Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 63601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
It could go either way, so I shrugged. “To my knowledge I’ve never had a stalker, but I’m not discounting the theory.”
Did people get those because they’d pissed someone off?
“You really are a pain in the ass.” Shaking his head, he wrapped one arm around my neck and pulled me into his chest. He laughed as he rubbed his knuckles against my head just to make me crazy as I tried to get away without actually hurting him. “Be happy. Classes are over. You have time off. That fucking paper is done and you got an A.”
“Let me go, asshole.” Pushing him back got a laugh from him as he released me and bounded toward the front door, full Daddy-mode engaged. “Be nice or I’ll get your boy glitter for Christmas.”
I’d overheard him and one of his other little buddies talking about how they could get some unsuspecting sucker to give them glitter for Christmas. Glitter was evil but they weren’t my littles, so I didn’t have to tattle on them.
I could, however, buy them glittery chaos.
Oh, or something even better.
Ha.
Pushing my Christmas chaos plan to the side for the moment, I picked up my newest delivery and sighed as I took it into the kitchen. It was from a small restaurant on the other side of campus that specialized in healthy things that tasted healthy.
Half their menu was incredibly healthy and my tormenter had spent a lot of time picking out different kinds of lentil and bean soups for me over the past two weeks. He’d carefully worked his way around everything there that tasted good, so I knew it’d been deliberate.
His level of commitment to my torment was actually impressive.
“Why couldn’t it have been the stew people again?” That at least had chunks of meat in it. “That delivery guy isn’t bad looking either.”
Another delivery and he’d have given me his number.
“What are you doing?” Gary looked up from where he was meal prepping something at the stove and gave me a look like he thought I had a screw loose.
Great. He’d heard me talking to myself.
“God, more soup?” Walking away from whatever he’d been cooking, he frowned at the bag before taking it from me. “What are you doing?”
Did he think I was doing this to myself?
They were all morons.
“It’s some kind of torture-by-soup method of making sure I know I was a dick.” They’d proven their point. “It’s been going on for three weeks. Why would I be doing this to myself? I hate soup.”
“I know.” Gary didn’t give opening up the bag a second thought. “You don’t even like my chili. I make great chili.”
“I eat it when you do that chili mac stuff and when you put it on potatoes.” He really did make good chili as long as it wasn’t in a bowl with too much liquid making everything swim around. “You do a great job with that.”
Oh.
“Hey, why don’t you make the chili mac when Dante finally brings…whatever we’re calling him over for an official dinner to introduce him to everyone?” The fact that Dante’s boyfriend was one of the professors at the college was messing with me.
Calling him professor didn’t work in social situations where we wanted him to be able to color and tell us about his toys. It would make him think he had to be a grown-up and that wasn’t the tone we wanted.
Hell, even I wasn’t that big of a dick.
Gary snickered as he pulled out whatever monstrosity I’d been given. “You need to practice seeing him as Dante’s sub and boyfriend. Ignore the you know him from work kind of vibe. Think of the friend kind of stuff you know about him. He likes mac-n-cheese. He’s got to like playing in some way. He’s probably a chatty little since he’s so grown-up at work.”
Yeah, a lot of the professors treated work like we were in a circus but he always did his best to be professional.
“Good point.” I could do it. “What do you think about going out later this week and picking out something for him for Christmas and some kind of welcome gift for when we eventually get to hang out with him?”
Nodding, Gary brought my takeout torture over to the stove, not understanding that the white container held more lentils. “Something fun so he knows we’re good with him being little. I was thinking about doing a Christmas dinner before everyone left for home?”
We could do that.
“That sounds good, but I haven’t been a dick to him, so I don’t need to apologize.” He was one of the only people on campus I’d been careful to keep my crappy mood away from. “So we know he’s not the one sending me soup.”
Barely holding back laugher, Gary shrugged. “He seems like he could hold a grudge, so you might want to be careful.”