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“For you,” he tells me.
“What? Why? That was a horrible story about some guy killing himself for a woman who wasn’t even real.”
“It was romantic. And you need to start your antique collection over. What better way to do that than with a big, heavy ceramic bust of a dude who looks like me, that you can make out with when I’m not around?” he says with a dimpled smile.
“You’re ridiculous.” I laugh as I tuck the stupid thing under my arm and Eric grabs my hand.
He might be ridiculous, but I kind of like that he shoved the ceramic piece into my arms instead of going all caveman on me, insisting on carrying it himself and assuming the little woman couldn’t cart around something even remotely heavy.
“And you’re now the proud owner of a bust of my face.”
“You just bought this because you like saying the word bust,” I tell him with a shake of my head.
“Whatever. You don’t know me.”
He pauses for a few seconds and then giggles like a ten-year-old.
“Bust. Bust, bust, bust.”
He’s still laughing to himself as we head towards the parking lot.
It occurs to me as we get in his SUV that we just spent the day getting deeper with each other, and I didn’t turn to dust, and it didn’t kill me. It didn’t scare me away, it didn’t make me want to throw up, it just makes me want so much more with Eric. I want everything.
Goddamn it all to hell. I want the fucking fairy tale.
Chapter 18: Tiny House Angry
Coming to the realization that I have turned into the type of woman I spent the last two years of my life being completely annoyed with has suddenly made me nervous and maybe a touch hysterical.
“I’m actually a really good cook, I just don’t do it very often. Especially since money has been tight, and I’ve been living off of ramen noodles and Kraft mac and cheese for a while. There’s not very many creative things you can do with ramen and mac and cheese,” I ramble, carrying an armful of everything I could hold from the pantry and dumping it on the kitchen island. “I also haven’t gotten the hang of cooking for one down pat just yet. I don’t understand why it’s so fucking hard to measure out noodles for one. You add some noodles to the water, it never looks like enough, so you add a little bit more and it still doesn’t look like enough, and pretty soon you have enough noodles to feed a small country.”
I can see Eric leaning with his back against the fridge to my right with his arms crossed in front of him, watching me flit back and forth from the pantry to the island while I talk out of my ass about fucking noodles.
As soon as we got back to my boat, Eric left me alone for a few minutes to run over and check on Derrick. That was his first mistake. Leaving me alone with my thoughts and an entire pantry filled with carbs.
“I don’t know what you’re in the mood for, but I’m sure I can make something out of all this that will be delicious,” I tell him, refusing to look over at him as I quickly grab the closest item and rip it open a little too aggressively and the bag of salt-and-vinegar chips explodes all over the counter. I laugh nervously as I reach for something else. When I rip off the end of a box of angel hair pasta and half of it spills out on top of the chips, Eric finally decides to put me out of my misery. Or make things worse. It could really go either way right now.
He’s suddenly standing right behind me, his front pressed up against my back and his hands resting on the counter on either side of me, caging me in.
“I’m not really in the mood for food right now,” he speaks softly against my ear, dipping his head lower to place a soft kiss on the side of my neck.
“Um, okay. We could watch a movie. Or go get Derrick and force him to do a fashion show with all his new sweaters,” I reply nervously, my eyes fluttering closed when he continues pressing tiny, soft kisses against my neck, moving down to the skin of my shoulder.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks in between kisses, as he reaches up and uses one finger to slowly lower the spaghetti strap of my sundress off my shoulder and press a kiss there.
“It’s a hot fucking mess all up in here. You don’t want to know,” I mutter when he slides his hands around my waist and holds me tightly against his body.
“Am I making you nervous?”
