Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Maybe that was a premonition.
“What are you doing with all this?”
His hands go to his hips and he’s looking at me like he knows somehow this milk is a mistake. I hate that he’s right, and my pride emerges like a moth as I scramble to think of something I could have planned for 160 litres of milk.
Make cheese? But why? What would I do with that much cheese? It’s the same problem I have with the milk, except that it solves the expiry issue.
“I . . . I . . .”
His knowing grin reappears.
“It’s to bathe in.”
“Bathe?”
“Uh huh.” I bump the end of my milk against his bulging biceps. “How about using those manly muscles to truck these milks to my tub?”
With that I hike off inside and shakily get back to our teas.
I’m sploshing milk into his when the phone rings—the shrill, echoing ring of the landline—and I instantly know who it is. I locate the half-broken brick from the nineties on a corner shelf, behind my sewing machine, and pick up.
“Hi Mum.”
“Darling, I got your message.”
Her voice booms into the air, filling the bach. The speaker is still broken. No one’s bothered to fix it—or replace it—since I was sixteen.
Damon pauses before ducking into the bathroom, and I know he can hear everything. Just like I can hear him . . . wait, is he filling the tub?
I take the brick with me and peek into the bathroom. “Mum, let me call you back on the cell phone, ‘kay?”
“What’s wrong with the landline?”
“I have a . . .” guest over? Ex? Almost murderer? “visitor.”
Damon grins as he disappears outside; he’s back far too quickly. With more milk.
Mum chippers, “Oh, this won’t take long, love. I want to know how you’re doing. I didn’t get all of your message last night. It was very windy. You said you’ve broken up with Karl?”
That was my entire message last night. And it hadn’t been windy. That’d been me hyperventilating.
“I saw it coming, you know,” she says.
I’m sure I’ve misheard. “Sorry?”
“Anyone could’ve seen it coming.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, darling. You have to figure these things out for yourself.”
Great.
If she’d told me a few months ago, I wouldn’t have been escorted out of my own house by my smug ex, and I wouldn’t be in the family bach watching my other ex (sort of) fill a claw-foot tub with a hundred-plus litres of milk.
I suppose there’s a very expensive—painful—lesson in there?
I sag against the front door and watch Damon scuttling to and from the car.
“You know honey, it’s okay.”
“What’s okay?”
“That relationships never seem to work out for you.”
Damon’s hazel gaze meets mine briefly as he passes me on the threshold. His sympathetic wince reminds me that, for all his playboy ways, he’s always been a thoughtful, generous guy who despises seeing others getting hurt.
Not that this is hurting me.
Not that I’ll let Damon know if anything is hurting me.
“How refreshingly honest, Mum.”
“Some people are just better on their own. Like your uncle Melvin.”
“Who?”
“Exactly. Everyone forgets about him, and he’s fine with it.”
I’m not really digging this comparison. I’m not fine being on my own, and I’m really not fine with everyone forgetting about me. Which is what happens to people who stay at home on weekends and never partake in conversations about pop culture and who live in their pyjamas . . .
“I think you’ll be better on your own.”
I’m pacing the bach now. There’s Mum and Dad’s old room that I haven’t stepped into yet, and the floorboard is creaking louder and louder every time I pass it—like it wants to join in the panic. I’m gesticulating wildly. “I don’t want to be on my own. I want a relationship that lasts. I want someone to bloody well fall in love with me and not run off three years on the day . . .” Entitled to half my property.
I probably shouldn’t have said so much with Damon lurking in the background.
Mum sighs sympathetically. “If you think you can get back in the market, you do that. But don’t put any pressure on yourself, honey. You could always take up another hobby? Get a cat?”
I can see it now—me, my sewing machine, and an adopted fish I spend my days defending from a mischievous tabby. “Have I told you how supportive you are?”
“I know darling. I love you. I’m here for you.” She adds with renewed excitement, “If you are meant to be alone, you can always move in with me. We can live out our old age together.”
“Sorry Mum, the line is really crackling up.” I make static sounds. “Call you when I have a boyfriend. Bye.” I crinkle a plastic bag of threads that didn’t fit in my sewing box, and disconnect.
I turn to a low chuckle and Damon peeling himself out of his wetsuit. The top half falls to his waist and I’m gaping at a firm chest matted with dark hair and abs that make me want to wash clothes the old fashioned way. If said clothes were still attached to my person.