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She gives me the kind of look my mom has given me my whole life when I say obtuse things. It’s freaky how close Nina already has it mastered. It makes a shiver ripple through me, and not in a good way.
“I’ll order two coffees then. For myself.” I watch as Nina nods and heads off down the street, those nasty poo flip-flops slapping disgustingly with her every step. Her hips bounce prettily in her jeans, her bum swaying, and I quickly tear my eyes away and give myself one of those conversations.
The—we’re not having this conversation—conversation.
At the door of the coffee shop—a little mom-and-pop family-run business like most of the places in Upperhand—I turn around to make sure Nina is okay. It’s just instinct. She’s new here, alone and small. It should be my job to protect her, even if I don’t like it or want it. She walks down to the end of the sidewalk, pauses to look at the sign on the building, which I seem to remember is a thrift store, and goes inside.
I wait for a good minute, but she doesn’t come back out. She’s going to be okay in there. She’s a grown woman. It doesn’t matter that she’s too nice, and anyone could take advantage of her. She needs to learn to look after herself sometime. Shecanlook after herself. She made it all this way on her own.
In a week, she’ll leave here on her own too.
And between then and now, we can work on fixing our lives to the point where no one can mess with them again.
That should be worth celebrating, but it leaves me feeling like I took a donkey kick to the gut. Alright, it’s notthatbad. Maybe more like a chicken kick. Never underestimate a chicken who knows karate. They’ll cluck you up. Anyway, that sensation is terrible and uncalled for, and I think I can banish it with coffee, though it’s probably more than that. I’m darn well out of sorts from my mom and grandma this morning, all the usual chaos, and then the chaos that went over and over and above.
The cameras, for one.
Coffee can’t help me start the day over, but it can give me enough energy to get through it and, hopefully, the rest of this week too.
CHAPTER 10
Nina
Ever since we got back, Thaddius has been showing his general displeasure and rubbing it in with just how unwanted my presence is here by stomping around outside and doing all sorts of different chores, so I hide away in the kitchen.
I found a pound of ground beef in the fridge, which, for a bachelor, is pretty well stocked. With my phone that I retrieved out of the car and charged on the way home, I looked up a recipe that used the best of both beef and goat worlds. Well, I’m using a recipe for goat cheeseburgers because there’s no way I’d find anything with sheep cheese. At least, I don’t think I would. I hope subbing it in isn’t a huge mistake.
Cooking is the one thing I’ve always been decently good at. My mom did most of the family dinners, but I always loved baking. In school, I took cooking whenever I could, which was pretty much every year. It took my love of baking to a new level, and suddenly, it wasn’t just my mom doing all the cooking. I stepped up and started making meals at least two nights a week, sometimes more, and of course, I always helped her out whenever she didn’t chase me out of the kitchen for causing more chaos than I was helping.
Now I knew why my parents never suggested culinary school. They didn’t want me getting way too involved in something that was a passion because they wanted me to get married instead.
Okay, maybe that’s not fair. They did encourage me to pursue English, even though it’s not one of those more highly marketable majors. Or maybe they were just trying to tide me over. God, I don’t know anymore. It’s probably best to just stick to making burgers and not think about that.
Even if it’s nearly impossible to think about anything else, given that my future is a huge question mark.
I was scared to turn my phone on, but when I finally did, I found about a million missed calls. My voicemail was so full that it couldn’t take any more messages, which I figured was a good thing. There were also even more emails than when I last checked and about a zillion texts. I didn’t read any of them. After I’m done with the phone for the recipe, I’m going to shut it off again.
The kitchen has two windows, one on either side, and they don’t have the happy, frilly farm curtains that I wish they did. They actually don’t have any curtains or blinds at all. Or screens.
Given that I didn’t want any more chicken incidents or donkeys sticking their heads in to sample the wares, I kept them shut. It’s probably less likely to attract a swarm of insects this way as well. But keeping it shut doesn’t mean the view is blocked out.
Oh no.
My view of the farmyard is quite…deliciousat the moment.
My pulse starts banging about like a raccoon shut in a trash can by mistake. Thaddius is out there in jeans and a T-shirt, big shitkicker rubber boots, and a faded ballcap. My stomach drops as my eyes rove from that cap straight to his bottom. In those jeans, faded and buttery soft and stained in spots because they’re working jeans, his ass is not-so-subtly hot. It’s more like…like designing a fireplace out of wood and expecting it to contain the flames kind of hot.
My heart goes on a wild race inside my chest, and all of a sudden, my nipples are doing regrettable things. Regrettable, as in, I’m wearing one of Thaddius’ T-shirts, and while it’s not white, it’s grey, and that’s close enough to make the fact that I’m currently going braless in order to wash all my clothing, including my undergarments, all that much more apparent. My nipples were practically poking through the soft, thin fabric before I got a load of the world’s best man-butt. Now my ovaries are definitely panting, and my nipples are trying to shred.
Not shred snow, either. I think that term is for snowboarding. God, I’m so uncool.
“What does it matter?” My parents weren’t worried about my cool factor. They weren’t worried about my hot factor either. I was carefully in the middle, which made it pretty easy to go unnoticed. I can’t say that anyone ever fought very hard for me, either. All my would-be boyfriends were easily chased off.
Herman Merman goes trailing behind Thaddius, and his donkey sway is super cute to watch. When Thaddius bends over to grab the handles of a wheelbarrow he’s going to start wheeling around, the donkey nudges him in the back with his head.
I can’t hear anything, but it makes me smile when Thaddius jumps and spins around like he didn’t know the donkey was there. He rubs a hand over his nose, and when Herman Merman shakes his head, Thaddius laughs.
He looks good when he laughs. Sun-kissed and glorious.
