Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Would you like to be my girlfriend, Ephemeral? Because if you give me a chance, I swear I’ll be the most annoying, obtuse, stubborn, make-you-crazy boyfriend that you could ever wish for. I’ll be imperfect and so flawed, probably second-guessing my own self half the time. I’ll need to be shown what love is or even how to do that. But I promise I’ll always keep you safe. I’ll never be unkind to you, and I’ll fight any battle you want me at your side for. I know there’s nothing you can’t do on your own, but if you would like a partner in crime, I’m available. I can give you a resume and everything if you want, outlining everything that would make me good boyfriend material.”
She laughs, rubbing her nose against mine. “Starting with honesty. That’s the most important part. It’s okay to be imperfect. All I’d ever ask is that one day, if it all works out, you adopt Peach Lips as your own child.”
“Done and done. For her, I’d learn to be the best cat dad that ever existed,” I say.
She wriggles against me, and wound or no wound, my blood gets hot, and my dick gets so hard that the head nearly gets bruised against my zipper as it punches it like it’s got real fists and anger issues.
“Do you know how hot that is?”
“I don’t have a clue. Maybe you should show me,” I say lowly.
“But your wound. Seriously, you’re hurt.”
I tangle my hands in her hair and kiss her like it’s been months and like I might never have gotten another chance. Both of which are true. It’s desperate and feral, but I give her all the sweet, hopeful, and brokenly healing parts of me, too, because that’s also true. I kiss her like we’re going to have a future, and it’s going to be a great one. The best one.
It will be.
Even if I never thought of myself as a boyfriend—the word is literally sickening because, seriously, how juvenile—and cat dad material, I’m the material. I’m the right tool for the job. I’m so deliriously happy and hopeful that I don’t feel like me at all. There’s never been a time in my life when I could just be this way. Not when I was a kid, not as a teen, not when I grew into an adult, and not after. Even when I had money to buy it, I didn’t know how to hope. I didn’t know how to be free.
I needed Ephemeral to show me what I was missing. Cats. Wonder. The heart. Her.
“Are you sure?” She scrapes her teeth over my lower lip, and her hands go to my pants.
“Sure as those cookies we’re going to bake. But what about the blinds? What about Peach Lips? We can’t scandalize her.”
“Hold on,” she instructs.
She scrambles up and reaches around me madly to twist the blinds at the window, then rushes across the bus to get the ones over the sink and sidesteps to get the ones at the windows in the front. A few of them have chunks missing from them, along with cracks and broken pieces. I have a pretty good idea of who the blinds wrecker might be.
Peach Lips lounges on her cat post with her legs hanging off, dreaming happy cat dreams. Ephemperal brushes past her to check that the door is locked, and then she pulls a black curtain across. I have to hand it to her. She thought of everything when she constructed this, and holy fuck, the thought of her getting her power tools on and getting handy, doing electrical and mechanical and everything else, gets me so hard that I can barely breathe. My own dick is going to make me pass out. It’s probably a thing. #penisproblems.
Ephemeral rushes back, face flushed and in such a hurry that she nearly trips. She catches herself on my knee and leaps up onto me. I steady her effortlessly, balancing her on my lap.
“How did you do all of this anyway?”
“Sheer determination, desperation, many, many internet tutorials, tool rentals, salvaged materials, thrifted things, and other great social accounts of people who have forged the way.”
“Do you know how incredible that is?”
She blinks. “I guess I do, but it’s been a while. I kind of just get used to it being here now. When it was happening, I did amaze myself daily, though. It’s remarkable what you can do when you need a home, and you don’t have one. I was sleeping on the bus, constructing it, and living out of it all at the same time. It was messy, but no more so than when people do renovations.” She presses her fingers to my lips. “I don’t want to talk about the bus right now. I want to tell you that I’ve missed you. A crazy amount. I want to taste you and kiss you and touch you. I want to take your cock out and worship it and ride you until you explode.”