Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(8)

It’s funny how three years now meant something completely different than it did in high school.

Now, three years was just three years. Then? It was three grades and an eternity worth of experience.

No way would a senior date a freshman.

No. Way.

Now, though?

Rarwr.

Dax Tremaine had grown up.

Not that he hadn’t been a big guy when I’d last seen him at his high school graduation.

But now? Wow.

He wasn’t only tall, but he was muscular.

The military had done him well.

I eyed the long-sleeved skin-tight shirt that he had on underneath his SWAT shirt that was most certainly covering all of his tattoos. Tattoos he’d started getting when he was a senior in high school.

I remembered one in particular. He’d gotten it when he was seventeen and had shown it off to his mother the day that he’d gotten it. During a barbeque.

She’d lost her shit.

I’d thought it was funny.

It was a tattoo of a naked pin-up girl on his arm. She had big boobs, flowing red hair, and a mouth so full that it just exuded ‘fuck my mouth.’

“I guess I just got the short straw,” he admitted, his eyes coming down to meet mine. “I wasn’t too keen on doing the photoshoot in the first place, so I’m thinking that they made me go first so I didn’t back out.”

I frowned.

“You didn’t want to do it?” I asked curiously.

He shrugged.

“I don’t do pictures.”

It was his short, abrupt comment that had me remembering shit that happened what felt like a lifetime ago.

At one point he had done pictures.

The only problem was, the pictures he’d done had gone viral and everyone and their brother had seen things on Dax Tremaine that shouldn’t have seen the light of day.

Sadly, it’d been his ex-girlfriend who’d taken a revealing picture of his backside—and oh my God, his ass was to die for—while he was stepping out of the shower. When they’d broken up, she’d posted it everywhere on social media thinking to humiliate him.

And it had.

Only, everybody else had seen perfection—at least in my case.

“Well, I hear it’s for a good cause,” I told him. “Avery Flynn is a smart cookie. She deserves it.”

His eyes went to me as he jerked his chin for me to follow him. “You know her?”

I nodded and fell into step next to him. He slowed his strides to keep up with me so that I wasn’t running like a loon behind him trying to catch up. Because holy, man, were his legs long.

“She did some family pictures that my mom wanted done a few years ago.” I paused. “She also took my college graduation pictures. And she’s scheduled to take my professional photo… shit.”

“What?” he asked, stopping and taking a wary look around as if there was something threatening me.

I touched my hat, which hid my bald head.

“How the hell am I supposed to have professional pictures done with no hair?” I asked him.

The sinking feeling in my stomach that Dax had managed to expel with his appearance was now back.

I had no hair.

I. Had. No. Hair.

None.

It wasn’t as if I had just a little thinning of hair. No. I had zero hair on my head.

It was smooth, like a baby’s ass.

I started rubbing said smooth, baby ass head and wondered how the hell I was going to look professional when I started applying for jobs here in Kilgore.

Jesus Christ.

“Well,” Dax said. “You could just not get them until you do have some hair,” he offered. “Or, you could get a cool hat. Like the ones that the Queen of England wears.” He paused. “Then there’s always getting a wig, but those always look more fake than real.”

I agreed with him there on the wigs.

The thought of getting a wig had definitely occurred to me over my hours long trip home today, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that wasn’t going to work for me.

For one thing, I didn’t like shit touching me. I had trouble with baseball caps, underwear, and tight jeans. How the hell would I allow a wig to sit on my head for hours and hours on end?

Hell, the baseball cap on my head right now was causing me to have a slight headache already, and it wasn’t even tight.

I had a sensory issue.

Things just had to feel ‘right’ or I couldn’t wear them.

Such as socks. Socks had to be perfectly in line with my toes, and the seams of the socks couldn’t hang over any of my toes, or I just simply couldn’t wear them. It would drive me absolutely nuts until I either took them off or was able to be busy enough to distract myself into forgetting about them.

Then there were my jeans or t-shirts. There could be no tags—period.

“I agree,” I said softly.

“You agree with my wig theory? Or you agree to wait?” he asked.

I blinked.

“Both,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. I would drive myself home but as I was pulling in, I ran over the curb right out front and my wheel is bent.” I scrunched up my nose as I remembered the sound it’d made when it did the bending. “I’m a dumbass.”

He didn’t say anything to that, only continued walking farther until we ended up at the entrance of the SWAT headquarters.