AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So what do you think are the core tenets of confidence?”
“Not giving a fuck what anyone else thinks.”
She blinked. “I don’t... I don’t really care what anyone else thinks, though. I mean, I care to the extent that I need to be able to treat their animals, so I can’t just disregard what they say or think, and I can’t be rude. But it isn’t out of...”
“You care what someone thinks about you. It’s why you guard your language and dress the way that you do and... It’s sweet, Charity. I think you care very much what your dad thought was good and bad and right and wrong. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“That’s very reductive,” she said, frowning deeply at him.
“Don’t go using those college words at me, missy. You know I don’t have that fancy education you do.”
“And we both know that you’re not stupid.”
“Do we, though?” He grinned.
“All right,” she said, doing the next injection. “Bring me the next one.”
They worked together to do all the rest of the vaccinations, and then she looked at him. “Now what?”
“I think we need to go to Smokey’s. Where you need to oversee my reformation, and I can oversee your confidence.”
“Again, why the tavern?”
“I need to make a potential list of candidates.”
“Don’t you have one already?”
He had the decency to look a little bit shamefaced. “I’m not good with names.”
“Wow.” She sighed. “Okay. Tonight we’ll go to Smokey’s. But then, I think we should go out to an actual dinner, and you can practice civilized conversation, while I practice my confidence.”
“Okay. I’ll put you down for civilized dinner later in the week.”
“Perfect.”
“Are you going to go change?”
She looked down. “No.”
“Okay. Well, I am. So let’s go to my house, and you can wait for me.”
She got into his truck, and they drove across the property, pulling up to the little cabin that he called his home.
It was cute and cozy, but it was definitely a bachelor pad. When they had poker games there, she often baked in his kitchen, and had bemoaned his lack of utensils, and eventually, many of hers had ended up migrating to his place. To the point where half of his kitchen was filled with her things.
But it was about the most civilized thing going. They walked through the front door, and Lachlan grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and began to strip it off.
She redirected sharply and went into the kitchen, carefully studying the utensils that she had installed there as she listened to his footsteps disappear into the bedroom.
She turned to look at where he’d been standing and noted that he had thrown his T-shirt onto the floor.
She picked it up and found it to be slightly damp with his sweat. Which didn’t disgust her really, but there was something about it that felt maybe not quite... It made her stomach feel a bit unsettled.
“Things like this,” she shouted down the hall. “Things like this are what you mustn’t do.”
“Imustn’t?”
“You left your T-shirt in the middle of the floor. That’s what I meant by forcing a woman to be your mother.”
