The Tattooed Devil Wears Chucks

Chapter 35: The Date - Part II

Gabby.

Once my spells of crying subside, Jax releases his hold of me, observing and making sure I'm not about to lose it again.

"I didn't mean to make you cry. I really do have a fun night planned for us."  He takes his thumbs and swipes them across my wet cheeks, clearing what remains of my meltdown.

"Show me before I start crying again."

Jax smiles and drops his backpack to the ground near mine.  He walks around to the side of the truck, opening the passenger door, motioning for me to get in. 

"Gross, Jax. It's been sitting here for ten years. God only knows what animals were in there."

He rolls his eyes at me and motions to the door again.  Great.  Tears, tetanus and rabies, every girl's dream date. Against my better judgement, I follow him to the side of the truck.  My eyes grow wide when I see it is exactly how I remember it.  The entire interior is the same shade of teal as the exterior, the dash, the leather bench seat, the steering wheel, all of it.  And it's... clean.  It looks as though you could eat off of it.

My brow lifts and I point to the shiny teal seat. "Did you..."

"I've been coming out here weekly to clean this damn thing." He nods.  "You were right, you don't want to know what all was in it.  Lots of Lysol and bleach was used. It was fucking gross."

I giggle as I crawl up into the cab of the truck, running my hand over the dashboard that I remember kicking as a child.  I peek my head down and observe it, smiling at a little crack. 

"I did this" I look up to Jax.  "Felix was tickling me and I kicked the dash really hard, I felt it crack as soon as my foot hit it.  My grandpa never knew.  Or if he did, he ignored it."

"He likely knew." He laughs. "Men tend to notice when shit breaks on their trucks."

He disappears for a few seconds and returns with one of the backpacks. He unzips it, pulling out two paper bags and handing me one. He disappears again for a bit, messing around in the bed of the truck as I carefully unroll the top of the paper bag open and begin pulling out our dinner. Lunchables, Capri Sun, fruit snacks, and a Snickers. I laugh at our childish dinner and begin pulling open my Lunchables first. I already have my first stack of cracker, ham, and cheese goodness prepared when Jax finally returns and gets into the driver seat, bringing his backpack with him.

"So?"

"I feel like a little kid again. Who doesn't love Lunchables and Capri Sun?"

"Right?" He laughs as he unrolls his own bag.

"You know what would make this a million times better?" I take a bite of my cracker.

Jax holds up his finger to me, telling me to wait to answer my own question. He unzips the backpack again and sticks his entire arm in until he finds what he's searching for. When his hand reappears he is holding a bottle of Hidden Valley ranch dressing.

"I fucking love you Alfie." I take the bottle from him and place a good healthy squeeze of the dressing onto the wrapper that I removed from the top of the container. I place it on top of the dash and dip the other half of my cracker stack into it. "Delicious."

"Gross." He chuckles, pulling out the contents of his bag.

He chooses his fruit snacks first, squeezing the package until it makes a small 'pop' sound, and dumps a pile of multicolored smiley faces into his hand.