Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
That made my friend chuckle. “I hate to break it to you, but not all men over forty are incredible in bed. The fact is, if they suck at twenty-five, they’ll probably still suck at forty-five. If sex with Malcolm is that exceptional, it’s because of your chemistry.”
“I still think it’s years of practice.”
“But I’m having the best sex of my life with Aleksei, and he’d never been with a man until we got together. That’s not experience, that’s just the way we click. It might be the same with you and Malcolm.”
I sighed and muttered, “I wish it was mediocre.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s just one more thing to miss about him when this is over.”
“Are you developing feelings for him? You are, aren’t you?”
“No. I refuse to do that. Remember what I just said about this being doomed from the start? When it inevitably ends, I don’t want to end up devastated—again. I’m still getting over the last disaster.”
He looked skeptical. “You refuse?”
“That’s right. My mind and body might be in this, but I’m keeping my heart totally sealed off. I’ve buried it under the floorboards, like in that Edgar Allan Poe story.”
Timothy shot me a look. “You know, things didn’t exactly work out for that character in The Tell-Tale Heart.”
I got home late that afternoon, after running a few errands. All my housemates were in the kitchen, getting ready to welcome our new housemate. All I knew about him was that his name was Embry, he was twenty-seven, and Yolanda had met him at work. Since she was a nurse who worked at one of the local hospitals, I assumed he was a medical professional of some kind.
When I mentioned that, she said, “Not quite. I met him in the cafeteria. He’s in there a lot.”
As I washed my hands so I could help prepare dinner, I asked, “Because he loves the food?”
“No, he’s there as a patient,” she explained, as she tucked a strand of long, dark hair behind her ear. “It’s never anything major—sprains, scrapes, that kind of thing.”
“Is he an athlete or something?”
“No, he just tends to be accident-prone. His last roommate kicked him out for accidentally setting the kitchen on fire. Twice.”
Our housemates Lark and Dylan had been assembling a huge tray of cheese enchiladas, and they both paused in mid-roll and turned to look at our landlady. So did Hal, who’d been chopping vegetables for salsa fresca. The only person who kept working was JoJo, who was making fresh lemonade. Obviously, this wasn’t news to her.
“If I’m not worried about it, you shouldn’t be, either,” Yolanda told us. “He’s a really sweet kid, and he was about to end up homeless. I couldn’t let that happen.”
As I dried my hands on a dish towel, I repeated, “Kid? I thought you said he was my age.”
“He is, but he seems much younger. You’ll see.”
Hal asked, “What does he do for a living?”
“He’s currently between jobs,” Yolanda told him. “He gets fired a lot.”
There was a knock on the front door just then. When Yolanda went to answer it, I turned to JoJo and asked, “Aren’t you concerned? Our new housemate sounds like a walking disaster. What if he burns the house down, or falls down the stairs, or burns the house down and falls down the stairs?”
“I have some concerns,” she admitted, “but if Yo thinks this is going to be okay, then so do I.”
A few moments later, Yolanda returned and said, “Everyone, this is Embry.”
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t the tiny little twink who followed her into the kitchen, carrying a cake covered in plastic wrap. He had big, blue eyes and white-blond hair that faded into pale pink at the ends, and he smiled shyly as he said hello.
Yolanda did a quick round of introductions before telling him, “We’re making dinner to welcome you to your new home.”
His face lit up. “Wow, thanks! Maybe we can have this for dessert. I made it for all of you.”
Embry took a step forward, and the little black cat who’d moved in recently darted out from under the kitchen table and disappeared down the hall. Maybe the cat had a premonition, because in the next instant, Embry tripped over absolutely nothing, and the cake shot out of his hands.
Somehow, that set off a Rube Goldberg-style chain reaction around the kitchen. Lark lunged forward to try and catch the cake, but he ended up belly-flopping on top of it. His flailing legs caught his boyfriend Dylan’s stool, which started to tip. Dylan reached for the counter to try to steady himself as he bumped into Hal, but he missed and whacked the corner of the baking pan instead. The enchiladas went flying like they were on a catapult, while the plastic bowl of salsa Hal had been holding became airborne as he fell on his ass.