Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Joel’s off. Carl’s here today. And in the first three hours, the rain never lets up, and we get exactly one customer, which means I spend most of the day doing meaningless shit that does nothing to take my mind off Wyatt. Except for a moment when suddenly-chatty Carl goes on about planning a trip to the beach to see his stepson Toby after the summer’s over and it’s more affordable, thinking it’d be good for Marly and Lee to get out of town, too—whoever the hell they are. “You good with dogs?” he asks me. “I’d need a dog sitter if we go. You seem like a dog guy.” I give Carl one hard stare, thinking of Mr. Shithead from the flower shop, and say, “The hell you mean by that?” Carl shrugs back and says, “You sure don’t seem like a cat guy.” “I can’t be trusted with a plant,” I bark right back through a boom of thunder.
I don’t remember him saying much else to me after that.
Rain’s still dumping down hard when it’s time to call it a day. I head out. It’s just a few blocks home.
I barely make it halfway down the street when Wyatt pulls up out of nowhere in his car. “Get in!” he shouts from the window.
I don’t fight him this time. It is coming down pretty hard.
“Thanks,” I grunt after shutting the door behind me.
He appears surprised I thanked him. “Of … Of course.”
Then we resume down the measly handful of blocks home.
Windshield wipers wiping.
Country music playing softly.
Maybe the same music from this morning. Or someone else. I don’t know. Country’s never really been my thing.
He pulls into his driveway, then sits there a second with this pensive look on his face like he’s debating something.
I don’t know if it’s the weather right now, how it feels like a ton of curtains hanging around us, keeping the world out, making us feel like this isolated bubble, but I don’t have the instinct to just up and go from the car. It’s actually comfortable in here.
It’s safe in this car bubble.
Even the music’s fine.
“I, uh …” he starts, stops, clears his throat, then faces me. “I … I made a lot of … of s-soup.”
I stare at him.
Huh?
“Last night,” he goes on. “Not sure why. But I did. I made a lot. Weather like today, feels … feels like soup weather.” He shuts his eyes tightly, then pops them open and smiles. “Wanna come in for a bit, dry off, and … and share a bowl of hot soup with me?”
My eyes are lost in his lips as he asks me that question.
All I see is pink. Plump. Cute.
Curly corners and a dimple.
Did he just invite me inside?
“What song’s this?” I ask.
He blinks, looks at the radio, then says, “Another Chase Holt one. Think it’s called ‘Down Bad For Him’.”
“For him …?”
“Chase Holt’s gay. Thought I told you. He’s dating someone from our town. Allegedly this song is about them. Oh, and also—”
My eyes keep drifting back to his lips.
He’s saying stuff, but I’m not really hearing it.
Just being obsessed with the way his mouth moves.
More we sit in this car, the worse my ideas get. I’m having a difficult time thinking of anything else.
Being this close to him is starting to become a problem.
“Y’know what I mean?” finishes Wyatt with a chuckle. Then he frowns. “Did you … get all that? Or did I talk too much? Was I talking too much?”
I could lean right over this center console.
Bring my face up to his.
Do something else with our mouths that isn’t talking.
Instead, I say, “Hot soup sounds great.”
His eyes are full of confusion.
Then delight. “Great.”
Despite him telling me to wait, I hop out of the car same time as he does, then the pair of us bolt up to the front porch. After he shakes off his green umbrella and sets it by the bench, he goes in first and kicks off his shoes on a mat by the door. I do the same.
His house smells so clean. Looks clean, too. It’s weird, having caught glimpses of the inside of his house through the windows, and now standing inside it, breathing the air, socked feet on his cool, hardwood floors.
He returns to me with a towel—a warm yellow one with tiny green stripes. “The minestrone will take a bit to warm up,” he tells me, “so make yourself comfy, kick back, look around.” His voice is a little strained. Not its usual easygoing self. “But not the garage.”
Rubbing my hair with the towel, I stop at a display case full of decorative dishes and porcelain figurines. Tiny white horse. Tiny white ballerina. Tiny white owl. My reflection in the glass covers a porcelain cottage, placing my face over it. “What’s in the garage?”