What the hell does candling an egg mean? Google where for art thou?!
“Yeah.” My he was succinct. I wish I had learned how to be so concise. Nanny Annie used to say I could talk the ears off a wooden Indian. I always pointed out that we should use the wording “Talk the ears off a wooden Native American” to be culturally and politically correct. I was an astute and socially aware child. She would then frown at me and kill my bugs. “Use the door you didn’t come through.”
Obviously.
My gods he was sassy. I bit back a biting comment, spun on my soggy heels, and stalked into the bathroom. After flipping on the light, I realized I forgot my bag, so I threw back my shoulders and went after it, ignoring the eye roll from the sexy string bean in flannel. With his eyes on me, I returned to the bath, closed the door, and stuck my tongue out at him. Once I got that rebellious move out of my system, I gave the cramped space a quick once-over. It was actually really charming. And pink. Like…somuch pink. The shower curtain was pink, and the little bathmat hanging over the side of the clawfoot tub was pink. The lone towel was pink. There was a small stand beside the toilet that held magazines, extra rolls of toilet paper, and one slim, hobnail vase with several dusty paper roses, also pink. Even the apartment-sized washer and dryer stacked up in the corner were pink. My mouth hung open. I peeked around the shower curtain to make sure I hadn’t stepped into a pocket dimension. Nope. I was still here in this reality. Hanging over the calcified showerhead was a well-used bar of soap on a rope. That was it. No shampoo or conditioner or even a shower puffy. Just soap. Wow, so a minimalist who embraced his feminine side. I could dig it.
I leaned over to sniff the soap. It was minty. I bet it smelled great on him. All I’d smelled when I’d been close—and I’d not been all that close—was diesel fumes and cow poop. The minty soap would be a marked improvement. Knowing time was ticking, I let the bubblegum colored shower curtain drop back into place and gingerly made my way to the sink. There was no medicine cabinet, just a round mirror that had patches of desilvering. A skinny shelf was screwed to the wall under the mirror, which held his toothbrush, a box of dental floss, a small plastic cup for rinsing, a can of Barbasol, and a disposable razor. Well, didn’t that suck? How was I supposed to snoop in his medicine cabinet when he didn’t have one? Obviously, Acosta was hiding something. No one could survive on so little. My bathroom back home was packed full of lotions, creams, pretty floral soaps in tiny dishes, tweezers, exfoliators for my bikini area, and super plush towels in bright yellows and greens. I loved yellow.
“You okay in there?” my host shouted through the door as he hammered on it. I nearly leapt out of my wet socks.
“Fine! Just fine. Had to take a stress poop! Be right out.”
“Oh. Oh-kay.”
I heard him wandering off as I slapped myself on my forehead. Repeatedly. Oh my God. What the hell was I doing telling My Big Flannel Greek Crush I was stress pooping?
Wait. Are we crushing? When did that happen?
When we saw his pink paper flowers obvs.
Oh sure right. Well, this is a work trip. Crush after we get the signature. Frank Jr. will shit a bison when he sees all the accolades you get from Dad. And probably Mom too, if she’s back from sailing around the Maldives with Adrastus.
Right. Time to focus. I flushed the toilet to make it seem as if I had actually made a number two. Then I washed my hands with the soap on a rope. After I rehung it back in the shower, I dried my hands on a flamingo-toned hand towel, replaced my wet socks with dry ones, and washed my hands a second time. I didn’t want to sit down to eat with stinky wet sock smell on my fingers. Blowing out a breath, I inspected myself in the mirror. Short black hair was tidy, big brown eyes clear, skin smooth and just a little bit wind chapped. Nothing some moisturizer wouldn’t fix. Clothes only slightly wrinkled. Socks dry. It would do in a pinch as Nanny Annie used to say.
Throwing back my shoulders, business face on, I tossed open the door and came face to face with a big, black, floppy-eared goat that possessed an incredibly proud Roman nose that was in a wheelie contraption. I screamed. The goat screamed. Then it raced off at Mach speed, knocking the chairs in the kitchen akimbo as it streaked toward Acosta and then hid behind his long legs.
The glower I got from Mr. Melios could have melted bricks. The goat then dropped a pile of goat berries on the floor.
“You literally scared the shit out of Elizabeth,” he snarled as if I had control over the goat’s poop hole.
“I wasn’t expecting a goat when I opened the door,” I panted while my heart thundered in my chest.
“It’s a farm. Expect animals to be here,” he angrily snapped.
I thought to ask if goats were normally in the kitchen but decided to keep that query to myself. I’d hate to ruin how well things were going so far by irritating him.
ChapterThree
To be honest,the scrambled eggs didn’t look any different from scrambled eggs from non-slutty chickens.
If I were being truthful, they were really quite good. The yolks seemed to be a brighter yellow/orange than store-bought eggs. The coffee that Acosta had made was also tasty. Plain coffee, no flavorings or beans from the steep green mountainside of Molokai, but good. Of course, I was starved, so that probably had something to do with it. The silence was deafening in the small, toasty living area. Acosta ate and slurped his coffee, his gaze as cold as frosty slate. On occasion, he would blow a strand of long hair from his face. I found that alluring for some reason. Probably the same reason that I didn’t care if the eggs had love stuff in them.
Oh please. As if you’ve not had love stuff in and or on you before.
True. I had and more than once.
“So,” I said after a few more moments of desolate quiet. “How did the goat get in here wearing his wheelchair thing?”
“She rolls all around this farm.”
“Ah.”
“She sleeps in here.”
I forked another bite of eggs. “Of course she does.”
“The buck I have keeps escaping his pen and trying to breed her.”
