Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Damn him, anyway.
The cheese is perched on a blue and white plate, the crackers sitting on the edge in their plastic package since I opened them and set them there. Nina watched me for a few seconds, but now she’s reaching for a cracker. The plastic rustles and I hear at least three sheep bleating and one solid bark in response, but we’re still alone over here. No cats come running for cheese, which is astounding given that it’s their favorite, and they will literally hunt it down from one end of the yard to the other.
Nina dips the round cracker into the edge of the cheese and then brings it to her mouth without hesitation. I’ve met hardier individuals who wouldn’t try my cheese just because they can’t get over the sheep part of it. Baa them, I always thought. They’re the ones missing out.
Nina doesn’t miss out.
She chews, then makes a little moaning noise that causes the hair on my arms to jump straight to attention. I’m not going to comment about what else is trying to stand up after that little foodgasm sound.
“Holy crapper. This is really good. I can’t believe you made this.” She finishes off the cracker, letting out another soft moan again.
I have a terrible impulse to grab the cheese plate and those crackers and go tearing off, my legs pounding under me as I get away from this woman as fast as I can.
Gah, those little moans.
Her eyes closed in pure adoration.
And that wide smile, a few cracker crumbs clinging to the full curl of her top lip.
“I did, though,” I say tightly as though I’ve been bunged up for a good week. “Make it.”
“From your sheep,” she adds.
“Their milk,” I clarify.
“I can’t believe you milk your sheep.”
“Just about anything can be milked.” Classy. Wow.
Her pretty and infectious grin gets even wider, her eyes a little brighter and starrier. “And you call me the crazy one.”
Even after her terrible road trip and the horrible experience of finding out about me, sleeping in her car, and her car breaking down, her spirit is still pretty much unbroken. The three-hour nap she had on my bed must have refreshed her. It was only supposed to be an hour, but then I didn’t have the heart to wake her up, so I went for a walk to check on her car. And finding it majorly fucked, I made a quick plan, or Operation Get Her Out Of Here As Quickly As Possible, and that spurred me into calling the tow truck.
“I don’t know if you’re crazy or not. Your ideas about the lawyer and the whole just getting in your car to come and find me were, though.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.” Infuriating woman. Wild, beastly, absolutely maddening woman. She turns insults into compliments so easily that it makes my head spin. Never mind rainbows, a new, exotic perfume is probably created when she farts.
“I could tell. But that’s the fun part of life. Turning things upside down and finding the good in the bad.”
It’s easy for her. To find the good in the bad and to be perky and happy and wondrous while seeing the good in the world. Clearly, she hasn’t encountered much of the other side of it. I’m willing to bet my left nut that her happy outlook on life would wilt like a flower in a drought if it were tested. My nuts are pretty damn precious to me, so I’m utterly confident in my assessment.
“You know what I think?” She crosses her arms and gives me the hairy eyeball staredown that would put even the cats to shame.
“I don’t, but I have a feeling you’re going to enlighten me,” I tell her.
“I think you’re scared.”
There we go. There it is. I wasn’t bracing for it because I wasn’t expecting this from someone who didn’t even know me. “Scared of what?” I challenge automatically. I shouldn’t even be engaging in this since this is what she wants.
“I think you’re scared that if you let yourself, you might actually find that nothing is as bad as you believe it is.”
Ahh, finally. She’s genuinely and truly wrong about something. I want to fill her in and give her some rock-solid proof to counter her words, but there’s no way I’m going there. I’m not walking into that nicely sprung trap, no matter how prettily she baited it.
Damn it, I’m walking into it. “I find your relentless optimism and bone-deep knowledge of life, humanity, and the human psyche to be absolutely exhausting. The only thing I’m afraid of is how many more wrong philosophies you can spout in a single evening.”
She just smiles at me despite the hard edge in my words. “Oh, don’t get me started. This is just a warm-up. I could keep going if you like.”