Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I hear Amalphia’s voice like an angel, like music, like a stream of cats riding unicorns and real dogs, not robot dogs, bouncing along on them as their silky ears flap in the breeze, and their tongues loll out, slobbering and barking, living their best dog lives.
“I better go and put my stuff back inside. It looks like it’s going to rain. You should sleep, War. I think we’d both be incredibly relieved if you felt better.”
I don’t think sleep is possible against the wall of white pain just waiting there in my brain to envelop me, but Amalphia’s words wrap around it like a blanket and a barrier. If she’s putting her things away, it means she’s staying.
She kissed me.
I kissed her.
And it was beyond perfect. I want to do it again. Over and over. She was the sweetest heaven. All the cats riding all the unicorns and all of that all over again.
We kissed, and the world didn’t combust or crumble. My sore brain is so scrambled that it’s starting to try to turn over a scenario where maybe this could work. It’s trying to evoke a dangerous emotion, hope, to rub it all over my face like exceptionally delicious cake that we can both take our time licking off before we move on to whipped cream and start to explore all the fun ways to create edible clothing.
That’s about as far as I get before the white wall recedes and a much gentler blackness closes in.
Chapter twelve
Amalphia
Oof, I need serious advice.
Warrick left for the office first thing this morning. He still didn’t look like he was one hundred percent—I mean, he always looks one hundred percent, but that’s not how the saying goes. He was probably a solid eighty-five percent of the way healthy.
I immediately went into his bathroom to clean and then stripped his bed and threw everything into the washer. It’s been a few hours, and I’m still wrestling with all those loads. The freaking sheets made up one whole load, as well as the comforter I had to beat into submission to get it into both the washer and the dryer.
I threw myself into cleaning the kitchen, the windows, and the floors on top of all my regular cleaning.
I’ve spent hours this morning trying to exhaust myself, but the truth is, I’m still vibrating. Literally.
I can see my hands shaking when I raise them in front of my face. Alright, they’re not shaking but tremoring a little. The nervous anxiety is real. Cleaning didn’t do the trick, and blasting metal music over the house’s amazing speakers and scrubbing to the violent rhythm didn’t exhaust me. I even got changed and went for a swim, pushing myself to do laps until I was panting. But as soon as I got out and dried off, I felt just as invigorated.
I know what’s wrong with me.
No, wrong isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s that I know what’s right with me. I kissed my boss. And he kissed me back. I’ve wanted to do that for a while. Maybe he has too. He tried to get me to leave, but in the end, he couldn’t. I’ve never seen anyone look more genuinely miserable than when War begged me to stay. Or so blissfully and wonderfully amazed when I kissed him.
That’s where it’s at.
Totally up in the air. Total unknown what the fuck are we even doing, and where the fuck do we go from here? status.
I don’t have time to go home for a visit yet, but I need advice. And not just any advice. I need hardcore granvice. Granny advice. There is zero substitute in the world for Granny’s brain and heart. No one knows me better.
I’ve been talking to my parents regularly on my tablet, but calling my granny in the middle of the day is dicey. She has her own tablet, but she’s not the greatest at operating it, and my parents don’t head over there until after dinner. I love my mom and dad, but right now, this isn’t a conversation I want to have with them. They wouldn’t understand the way I know Granny would. Even if she doesn’t, at least she’ll be inappropriately hilarious. I could use a dose of that too.
I grab some swanky coconut water out of the fridge and head back to the pool house. I have almost an hour before I need to check the dryer. The coconut water comes in a Tetra Pak thing. I have to unscrew the lid. I’ve never tried it before, and I’m surprised to find that it’s quite refreshing and delicious. Well, it should be. It probably cost nine dollars.
I wish War would leave the grocery shopping to me. I’m sure I could get better deals. At the same time, the pressure of having to do it would make my head implode. It’s much easier that he just keeps using his usual online service. He can pick what he wants then, and I don’t have to guess if I’m getting the right bone broth or gamble on the cut of steak. I don’t have to pay attention to things like grain-fed and grass-fed, organic, and all the other options that mean more money. I try to ignore the prices on the things that have stickers, but my good god. Eighty dollars for a steak?