Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“It’s the dog,” Weland groans. “That’s why mom gave him that probiotic first thing when we got here. It’s no joke.”
Bryan wrenches his T-shirt with a stickman doing a handstand on the back of a purple unicorn up onto his nose. “Oh my sweet lord, that is horrific! No joke, you weren’t joking. It smells worse than something dying. This is blue cheese mixed with onions mixed with liver mixed with something dying.”
“I’m sorry.” Weland pushes back her chair. “I’ll take him outside.”
I stand up as well. This seems like a good time to take a five-minute break. Maybe it’s natural. Maybe the dog did me a huge solid, or maybe he needs to take a huge solid. It sure smells that way.
Weland gives me a stricken, worried I’m so freaking sorry about all this look. I want to put my hand on her back, her shoulder. I want to wrap my arms around her, pull her close, and hold her. I seriously don’t know what’s going on because I don’t get urges like this. My life has been vastly less complicated due to the fact that I haven’t been close to anyone. Okay, so I was once a teenager, and then once I went to college…I kind of…alright...once upon a time, I did date, but not after I became serious about my business, and by then, I was far too busy to worry about any of that. Maybe I grew up. Maybe the urges just died off or something.
All the urges are doing all sorts of things to me now, and that’s not a good thing, especially not when I’m standing in a kitchen with a bunch of people who don’t like me and would rather roast my balls on a platter than have them anywhere near their daughter. At a minimum, they think I’m a huge ass, and they’re not that wrong about how I’ve treated Weland. Even if they knew me, they would probably be pretty darn skeptical about me turning over a fresh, bright, and shiny new token leaf.
“Let me take him.” I bend down and urge Beans out from under the table. The odor is worse under here. It’s eyewatering. Some of it gets in my mouth when I try and do the shallow breathing thing through it, and I nearly gag. Upchucking all over the floor on top of just showing up here and being myself isn’t something I want to ever contemplate happening.
It’s just lucky Beans comes out, does a downward doggy stretch, grunts, and then wags his half tail when he looks at me.
And you know what? I don’t like dogs all that much, especially not the decrepit, smelly variety, but the ice blocks I’ve walled my heart up with melt just a little.
“You don’t have to do that,” Weland protests. She looks at her dad and her brother, who is still mostly hiding in his T-shirt, and then at her mom. “Please stop making tea. The world isn’t in crisis mode. We’ll talk right now. Please just sit down, and while Sterling takes Beans out for a ten-minute walk, we’ll work things out. Because this is happening. Me and him, we’re happening. We’re going to do this, and I need you all to be okay with it, at least on a very basic level, because I’m me, and I love you, and I can’t do this without you. I need your love and your support, and I need you not to have this kind of hate for someone who doesn’t deserve it. So, please. Just…let’s all sit down and keep talking.”
“There isn’t anything I will say while he’s gone that I won’t say in front of him,” Bryan insists. He has his nose plugged under his shirt, so it comes out garbled and nasally sounding.
Oh, I’m very sure about that. He didn’t hold back when I was right here.
Weland’s mom moves away from the kettle, which has boiled and turned off anyway, and comes back to hover near the table. Her dad reluctantly sits down. He looks confused and helpless, while her mom looks so worried and horrified. Her brother, on the other hand, is going to be in kick-ass mode for a long time.
I’m the wrench in a family that was doing okay.
Except Weland clearly wasn’t, and I’m solely to blame for that.
I might not be able to fix anything else, but I’m going to work my ass off to fix that.
Even I’m shocked straight down to my socks, which are still on my feet—fancy dress style socks that are more than due for a change, and can anyone say shower and a fresh set of clothes before I start to stink like Beans here—that she defended me. She said she wanted this, which was more than she said back at her place.