Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“Okay, so maybe it is that simple,” I mumbled, deciding that maybe I underestimated Janna.
Not that I didn’t think she was smart.
Just that I didn’t know she was sage.
“I’m not lecturing you,” she replied gently. “I just wanted you to know that if you let it be easy, it’s easy. If you make it hard, it’ll be hard. And I’ll go on to advise that it isn’t hard, so don’t make it hard.”
“Yeah.” I was again mumbling.
“Something else on your mind?” she asked, still stirring the corn.
I lifted a shoulder. “It’s just that Core seemed in a mood earlier tonight and he didn’t want to talk about it.”
She laughed a pretty, quiet laugh, and when she was finished, she winked at me.
“Get used to that, sister. These boys have moods. Don’t worry about it. If it’s a situation that you need to know, he’ll eventually let fly.”
I hoped so. Letting things fester wasn’t my favorite thing.
“But I have five years in with these guys. Actually, longer,” Janna went on in a teasing lilt. “So if you need help adjusting to that, I’m your girl.”
“I would expect that eventual call,” I accepted her invitation, earning another one of her quiet laughs.
“What are you women talking about?” Beck asked as he strode in with Core.
“How moody you boys can be,” Janna answered.
Oh shit.
Core’s eyes cut to me.
Awesome.
“Absolutely,” Beck agreed. “Need my woman’s touch to snap me out of it.”
“So that explains it,” Janna said, making eyes at me. “It’s a ploy for his woman’s touch.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders and murmured, “Everything is a ploy for your touch.”
How cute.
I loved that Beck and Janna were cute, and I loved it especially for Janna.
She leaned back so she could again catch my gaze in order that I wouldn’t miss her rolling her eyes.
I laughed, but I didn’t commit fully to it.
Core said nothing, but he did come to lounge against the counter with me, gliding an arm around my waist.
So there was that.
Janna called all hands on deck to get dinner on the table, and we all moved to help, with her giving direction in her quiet way of who she wanted to do what.
I liked that. I liked it wasn’t formal. She made it seem like family with all of us putting food in bowls or carrying it to the table.
I also liked Janna, and not only because she was wise, and she shared that awesomeness with me. But she did it honestly and kindly.
It always felt good when you knew you’d made a new friend.
And soon after we sat down, I learned her stuffed porkchops were the most delicious known to personkind.
On the way home, I addressed it.
“I’d just mentioned you were in a mood.”
“Come again?”
“That’s all I said. I wasn’t talking about you to Janna. I’d just mentioned that you seemed to be in a mood.”
“I lived with Kiki for three years.”
I wasn’t sure why he was repeating this information to me.
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“I know women talk.”
Ah.
“Okay,” I muttered.
After that, the rest of the ride home was silent.
So yes.
Core wasn’t a chatterbox, but he wasn’t the quiet broody type.
This meant I was right.
Something was bothering him.
Hmm.
When we got home, we had sex I instigated that Core didn’t shy away from in the slightest, and after, he cuddled me close just like usual and fell asleep.
However, I lay awake thinking that something was playing on his mind. The work he did with the club was heavy. And maybe he’d give it to me when he was ready.
The sex had been no less intimate and intense. The cuddle no less loving.
People had moods. Core was human (regardless that he sometimes seemed godlike when he was fucking me), of course he’d have them too.
I just needed to give him space to have them and patience until he was ready to share the reasons for them with me.
On that thought, I fell asleep.
25
EXCRUCIATING CARE
Hellen
It all went down three weeks later.
I was exhausted.
I was because, in assessing what might contribute to Core’s mood the night we went to dinner with Beck and Janna, I decided to alleviate what I thought might be a part of it.
In other words, in order to give Core more of my time, finish up the move, slide through the first family Thanksgiving with Core (which went great, obviously, because Core was awesome and my family was amazing), and get work done, I was getting up at four thirty rather than my normal six.
Also, to get to work even sooner, I shaved off time in the morning by picking an outfit and switching purses the night before. I was further in the throes of training my hair to take a once-every-two days wash, rather than every other day, to save the half an hour of a blowout two days in a row.