AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m so thoroughly embarrassed, sad, worried, confused, and…and a whole lot of other things right now that the tears aren’t going to stop. I do appreciate the gesture, no matter how stifled and mortifyingly fumbling it is. At least Thaddius has something of a heart. He’s not all grouch all the time.
“I—I’ll…c-call you when…when the b-b-burgers are done,” I stammer, sniffling.
I can’t tell if the expression on his face looks relieved or torn between going and staying. It’s impossible to evenseehis face properly through the haze.
“Okay,” he says quietly. I might not be able to see him as anything but a watery, mirage-looking shape, but I hear the concern in his voice, and I do appreciate it.
It means he might just be a little bit squishy in all the places I thought were hard.
Maybe he thinks they’re hard too. Maybe he doesn’t know they’re squishy.
After he’s gone, I can still smell him—hismanlysmell lingering in the kitchen, strong but not potent, a little bit of sweat, cologne, coconut sunscreen, dirt, hay, animal, and fresh air all blending together.Farm musk.It’s actually kind of nice.
And since I can smell it, it means my nose isn’t all that plugged, which means that with a few deep breaths, I can probably calm down and stop the tears.
The hard truth is that I never saw my life going in this direction. Not the mad flight for freedom, the first independent trip I’ve ever taken, my car breaking down, or being here with a man that I’m supposed to marry, knowing full well I’m not going to marry him, and now also knowing full freaking well that if I don’t, it’s going to affect a whole lot more than just my life. There’s a whole ton of chaos coming for me in a week when I leave here, and being here isn’t exactly finding a safe harbor, but that’s trouble I can borrow in seven days. For now, I just have to breathe and focus on burgers.
Seven days isn’t a long time, but my life literally changed in a moment. Put into perspective, seven days feel like a lifetime.
Maybe I’ll find some answers.
Or maybe magic will happen, even if I don’t believe in miracles. This whole experience has proved that stranger things can definitely happen.
CHAPTER 11
Thaddius
Zzzzzzzzz, buzzzzzzzooooooo, grrrrrr, crunch! Clunk, crunch, blat, wrrrrrrrrrumph, shhhhsnap.
What the ever-loving chicken feet is that?
I shoot upright on the couch. It was barely light outside, but that horrific noise wasn’t in my dreams. It sounded like someone was using a blender, but instead of blending something normal, they decided to try and make a smoothie out of rocks.
Throwing off the granny squares knit blanket that my granny certainly didnotknit, I race to the kitchen.
The blender isn’t running anymore, but that snapping noise at the end didn’t sound healthy. It sounded more like something on its last legs. It’s very,verylast legs.
“What happened?”
Nina is stalking around the kitchen, her hands fluttering like agitated chicken wings. They’re flapping so hard that I’m surprised she hasn’t lifted off. She’s wearing pajama bottoms that are at least three sizes too big, but she’s cinched the waist on them. The fuzzy pink flamingos stare back at me. They’re not just fuzzy pants. The flamingos themselves have long hair. Not kidding. Shag rug style, neon pink hair.
The bright, acid-colored skull doesn’t match at all unless you count the colors. Her hair is a wild mess of bedhead, but only in the back, which I’m guessing she couldn’t see because the front is straight, but the rest is a rat’s nest multiplied by a hundred. My eyes flick back to the skull pasted across her chest. The way the fabric drapes makes it obvious she’s not wearing a bra, and her nipples are in denial that it’s warm in here. I jerk my eyes away, but not before painful heat stabs me. In the balls.
“I don’t know,” she moans. “I turned it on, and it made this terrible noise. I couldn’t get it to shut off, and then eventually, it just died.”
“What were you blending? Bullets?”
“No! Jesus!” Her eyes get snappy. This is the first time I’ve seen her on the verge of getting mad, but then I realize it’s not anger when I take a second to think about it. She’s flustered. And worried. She just killed a three-hundred-dollar machine.
Maybe it just went berserk and died in one final blaze of blended glory.
“It was just…just yogurt and milk, the frozen fruit I found in the freezer, some ice cream…you know. Regular smoothie stuff.”
“Regular smoothie stuff doesn’t usually sound like trying to tumble cement,” I point out, edging closer to the blender like the thing is possessed. Nina watches both me and the blender nervously.
It’s at times like these that I’m glad I chose to sleep in my clothes. For one, Nina was asleep in my bed early. When I got in from the barn, she was already passed out. I wasn’t going to sneak into my room for clean boxers, which is typically all I sleep in. I figured I could just get them in the morning. The couch isn’t anything special. It could handle my dirty ass body for a night.
I get closer and finally unplug the thing from the wall in one swift yank. There. Now it can’t haunt anyone or do more rock grinding.
