tonight, a carnival. All proceeds are going to finish building the new and improved shelter. They’re still fifty thousand short.

Way to put me on the spot, Vi.

Cringing, I glance up from raking and and run right into Dallas’s alert gaze. He drops the empty wheelbarrow, and watching me, says “Yes,” without hesitation.

I am a deer caught in his headlights, super self-conscious that we are being watched by Vi and Stuart, the construction guy. We’ve never been anywhere together like an event or a party. There’s always been purpose to our time together. If we go to this fundraiser, we’re entering uncharted waters––dangerous territory. We can no longer legit pretend it’s a friendship of convenience anymore.

“What time are you picking me up?”

What time what time what time…

His forehead wrinkles as if in deep concentration. “How about seven-thirty? We can grab something to eat before,” he continues.

I have yet to say a word.

Smirking, he picks up the empty wheelbarrow again and pushes it past me, stops. “Do you like sushi?” I nod. “Okay, good.” He wheels away, headed for Stuart.

Dallas

“Cotton candy?” I say to the girl walking next to me. Dora’s always quiet, but more so tonight. “Ice cream? Peanuts?”

“I’m still f-full from the sushi…t-thank you again. It really was the best I’ve ever had.”

“That’s the third time you’ve thanked me, Dora. It’s just dinner, not a kidney.”