Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“Just a good guess.”
“Well, I’m glad to meet you. We knew that you moved into the cottages last month. And we saw you buying bathroom fixtures at the hardware store, so you’re fixing them up, right?”
I guess it’s been a while since I was so on a human’s radar, because her level of interest in me is annoying. Almost alarming.
There have been… oh, maybe three humans who have guessed that I am something more than just a single, late-twenties guy. So it’s been a really long time since someone was watching me so closely.
“Yeah.” I finally answer her. “I’m fixing them up. Did my own bathroom first.”
“Well, I can’t blame you for that. Those places are…”
“Disgusting?” Syrsee appears at my side holding her own plate filled with food.
“Yeah.” Emily laughs uncomfortably. And I’m not sure if it’s Syrsee who did that, or the fact that she had to admit my place is gross out loud. “Oh. How did the tea work?” Emily eyeballs me critically. “You do not seem sick.”
“What tea?”
But Syrsee takes over. “Oh, I didn’t end up using it. Turns out the aspirin was all he needed.”
I catch a flash of annoyance on Emily’s face in the form of a micro-crinkle in her brow. But it’s smoothed with a smile almost immediately, and another moment later she looks over her shoulder, pretends to acknowledge someone, and turns back to us apologetically. “Well, I have other welcoming duties. But I’ll see you two in church, right?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. Just turns, hand in the air, waving at a random someone in the crowd of locals.
Syrsee leans in to my ear. And God, that apple scent is kinda turning me on. “We’re not going to church, right?”
“Darling, we’re stuffing our faces, then we’re gonna go back to your place, and then I’m gonna—”
“Ryet!”
And guess who is right there ready to interrupt my fantasy. “Joshua. Nice to see you again.”
“Come over here. Let me introduce you—”
And… now I’m stuck. I spend the next hour carefully watching the clock to make sure we escape before noon, while being simultaneously introduced to every person in town.
Syrsee is dragged off only a minute or two into the greetings by Emily, because she has to meet all the females, and apparently one does this segregated by sex in the White River First Methodist crowd.
They are trying to make us stay for church. This becomes clear right around ten AM, and painfully obvious by eleven fifteen.
Syrsee interrupts Emily mid-sentence. “Well, thank you all for a lovely breakfast. But Ryet and I have work to do.” She beams a smile at me. “We’re going to pull up the carpet in his cottage today.” She pats my upper arm. “Aren’t we, honey?”
“You bet.” I beam my own smile back at her.
And before Emily, or Joshua, or anyone else in the town can talk us into church, we’re out of there.
Syrsee starts laughing as we walk back to her place. “Was I rude?”
“You were not. It was a trap, right?”
“Agreed. From now on, we can’t get our food at the pantry or eat the delicious Sunday breakfast.”
“Fuck.”
“I know. It was good.”
Syrsee hooks her arm in mine and we smile all the way down the street. But instead of diverting to the alley where the stairs to her apartment are, she leads me towards the front door of the hardware store.
“What are we doing?”
“Pulling up carpet, remember?”
“Oh.” I chuckle a little. “You were serious.”
Syrsee frowns and points to the door. “Well, shit. It’s closed.”
“Of course it’s closed. It’s Sunday and the entire town is in church.”
“Do you find that a little…”
“Culty?”
“Yeah.” She looks up at me, chuckling, her eyes dancing with delight. “That’s exactly the word I was looking for.”
I glance back down the road where the church is, then look back at her. “They’re weird, right? I’m not just being a dick because I don’t believe in religion?”
“It’s not you.” She hesitates, like she wants to say something more, and she does say more, but somehow, I just know it wasn’t what she was originally gonna say. “This whole town is weird.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No school.” She holds up a finger, ready to tick shit off a list. “No doctor. No grocery store. No…” She glances around town. “No bar, no bowling alley—”
“Bowling alley?”
“What else do people do in a town like this?”
My smile grows exponentially.
“There’s literally nothing here but a dubious gas station, a diner that’s never open, a hardware store, and a church filled with culty people. Why do we live here again?”
“We… we don’t.”
Syrsee and I just stare at each other. She blinks first. Then she’s laughing. “We don’t. So why are we still here? I get that you have a job, but there’s no law that says you have to live at your work, right?”