Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Smith’s eyes widened for a second before he absolutely lost it, howling in hearty laughter.
“Oh Jesus,” he managed between gasps. “That’s so much better—wait, worse?—than I was expecting.”
Kenny grinned and lifted her phone to read the text that he’d just sent her.
Smith: Oh, sweetheart, you’re so fucking busted!
She laughed and he snagged her around the waist and dragged her down on top of him. They playfully kissed for a couple of minutes before he tucked his lips into the hollow of her neck and licked.
“Hmm. I’m starving.”
“For food?” she asked, then yelped when he nipped the cord of her neck playfully.
“Yes, for food,” he clarified, after he’d kissed her stinging skin.
“I had to ask,” she pouted, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. The damned man was suddenly all arms, and she couldn’t quite find her way out of his embrace. “Because Littler Smittler seems to have a different opinion.”
“Christ,” he complained, dropping his arms and watching as she scrambled off the bed. “I think my cock and balls have just shriveled up and retreated all the way back up into my groin in protest. What the fuck was that you just called it?”
She repeated the silly phrase and the look of abject horror on his face was hilarious.
“You are absolutely not to call it that. Ever again,” he decreed.
“What do you want me to call it?”
“I don’t know…” He shrugged helplessly, getting up and dragging on a pair of boxers, while she shrugged into his discarded T-shirt. She gave him her most innocent smile when he darted her a warning look as she lovingly smoothed his Archie and the Gang vintage shirt down over her slim thighs.
Choosing to ignore the potential theft for now, he returned to the subject at hand. “Anything, but that. Cumsalot? Sexcalibur? Sir Lanceacock?”
“I’m sensing a trend,” she noted mildly, fighting back her laughter.
“Fine,” he finally decided after a moment’s thought. “You can call him Jack…Jack Hammer.”
Her hand flew to her mouth as a peal of laughter escaped before she could stop it. She folded an arm over her stomach and bent double as helpless paroxysms of laughter took her.
When she was finally able to breathe again, she straightened to finding him watching her with a bemused smile on his face.
“I-I think we have a winner,” she told him hoarsely, swiping tears from her eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely.”
He gave her a quick hug and a kiss. The affectionate gestures came so easily to him. But she was becoming a lot better at the casual touches and impulsive kisses. Yesterday, she’d happily held his hand in front of his sister and friends, and she hadn’t felt so much as a twinge of self-consciousness.
“What should we have for breakfast?” he asked.
“I think it’s closer to lunch time. I can’t believe we spent most of the day lounging around in bed. I don’t think I’ve ever been this…lazy.”
“To be fair, we were burning quite a lot of calories,” Smith said and she smiled.
“We could go to MJ’s for lunch?”
“I say we avoid MJ’s for a few days. Just about every single person in town was at that game the other night, and those who weren’t were probably live streaming it.”
Kenny winced at the reminder.
“I have an idea,” he murmured and she tilted her head curiously. She wasn’t sure she liked that gleam in his eye.
“Oh?”
“I think if you give it a chance, you might enjoy it. But just sit with the suggestion for a bit before you decide, okay?”
“O-kay?”
“I think it would do us good to get away from town and civilization for a bit. Just give ourselves room to breathe and time for the next thing to go viral on TikTok or whatever.”
“How do you propose we do that?”
“‘Go camping,’ he said. ‘It’ll be fun’, he said.” Kenny was huddled in the freezing tent, her puffer jacket hood up over her head, as she stared at the four women looking back at her with varying degrees of amusement, sympathy, and dismay on their faces.
She was just grateful that he’d at least chosen a spot with decent mobile coverage. On day one she’d snuck behind a tree to FaceTime Tina and her sister-in-law had added Beth and Libby to the call. Beth had quickly brought Fern in as well.
A month ago, Kenny would never have believed that she would be speaking like this to these four women. That they’d be her tribe; the women she went to when she needed a sympathetic ear. But this was the third call in as many days and she was beginning to depend on them to keep her sane.
“Just tell my idiot brother that you want to come home,” Tina advised.
“I agree,” Beth said. “Your nose is pink with cold. Why is it so cold there? It’s summer, for God’s sake!”
“Normal for the Outeniqua mountains, apparently. It drops to like eleven degrees at night. And it’s always misty and drizzly,” Kenny said with a shudder.