Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Then I joined Lark on the couch and explained my predicament before asking, “Would you please try to put the drops in my eyes for me?”
“Sure,” he said, as he took the bottle from me. “Do you want me to pin you down and pry your eyes open, or should I try sneaking up on you?”
The first idea had never even occurred to me, and I stared at him for a moment. He was tiny and reminded me of a fluffy little bunny, but I suspected Lark could be a straight-up gangster if the situation called for it. “Let’s go with sneaking up,” I said.
I positioned myself on my back with my legs draped over the arm of the sofa, and Lark sat so close that his thigh was pressed to the top of my head. He held the bottle above my left eye and told me, “Just pretend the drops aren’t there. We’re just two people, having a perfectly normal conversation.” I thought it was pretty funny that he felt the need to spell out that last part.
When his hand moved, my entire body flinched and my lids slammed shut. “I tricked you on purpose,” he said, as I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “I’m trying to desensitize you, so you don’t totally freak out like that.” Somewhere in the middle of that sentence, he squeezed the bottle without my noticing it, and a drop fell directly into my eye. I flinched again, but it didn’t matter this time, because half the mission had been accomplished.
“Good job,” I said, as his hand moved into position over my right eye.
“I’m surprised it worked. I thought I’d have to go with a distraction.” He held his other hand out and waved his fingers, and when I glanced at it, a drop landed in my other eye.
My whole body jerked. Then I relaxed and shut my eyes to give the drops a chance to work. “Sorry for acting like such a baby,” I said. “Anything involving eyes always freaks me out. I don’t understand how anyone could ever put in contacts, or take them out again.” The thought of it made me shudder.
Lark slid over a bit, so I was no longer wearing him like a hat. “We all have certain things that gross us out. For me, it’s cottage cheese. The chunks! I can’t even think about it without—” He started to gag, and I glanced at him, just in case I was in imminent danger.
But he got it together and did an abrupt subject change. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you we had some news this morning. Eliot announced he’s moving in with his boyfriend. This wasn’t really a surprise, obviously, since he’s spent every night there for like, the last three months. But now it’s official, and that means we’ll need to find a new housemate.”
He was right, it wasn’t a surprise. In the eight months I’d lived in the pink Victorian, we’d seen less and less of Eliot, because he and one of his coworkers started dating and quickly got serious. Lark looked sad though, so I said, “I’m sure we’ll still see him. Besides the fact that he and Yolanda are cousins, he’s our friend. It’s not like he’s going to disappear.”
“I know. I don’t like change, though.” That explained why he and his boyfriend were sharing Lark’s small bedroom, instead of getting an apartment of their own. “Right now, it’s just so perfect. What if the new housemate ends up throwing everything out of whack?”
“Yolanda and JoJo aren’t going to rent to just anyone. We all ended up here because of a personal recommendation, and I’m sure it’ll be the same with whoever moves in next.”
“But you never know.”
“Look on the bright side. It’s not that we’re losing Eliot, we’re potentially gaining a new family member.”
That really was what we were here, a family in the best sense of the word. What little remained of my biological family left a lot to be desired, and this place and its residents had filled a void I hadn’t even realized I’d been living with. I assumed it was the same for Lark, who’d been disowned by his homophobic parents when he was a teen.
He perked up and smiled at me as he said, “That’s a good way of looking at it.”
I shifted positions to get more comfortable and asked, “So, what’re you up to today?”
“I’m just waiting for Dylan to finish class. Then we’re going to go have a picnic.”
“I know you two are working toward opening your own landscaping company,” I said. “So, why aren’t you doing the landscape architecture certificate program with him?”
“I’m not a fan of sitting in classrooms. When we open our business, he can be in charge of all the designing and stuff. I just want to dig in the dirt and plant flowers.”