AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“?’Night, Mom.”
Ten seconds later, she began to snore softly, and Kal had the quiet he’d wanted.
It made him restless.
He rolled a pillow lengthways and shoved it beneath his lower back. Sighed at the ceiling. The door opened, and Rosemary tripped over something in the dark. “Bugger.”
Kal flipped on the table lamp for her. She collapsed next to him on the bed and dumped bags of chips and cookies, a soda, and two candy bars on the comforter. “They didn’t have pregnancy tests,” she whispered.
“You’re funny.”
“You’re grumpy.”
“I am.”
“Want some Doritos?”
“No.”
“I adore Doritos. I think they’re my favorite American invention. I’d never had them until my brother-in-law’s girlfriend, Cath, insisted I share hers, and now I can’t get enough of them. Can I borrow a T-shirt? Nothing I have for pajamas is going to work for Victorian bed-sharing with your mother.”
“Sure. You can grab one out of my bag.”
He indicated where he’d left it, and Rosemary rolled out of bed, crawled to his duffel, extracted a T-shirt, and tiptoed to the bathroom to change, knocking her hip against the desk along the way and saying, “Ballocks.”
She came back out with her hair back and her face glowing, the T-shirt just long enough to cover her butt. Legs everywhere. When she sat cross-legged on the bed, he had to make a point not to look at her crotch. There was some kind of situation happening with tiny lace panties and blond hair, and his mom
was snoring five feet away.
Rosemary smirked and shoved the bag of Doritos in his direction.
“You need some coffee or something to sober up?”
“I’m going to soak up all of the alcohol with junk food, and then I’ll sleep the sleep of the righteous. Or get a tummy ache. We’ll see.”
“Living on the edge.”
“It’s like playing Russian roulette with my intestines.”
She pronounced the word funny with her accent, “in-tes-tynes,” and it made him smile despite his mood. He took the Doritos, ate a few. “These are always more delicious than I expect them to be.”
“They’re magic.” She unwrapped a candy bar and laid down crossways on top of the covers. The candy bar waved over her head as she stretched, long and deliciously, her toes curling as the T-shirt pulled up to her navel.
Kal’s heartbeat transferred to his dick with a heavy thud.
“So what’s your deal?” She bit off a chunk of chocolate and caramel. “Aside from the obvious irritations of spending the entirety of the day driving across the country with two women nattering in the backseat and a variety of unplanned and unwelcome detours?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“It’s not, though.” Her face was soft and a little bewildered. She whirled her index finger at him. “There’s more. Here”—she dropped the candy bar on his knee—“share this with me.”
The chocolate was dry and chalky, the caramel unpleasantly wet and sticky, but Kal ate it because she wanted him to. He handed her back the last square. “I got a phone call from this guy I used to work with.”
She’d given herself too much chocolate at once. She chewed it, a bit of caramel on her lip, her eyes wide and surprised. It made it easier to talk to her, knowing she wasn’t completely listening.
“He knew I was on Everest for the avalanche, saw you on a news clip giving that interview, and put two and two together, sort of. He wants me to write something for them. More than that. He wants me to help them make news out of this avalanche.”
Rosemary raked her hand through the end of her ponytail and pulled out several loose strands, which she dropped on the floor. “I should brush my hair,” she said dreamily.
