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)
“You’re wearing boots. The chances of getting one out here in the low grass aren’t very good. Stay out of the tall stuff, and you’ll be fine. But boots help too. Boots and socks in the boots and pants tucked into socks.”
“Holy god, how do you stand it?”
“If I get one, I just tweeze it off, but they’re honestly not bad. I hardly ever find them on any of the animals out here either.”
As if to prove that I’m telling the truth, Shaggy walks over to the fence. He stays on the other side, gives himself a good shake, lets all that rippling white fur go where the wind will take it, and then flops onto his back. He rubs himself all over the grass and lets out doggie groans because he’s clearly hitting the itchy spot.
“Well, you probably have chores and stuff to do. I don’t know what it entails other than feeding everyone, so I’ll go back in and make something for us. Something that isn’t blended up spoon smoothie. No smoothie at all, actually, seeing as I cooked your blender.” She frowns. “I’ll work it off. The debt, I mean. For my car and the blender. I know I only have a week, but I can—”
“Don’t worry about that stuff. Call it a gift, and call it accidents happen. Life is so often a comedy of errors, but it’s not funny. Whoever came up with that should have called it a tragedy of errors. I guess other people might find it funny, but when it’s happening, it’s not amusing at all.”
Nina’s nose wrinkles. I can tell she doesn’t like me describing her life that way. She stays silent, though, holding in her opinions about it. “What are you going to do now?” she asks, catching me off guard.
“Now?” I think I know what she means, though I don’t know if I want to answer her.
“Now that you don’t have a job. You sold your software. I know that much. And you made tons of money. You don’t need to work, but aren’t you going to get bored out here? Escape is one thing, and having a passion is beautiful, but what now? What are your next steps?”
My first instinct is to deflect. “What are your next steps?”
I see how wrong it is when Nina’s eyes cloud over, making me want to take it back and stop being so damn defensive all the time. I let my guard down for one second this morning in the kitchen, and it didn’t kill me. I let Nina pet the sheep, which is my thing. Didn’t kill me, either. Plus, they liked it. It also felt good to come out here and share this with her. I’d call that a problem, but for goodness fucking sake, I can handle it. I’m not so emotionally fragile that I can’t get through a week. I can interact. I can be nice.
Petunia, who, like most of the other animals and birds, was inherited together with the farm and isn’t actually named after my granny, struts by the fence, cooing and clucking and pecking at the ground like she might be taking care of some ticks as we speak. But probably not, though. Probably other bugs.
Nina watches her carefully, and thankfully, her smile comes back. “I’m not sure. But right now, I do know I’m going to go make breakfast.” She glances at Petunia, then back at me, before she whispers, “Eggs-free breakfast. In case anyone is traumatized from yesterday morning.”
“The only ones traumatized are us. I’m sorry again about my mom and granny dropping in like that, waking you up, and then going on and on about marriage.”
“It’s alright. We figured it out, so I’m hopeful we’ll figure out the rest.” She strokes a few sheep heads from the ones edging closer, then heads out of the pen. She lets herself out, not struggling one bit with the gate.
I watch her go, even though I tell myself not to. It gives me a lost puppy dog feeling to watch her leave, but I can’t tear my eyes off the subtle sway of her hips in that frilly yellow abomination of a skirt. On Nina, though? It looks good. She makes it look good. She makes up the whole outfit. I’m sure she’d naturally make any place brighter just by walking into it. Just because she’s her.
I might have found that perky niceness annoying as hell when I first met her, but now? Not so much. Which is a problem. Because I suggested marriage in a fit of craziness just because I wanted to dig us out of the big hole we’ve both been thrust into, and yeah, okay, maybe I wanted to make her happy, and I’m all about finding creative solutions when and where they can be found.