Chapter Thirteen
Olivia
I loved my job, but what I loved even more was quitting time. It was my week to close the clinic. Our last patient of the day ran late and everyone else had already been gone for a while. I shared the office with two other nurse practitioners and a doctor. We were all equal partners. That day was actually my first day working as a partner rather than just an employee. It was a day I had hoped for but I had been afraid would never come. I finished making sure all of the lights were off and then I finished locking all the doors. It was just after five. I would get to the day care in plenty of time.
I got into my jeep and drove the ten minutes over to the school where they had a little area for the day care. There were only about twenty kids under the age of four on any given day. I remembered the first time they told me that and the number overwhelmed me. I thought it was an outrageous amount of kids. I supposed it was because the thought of the love of my life not being given one on one attention was disturbing to me at first. I found out that when you’re a new mother there are a lot of things that are disturbing.
As I approached the playground, Little Joey saw me. I could never get enough of the way his little face lit up when he looks at me. I thought I knew a long time ago what unconditional love was. I didn’t think anyone truly knew that until they had a child.
“Mama!”
“Joey!” As soon as I stepped through the gates he was on me. His chubby little arms wrapped tight around my neck. I kissed his face and carried him inside to sign him out and get his backpack.
The lady that stepped in behind me said, “Oh what a beautiful boy.”
I smiled, I never got tired of hearing that, and I heard it a lot. He was a lot more than beautiful, but it was the first thing everyone noticed about him.
“Thank you,” I told her. “His mama thinks so, that’s for sure.”
“How old is he?”
“How old are you Joey, tell the lady.”
“I’m free,” he said, holding up three fingers.
“Wow, what a big boy,” the lady said. She wasn’t kidding. He was a big guy.
I loaded Joey into his car seat and strapped him down tight in the back seat and he talked non-stop on the drive to his Daddy’s shop. I loved the sound of his babble. It was like music to my ears after I’ve missed him all day.
“Here we are kiddo,” I told him as we pulled up in front. I unstrapped him and helped him out.
As soon as I got him out, he wanted down too. I sat him down on his feet and he took off. I wasn’t worried because he was on the sidewalk and I knew he couldn’t open the door. The knob was too high.
“Mama, come on!” he yelled at me over his shoulder.
“I’m here, Mr. Impatient.” I pulled open the door and Joey ran straight to the back. That door was too high for him to open too but he knew here he could press his little face into the partition and see inside.
That was what he was doing when Dax looked over the top of it and said, “There’s my hot wife, but where’s my boy?”
Joe was giggling and pressed up against the corner of the partition. He thought that Dax couldn’t see him there.
“Oh my goodness, I have no idea. Where’s Joey? He was just here.” More giggling and then at last Dax reached over and grabbed him into his arms.
“There he is!” he shouted before tickling him all over. Sometimes when I watched the two of them together my heart felt like it was going to explode. They looked just alike. I had two Dax’s to love. I was the luckiest woman in the world.
I let myself into the back through the door. Dax gave Joey some new stickers he’d gotten for him and while he was putting them all over the chair he’d almost completely covered with stickers Dax said, “So, how was your first day?”
I laughed. “Well, since it wasn’t technically my first day it was surprisingly easy.”
“You know what I mean. How did it feel to walk in there this morning and know that you own a piece of the place?”
“It felt awesome,” I told him. “I stared at my new business card every chance I got today.”
He hugged me and said, “Olivia Turner, Registered Nurse Practitioner, and now a partner in the Joshua Tree Clinic. I’m so damn proud of you.”
“Thank you, baby. I’m so happy.”
“Me too. You ready to fix that tattoo?”
I shrugged out of my top shirt. I was wearing a camisole with spaghetti straps underneath it. Dax said he could get to it from there. I checked on Joey and he was playing blocks. I turned on his little tune box that made music for him so the tattoo gun noise didn’t bother him and I went back and sat down on the table.
Dax was grinning at me.
“What?”
“Nothing, just you,” he said.
“Well now you have to tell me.”
“It’s just that what I’m doing to the tattoo will not even take as long as all of that took you. I think you’re stalling.”
“I am not,” I said. He was right, I was.
“You don’t want our initials in your heart?”
“I do, I just don’t want it to hurt.”
“I’m magic, remember?”
“Yeah, but it’s been a long time since we started this. I think I was tougher back then.”
He kissed me and said, “I have never met a tougher and more capable woman than you are at this very moment.” That did it. Now I had to let him work on the tattoo.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
Dax had everything ready. He turned on the gun and he put D.T. in the left corner, O.T. in the right corner and J.T. right in the middle. The heart was solid red and the initials were white. He made them pop out and I loved it.
“I really like it,” I told him.
He kissed me and said, “Good, I love you, Olivia Turner.”
“I love you, Dax Turner.”
“I love you both!” Joey asked from behind Dax’s legs. We hadn’t even realized he was there.
Dax and I laughed and Dax reached down and picked him up and we all three hugged. Little Joey was going to have a good life. His daddy and I were always going to make him and each other a priority. We had finally made it to happy.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Alycia Taylor