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“Boil yourself an egg,” she shot back, rolling her eyes as she snagged Gadget, tucking him into his tank.
I didn’t even realize I was smiling dumbly at her until Finn cleared his throat, drawing my attention over to him where he was smirking at me, eyes dancing a bit.
“Don’t.”
Hours later, after dinner – Meadow pretty much eating her body weight in spaghetti, something that was both endearing and necessary since she still needed to put a little weight on – Finn made coffee then stopped Meadow when she went to reach for the plates.
“You cooked. I’ll clean,” he told her, handing us each coffee.
It was a dismissal, one I understood well.
So I grabbed Gadget, and suggested Meadow take him outside to let him stretch out his legs.
“What?” she asked when we were out of earshot.
“We got to leave him alone for a while,” I told her as we walked over toward the pen where she shooed Gadget in to go be with the other goats, wanting him to take to them since she knew that he wouldn’t be a baby forever, that he would need to be with his own kind at some point.
“He needs to clean,” she guessed.
“Yeah. And, as much as possible, he doesn’t want anyone looking over him like he’s some kind of freak.”
“He’s not a freak,” she insisted, leaning on the fence rail. “It’s a quirk. I think it’s endearing. Don’t be side-eyeing me you beak-nosed butthead.”
As far as insults go, beak-nosed-butthead was pretty low on the burn level, but I was grinning at her like a fucking idiot over it regardless.
“So how long?”
“Hm?” I asked, too distracted by her to remember what we were talking about.
“How long until everything is cleaned?”
“Couple hours, maybe.”
“Do you think…” she started, then shook her head at herself like her thoughts were silly.
“Do I think what?”
“That we could take a walk down to that little abandoned town you talked about? I mean I know it is getting late, but we could get there before dark, right? It’s staying bright so much later and…”
“We can go,” I interrupted her. I didn’t particularly want to. I found the towns somewhat sad. But I wasn’t going to deny her either. “Let me just grab a flashlight and a gun. Just in case,” I said, shaking my head when she stiffened. “It’s early, just in case on the way back, we run across anything unsavory,” I explained.
“Do you think Gadget will be okay here? It’s warmer today, but…”
“Goats are herd animals, they pack together if they get chilly to share heat. He’ll be fine.”
With that, we were off, a pack of dogs at our heels, happy to be able to wander off, smell new smells, mark new trees, and in Duggie’s case, chase rats wherever they dared to try to live.
It wasn’t a long walk, nor one of the biggest towns there were to explore if you were curious enough, if you saw the articles in Weird NJ or some shit.
Forty minutes later, we were walking through the old sawmill, Meadow’s hand exploring what was left inside – nothing to speak of really, just things bolted down, too heavy to take out.
“It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?” she asked, shaking her head. “I mean, I know they wanted to shut down the logging to preserve the land, but it’s sad that people had to leave their homes behind. Oh! Oh, no. Oh, God. What is that? Get it out,” she shrieked, batting at the giant spider web she had just walked straight into.
“Relax,” I murmured as she frantically pulled the wispy web out of her hair. “Here. I got it,” I told her, stepping close, reaching up to carefully sift the strings out, flicking them to the sides over and over until it was all gone.
It wasn’t until then that I realized how close we were. Her back was against the wall. The tips of my feet were between her legs. Her breathing was fast, hard, her chest rising and falling quickly, brushing against the wall of my chest each time.
I don’t know where the compulsion came from, why I hadn’t been able to fight it like I usually would. The yearning I felt toward the warmth in my chest, to the source of it.
But my hand, still raised over her head, lowered again, this time gliding down the silky strands framing her face, a touch that had her head lifting, her gaze holding mine.
My fingers continued downward, slipping the hair backward, tucking it gently behind her ear, hearing the surprised intake of breath as my fingertip grazed her earlobe.
The sound – and the hazy look in her green eyes – seemed to do something to me, seemed to make the control I generally kept over myself break free.
My hand moved, stroking a path down the side of her neck, pausing there.
