Page 77 of Operation: Ogre

“Uh, no. Not at all. It’s my grandmother’s thing. She’s obsessed with knees. Like, when I was born, she said my knees were tragic. Now, you’d think she would’ve been more concerned about the whole Halloween Wave, her son, daughter-in-law, and her one other grandchild at the time being turned into cat shifters, but nope. My knees were the problem.”

His eyes narrowed and he remained silent for a moment. “You have very nice knees.”

I chuckled. “She says age has tempered them, whatever the hell that means.” I shook my head. “She did say she knew she was going to marry my grandfather because of his knees.”

“What?”

“Mind you, they were six years old, but she says it’s all in the knees. She told my grandfather when they were fifteen that his knees were special and the two of them were meant to be. He thought it was adorable and started to like her. So, I guess, his knees did get them together.” I shrugged. “At this point, we’re all so used to her having opinions on people based solely on their knees. Like, it’s normal for her to predict which celebrities are nice based on their knees. I don’t know. It’s just her thing.”

“So my knees are fine?”

“Your knees are perfect,” I answered, kissing his arm. My eyes fell closed as I took a deep breath, inhaling his musky, earthy scent. Nine months of us officially dating and the joy hadn’t worn off. Sure, we were a bit less frantic for each other, had occasional fights, but there was still no one else I would rather spend time with.

“What are you doing?”

I bit my lip. I hadn’t really talked to him about my vague dream that seemed impossible. But if anyone would get it, he would. “I was just researching.”

“Book or person? And do I need to be concerned? Is this going to turn into a whole board that you need to plan? Gods, I hope no one has asked for your romantic help. I don’t want to see your pin board again.”

Laughing, I shook my head. Jaxon had never really gotten over my “serial killer board” as he’d called it. I liked to research. Sue me. “No, you don’t need to worry. My corkboard is staying packed up. For now.”

“Thank the monster god.”

I bit his arm, making him yelp. “I’m not that bad.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Anyway, I was sort of playing with maybe the idea of, you know.”

“I don’t know.” Jaxon shifted so he was facing me. “What’s going on, babe?”

In a rush, I said, “Iwanttogointomarketing.”

“What?”

Taking a deep breath, I repeated at a much slower rate, “I want to maybe go into marketing.”

Jaxon nodded. “That makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Yeah, babe, it does. You like to research. You’re very good at marketing my Bro-tein already. You love people and making connections. You actually like social media.” Jaxon kissed the top of my head. “It just seems like you.”

I flushed. “I like the idea of it. A lot.”

“That’s important.”

“I could be a business major too.”

He chuckled. “So we could be in a lot of classes together.”

So I wanted to be with my boyfriend all the time. I wasn’t going to apologize. Besides, being a business major would be good for what I hoped would be a good marketing career. “Are you going to let me market Bro-tein?”

“Of course. I’ll take all the help you want to give me.”

“Is it weird I want to work with you?”

He easily picked me up and placed me on his lap. I snuggled closer as he wrapped his arms around me. Jaxon gave me a kiss on my temple, then said, “Nope, because I want to work with you.”