Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Exasperated, I toss up my hands. “And this is why I hate your podcasts. They make you think about murder, and talk about murder, and wonder about murder. I don’t want to think about murder. I also don’t want to think about politics, or the national debt, or global warming, or news, for that matter. So I don’t listen to those podcasts either.”
“I like news. And politics.” He taps his temple. “But I like you too. And I get you now, cutie. You want podcasts about cats or cake or maybe even something quirky and fascinating. Well, don’t you worry. I’ll find something perfect for you. Also, I said that as P-U-R-R-F-E-C-T, since you love cats.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I say, rolling my eyes, but laughing too much as he hands me his phone.
I take it.
“Just look in Pocketcast. I downloaded some stuff for you.”
I turn to River, study his face. “You did?”
“This surprises you?”
It sure does. “A little,” I say, but it excites me too. The idea that he picked something for me in advance, that he researched something I might like. Was he in his apartment looking up podcasts late last night? Did he check them out on his hike?
I’ll take any of the above options.
Like I have a spring in my step, I open the app, scrolling through his endless list of true crime and unsolved murder podcasts.
“There. At the bottom. Found three just for you,” River says, sounding pleased, but a touch nervous too. Almost like he’s worried if I’ll like them. Or that he wants me to like them.
It’s possible I’m reading way too much into this moment.
But I also don’t care. I want to read the world into it, and so does my hummingbird-fast-beating heart as I slide my thumb to the bottom of the app.
A stupid grin spreads across my face as I find the trio. I try, truly I do, to rein in the grin. But it’s futile. “How to Tell if Your Cat is a Certified Asshole. This is a podcast?”
“That’s an important life lesson. I thought we could get to the bottom of Goldilocks’s issues.”
“Newsflash—she’s a cat. Ergo, she’s an asshole.”
We cruise past the seaside town of Sausalito, mid-November sunlight reflecting off the crisp blue of Richardson Bay. “Maybe she’s just picky. Certifiably picky, to be precise,” River says.
I click to the next one. “Everything You Wanted to Know About Cake But Were Afraid to Ask,” I read, then scratch my chin. “I dunno. Is there that much I want to know about the subject?”
“Admit it. You have tons of questions swirling in your pretty head about cake. Can I have it for breakfast tomorrow? Does it taste better with milk or coffee? Will cake marry me someday?”
I roll my eyes. “Please. Cake and I have been promised to each other for years. Obviously, I’m marrying cake, but . . . shhhh,” I say, whispering. “I’ll have a thing on the side with coffee.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll keep your secret. Also, I’m not surprised you have a secret wedding plan with cake. Cake is like your soul mate,” River says.
I pat my flat stomach. “Cake is also why I go to the gym.”
He hums, a sexy little sound. “Is that so? Then I’ll feed you some cake.”
“So I can go to the gym?”
“Well, the gym is very, very good to you,” he says, letting go of the wheel to wave his right hand at me. It’s a gym-approving wave, I think.
“Thanks,” I say, trying not to let on how much I enjoy that he’s noticed the gym effect as a result of the cake obsession. “I’ll have to ponder what unanswered cake questions I might have. So let me keep this in my back pocket.” I flip to the next one, then gasp. “Holy fuck! Are you serious? When did this podcast start?”
“Just last week,” River says, his tone pleased. “I heard about it in The New York Times recommendations. See? My news consumption pays off for you.”
“I love Discovery Prism. It’s one of my favorite shows on Webflix.”
“I know,” he says, smiling big too.
“I had no idea it had a podcast.”
He squeezes my shoulder, sending a zip of pleasure down my left arm before he lets go. “That’s what I’m here for. To find things to make your life fabulous,” he says, then makes a rolling gesture with his hand. “Want to pick an episode? There are only seven, since it just launched, but we can get started.”
I hunt through the list, reading the titles. Discovery Prism highlights quirky, weird, and just plain unusual spots all around the globe—a burning hole in the earth in Turkmenistan, a museum in Poland that’s home to centuries-old timepieces, an underwater sculpture park in Indonesia. I pick that one to start, settling in as the host takes us on a tour of a man-made coral park.