Page 73 of Fierce-Jax

He heard little feet making a lot of noise barreling down the hallway.

“Hi,” Gianna said, coming to a stop in front of him. “You’re tall.” She had black leggings on like her mother, but a green shirt with yellow sleeves, white on the belly, and coincidentally, a parrot in the center of the white.

If there was a dating fairy out there, she was flying around his head in the store this morning.

“Gianna,” Dillion said, “this is Jax Hollister. Jax, Gianna.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, crunching down. His heart was racing, his palms were sweating, there might be a patch of dampness on the back of his neck.

He’d never been more terrified in his life.

How humbling to know a thirty-pound human controlled his destiny.

“What’s that?” Gianna asked, pointing to the bag in his hand.

“It’s for you,” he said. “I heard you liked stuffed animals.”

“I do,” Gianna said, her eyes getting big. She reached for it and he handed it over.

“I hope you like it,” he said. More than hope. Freaking wished on everything superstitious that he could think of on the way here.

She squealed when she pulled it out of the box and then jumped up and down, slipping and sliding on the floor in her mismatched printed socks.

It made him smile over her excitement. Maybe he had this after all.

“I don’t have a stuffed parrot,” Gianna said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You don’t?” he asked.

“Look, Gianna,” Dillion said. “It almost matches your shirt.”

There was a fresh round of sounds, then his legs were hit with a hug. “Are you going to be my daddy now?”

He gulped and looked at Dillion. He was certain he couldn’t stretch his eyes open any wider.

“No,” his girlfriend said fast. “Remember what I said. Jax is my friend.”

“So I get to call him Uncle Jax like Nikki said she does to the guys her mother brings home?”

“What school do you bring your kid to?” he asked, holding back his laugh over the horrified look on Dillion’s face. Glad to know her eyes could get as large as his.

“Obviously not one that is well monitored,” she said. “Gianna, Jax, and I are friends. You can call him Jax, just like I do.”

“Thank you, Jax,” Gianna said again, trying to open the box.

“Here,” he said. “I’ll do it. Then I can put the batteries in it for you. You can talk to it and it will talk back.”

The comical expression on the child’s face reminded him of overacting in a movie.

Jaw dropped, eyes wide, cheeks high, and some kind of dance move he wasn’t sure he could describe.

“I can’t wait,” Gianna said.

“Let Jax open it and put the batteries in,” Dillion said. “And we’ll try to figure it out. Remember, say only nice things, right?”

“I’ll be nice, Mom,” Gianna said. “If it’s going to talk to me I don’t want it to say mean things. I want it to be friendly to me.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Good thinking.”

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