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“So you were…consoling her?” Mom asks cautiously.
My blood is already running hot, but now I’m spiking a fever for a totally different reason. “Please leave. Please just give us four more days without pestering us.”
“Four days so you can…you know…in private?” Granny snickers.
“Friends with benefits?” Mom suggests to my granny.
Granny laughs. “Something like it, it seems like.”
“No. We weren’t doing what you think we were doing. We were…cleaning the undersides of the cabinets. They were dirty.”
“Topless?” Granny hoots.
“It’s hot in here,” I grit out. I’m making this worse. So, so much worse. Somehow, there is a worse. Even on top of hearing my grandma and mom say the word boobs and mean it about having seen the same boobs I just saw. “I’m not explaining myself to you. You’re both going to leave. Now. Please.”
“Alright.” Mom nods. “Okay, we’re going. We just wanted to see that all was well.”
“If you’d let us keep the cameras, we wouldn’t have had to drive all the way out here,” my grandma grumbles.
My mouth drops open in shock. “Do you have any idea how awful that sounds? How wrong? How snoopy and illegal? I’m going to boobytrap this place to keep you out from now on. Fair warning.”
“Are you going to get a guard alpaca? One that spits on people before they can reach the front door?” Granny almost sounds hopeful.
“It won’t be cute like that,” I promise in my most menacing tone. No one takes me seriously. That’s the problem with this family. Both my mom and grandma share a look with each other that says they’re far, far from giving up, and they’re still holding out hope that this can work. Me and Nina. In marriage. Now they have extra fuel for the marriage fire because they saw her naked through the window.
I’m washing my mind off this. And lying to Nina. She’ll never know about this. It’s just way too wrong.
“Have a nice night,” Granny says, winking at me. She emphasizes the wordsniceandnightlike she really means go have fun getting it back on the second we leave.
Mom just nods and gives me the toodles finger wave as they walk back to my grandma’s car together.
I don’t move from the porch until they’re out of sight and even the gravel dust clouds have settled down.
Back in the house, Nina is dressed, and a big, baggy grandpa knit sweater is folded around her whole body. She has her knees tucked into it and her arms around them as she sits on the edge of the bed. That sweater is way too hot for the high level of summer heat in the house, and it’s way too big for her. It looks more like she’s seeking comfort from it than anything, and even if she’s sweltering in it, being comforted is more important.
“They saw my boobs, didn’t they?” she asks, biting on her lower lip and avoiding my eyes. She can’t look at me.
I want to lie to her. I want to so badly. The words stick in my throat like an inhaled fishbone. “Uhhhhhhh, they promised to leave us alone for the next four days, so we’ll have peace and quiet. And it’s time to fab up a spike belt.”
She still won’t look at me. “If I promise not to be mad, will you promise not to actually make a spike belt? They might be annoying, but they’re your family. You can’t choose ‘em, and they’re all we really have in the world. They see us for who we really are because they created us and lived with us, and they love us. That’s more important than anything else. Well, almost anything else. It’s not more important than meeting their expectations of marriage, but it is important to somehow make them see that those expectations have to change and be reshaped.”
I’m at a loss. This woman is truly the most amazing human being I’ve ever met. If she can be this nice and determined right now, I know she’s not faking it. This is all her. “How are we going to do that?”
She picks at a fuzz on the massive sweater. “I’m not sure yet,” she says in watery tones that make it sound like she’s going to cry, even though when she looks up at me, her eyes are dry. “But I hope we can figure something out in the next four days.”
Me too. Never mind the disowning bit. If these people move in next door just as they threatened, I’m moving the hell out, and I really, really love this place.
CHAPTER 16
Nina
I know it’s messed up, but instead of being able to focus on my life, future, marriage, and family problems, all I can think about is how Thaddius felt when he was inside me. Yeah, okay, it was for like thirty seconds only, but it felt…beyond indescribably good.
Thaddius always gets up at the ungodly hour of dawn in order to feed and water the animals, let them out for the day, start cleaning…and avoid me—whatever he does.
At least it saved us from having the awkward confrontation of breakfast together. I mean, I haven’t avoided it yet. He could still be coming in. I’ve been making stuff for us lately because it’s something I can do.
I hug my arms around myself in the kitchen as bright beams of sunlight drift through the window. There doesn’t appear to be a bit of a breeze outside, though I’ve noticed mornings out here are unusually calm. Mornings and evenings, like the real weather, don’t pick up until later and then tire themselves out by bedtime. There are birds singing in the distance, and everything is bright green as far as I can see, except for the adorable red barn to the side and the long winding gravel driveway. It’s so peaceful, but there isn’t a sense of peace inside me.
