Page 36 of The Best Worst Mistake (Off-Limits #2)

Dax

Abby holds up the giant fuchsia dog, looking concerned.

It’s nearly as tall as she is, and I paid fifty-two dollars to throw baseballs at a tower of wooden milk bottles — in a game that I’m pretty sure was rigged — for ten whole minutes to win it.

But, the look on Abby’s face when the guy handed it over instantly made the damn thing priceless.

I’ll have it shipped back to New York myself if it means that a piece of me gets to go back with her.

I have no idea if it’ll even fit in the back seat of the toaster-shaped car we drove here in, let alone this Ferris wheel we’re climbing into.

“Is it going to fit?” Abby asks, looking panicked as we step into the swinging bucket seat.

“You can leave it at the kiosk with me and grab it after,” the ride operator suggests, holding out a hand to take it for her.

Abby wistfully watches him take it away, then scoots in closer to me, eyes twinkling. The whole pier is settling into a golden twilight glow, the first rays of a cotton-candy-colored sunset shooting out over the horizon across the waves of the Pacific.

“Did you have a preference for the red or the yellow? Which color did you ride, in all your fantasies about this place?” I ask, pointing out the seats before and after us.

By now we’ve ridden every ride here at least twice, with the Ferris wheel and Scrambler being the only exceptions, taking breaks to sample all the best-looking food stands and to play games.

Abby insisted on trying cotton candy for the first time, finding the way that it melted in her mouth magically addicting, and buying a second bag to take home with her for Starry.

Now, the sunset is starting to match the pink stain of her lips, sweetened from the soft sugar floss. I look back out over the horizon. We’ve managed to time our final ride just right. The view will be incredible once we get to the top.

“Zero preference on seat color,” she says, as we wait for the other riders behind us to be seated before the wheel starts to turn. “I just wanted to ride it. How’s the view from the top? And now that we’re on, I hope there isn’t an earthquake.”

I turn to her, gaping.

“Why on earth would you say that?” I ask, feigning panic.

She laughs. “I have no idea! I take it back,” she yelps up at the sky. “No earthquakes for the next ten minutes, world!” She grimaces, shrinking back in the seat. “Sorry.”

I laugh.

“So, let’s say there’s no earthquakes and we make it up to the top. Can we see Liv waving from Hawaii up there?” She grins.

“I wouldn’t know about the view,” I tell her. “I imagine it’s going to be stunning with the sunset though.”

She swivels her head to look at me, thoroughly confused. “I thought you said you’ve been here?”

“My parents are both afraid of heights. So if I wanted to ride anything that went too high, I had to do it on my own. I was too afraid to do this one alone as a kid, so I always skipped it.”

“You’re kidding.” She snuggles in closer to me, then rests her head against my chest. I breathe in the smell of her, still pinching myself that today has unfolded the way it has. “We both get to do this one for the first time, together?”

I nod. “Yep.”

“Then I’m glad I never rode it as a kid,” she says. Her eyes are shining. “This is so much better.”

My chest tightens. Watching Abby today, it’s like whatever effect the secrets of her past had on her has been lifted. I’ve never seen her so carefree. It’s like the little girl in her has come to the surface, getting to live out an experience she always dreamed of.

“I hope no one from work is at the pier today,” she says, suddenly, looking around.

“My entire team is definitely trapped at the office doing doc review today. What about yours?”

“Honestly, if I saw Brett at a place like this, I wouldn’t have to worry about being barred from the office because of you. Instead, I’d die of shock the moment I saw him with a candied apple in his hand.”

I laugh, trying to picture it.

The final riders get secured in and the operator returns to his control box, sitting beside Abby’s pink dog. Then the wheel creaks to life, pushing our bucket seat out toward the front of the wheel ever so slowly to start. Abby gasps, then leans closer in to me, grabbing my hand.

I settle back against the seat and decide to watch her expression instead of the view slowly coming into focus as we ascend, rising out of the crowd below. I can tell that everything she’s seeing right now, the view of the ocean as our seat rises above the pier, is stunning her.

I can get back on this wheel to see it all for myself another time. The view I have of Abby right now — of her eyes as she takes it all in for the very first time — that’s the view I’ll never get to experience again, and that’s the one I want to remember.

I smile, soaking her in. The way her mouth is open just slightly, tiny gasps escaping through her lips as more and more of the ocean reveals itself, stretching out across the horizon to take up the whole sky.

It feels like we’re flying above it all, our feet swallowed up by the pinks and golds now painted beneath us.

Abby’s skin and eyes are bathed in rose gold and sunbeams. A fringe of dark lashes flutters, like she’s blinking back the whole experience of being here while I take it in. Watching as she closes her eyes, for only a moment, then inhales the sticky, salty air before turning to look at me.

She catches me watching her instead of what’s unfolding in front of us and immediately flushes pink, like the sky.

Then she nods her head toward the melting rays of light, a thousand tiny diamonds shimmering across the edge of the world.

Her eyes beam playfully at mine, as bright as the flecks of light bobbing out on the water.

“You’re missing it,” she whispers, her lips curling up at the edge.

“Would you believe I already have the better view?” I ask.

“No.” She laughs.

“Maybe this is the one I want to remember more,” I tell her. Then I lean in and kiss her, just once, so she doesn’t miss the view she’s waited a whole lifetime to see.

Her cheeks flush as the sky bends around us.

“Dax Harper,” she says, nudging my shoulder. “You never change, do you?”

I laugh and kiss her one more time. “Some things are better left unchanged,” I tell her.

“And some things can only get better when they do,” she answers, a whole wealth of meaning in her eyes.

Our seat is nearly at the peak of the ride, traveling backward now toward the apex of the wheel.

“You know,” she says, grinning, “what’s the point of being on a Ferris wheel if you’re not going to make out with someone at the top?”

She smiles and I lean in, pulling her face into mine, gently cupping the tender line of her jaw when our lips finally meet.

She tastes of cotton candy melted in the heat of the sun, and her lips open to me, pulling us into a kiss that somehow feels more meaningful than every other kiss we’ve shared before.

* * *

I’m driving us back to my house, still high on our time at the pier, when my phone rings. An eighties ballad from Def Leppard blasts through the car.

“That’s your ringtone?” Abby laughs, side-eyeing me. “I hadn’t pegged you for a sappy eighties love ballad kind of guy.”

I side-eye her back. “You’re not the only one with a closet full of secrets,” I tell her, chuckling.

I hand her my phone since I’m the one driving us down the freeway back toward my house. She glances at the screen, then at the clock on the dashboard. It’s nearly nine p.m.

“It’s Lila,” she says, pressing her lips together. “Do you — I can — uh, do you want to answer it?”

“No,” I tell her, taking the phone and putting it in the cup holder between us. “There’s nothing work wise that can’t wait until tomorrow.”

Almost as soon as I press the side button to reject the call, it starts ringing again.

Abby glances at the phone screen.

“Lila,” she says, sighing quietly. We both know where this is probably heading — which, if Lila gets her way, is probably not back to my place like Abby and I are planning. “You should probably answer it, otherwise she’ll keep calling until you do.”

I groan and hit the side button to reject it again, hoping she gets the hint that whatever she needs to tell me can wait.

The car is silent for a moment, until it starts ringing a third time.

“Is it about work?” Abby asks, narrowing her eyes at me. We both know we have an ethical wall up between us to keep work separate from our relationship. “Or . . . are you guys, like, I mean, either way, you can answer it. I’ll just cover my ears.”

“Are Lila and I . . . ?” I look at Abby and she raises her brows like she doesn’t want to fill in the blank for me. “Christ, no! Lila is like my work wife, twice divorced and bitterly awkward.”

Abby snorts. “Okay, then answer it. I’ll cover my ears so there’s no way for me to hear whatever it is that she needs to tell you.”

I press my phone to my ear.

“Who’s dying, Lila?” I bark, deadpan, into the phone.

“You, if you hadn’t answered.” She sounds annoyed already. “Why didn’t you answer?”

“I have a life outside work, Li,” I remind her.

“Since when?” she asks.

I groan, glancing over at Abby, who has both hands pressed to her ears, humming my phone’s ringtone softly to herself. I stifle a laugh. This girl is hardcore when it comes to following rules.

“What is it?”

“You’ll never believe what Trudy uncovered in the twenty-seventeen Hicks file. There’s notes from the president of—”

“Lila, stop.” I clear my throat, now concerned that Abby might be able to hear Lila through the phone somehow. Christ. “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”

“Absolutely not. If we’re going to have this run through and approved by the Davenport Media team by Saturday morning so they have it ready when negotiations pick back up on Monday, we’re both going to be pulling an all-nighter tonight and working all the way through tomorrow.

I’ll take a nitro cold brew, thanks, if you’re planning to stop for coffee on the way in. ”

I groan. “Lila, you’ve been at this nearly as long as I have. There’s no way you need me in there tonight. You and the rest of the team—”

“Dax, I’m telling you. Silas’ assistant said he’s truly planning to make it in person by Monday, and whether that happens or not, this is big enough that it’s all hands on deck. I’ll see you when you get here.”

She hangs up.

I pass the phone back to Abby and she takes her hands down from her ears, then looks over. I shake my head.

“Fuck,” she whispers. “You can’t be serious. What is it?”

“You know I can’t answer that.” I blow all the air out of my lungs, which isn’t the only thing that suddenly feels annoyingly deflated.

“I get it. The marginal life of a M & A attorney, I know. I understand. You don’t have to explain,” she says, grabbing my hand and squeezing. “Want me to drop you off at the office?” she asks, looking out of the darkened window.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” I say. “Everyone will just assume I took an Uber if they’re near a window. It’s too dark to see inside the car.”

She nods, then glances over.

“It was still the perfect day,” she says, smiling.

“Well, not all of it.” I squeeze her hand back. “But I’m glad it ended better than it began. Although it could have ended a whole hell of a lot better . . .”

“No,” she says, “I think I needed to experience all of it. Even better that I got to experience it all with you.” She grins. “And don’t worry about tonight. I have a lot to process anyway and it sounds like you do, too.”

“You’re not mad?”

“I swear, I’m not anything but happy,” she says, as we race down the freeway.