Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Now I knew why my parents never suggested culinary school. They didn’t want me getting way too involved in something that was a passion because they wanted me to get married instead.
Okay, maybe that’s not fair. They did encourage me to pursue English, even though it’s not one of those more highly marketable majors. Or maybe they were just trying to tide me over. God, I don’t know anymore. It’s probably best to just stick to making burgers and not think about that.
Even if it’s nearly impossible to think about anything else, given that my future is a huge question mark.
I was scared to turn my phone on, but when I finally did, I found about a million missed calls. My voicemail was so full that it couldn’t take any more messages, which I figured was a good thing. There were also even more emails than when I last checked and about a zillion texts. I didn’t read any of them. After I’m done with the phone for the recipe, I’m going to shut it off again.
The kitchen has two windows, one on either side, and they don’t have the happy, frilly farm curtains that I wish they did. They actually don’t have any curtains or blinds at all. Or screens.
Given that I didn’t want any more chicken incidents or donkeys sticking their heads in to sample the wares, I kept them shut. It’s probably less likely to attract a swarm of insects this way as well. But keeping it shut doesn’t mean the view is blocked out.
Oh no.
My view of the farmyard is quite…delicious at the moment.
My pulse starts banging about like a raccoon shut in a trash can by mistake. Thaddius is out there in jeans and a T-shirt, big shitkicker rubber boots, and a faded ballcap. My stomach drops as my eyes rove from that cap straight to his bottom. In those jeans, faded and buttery soft and stained in spots because they’re working jeans, his ass is not-so-subtly hot. It’s more like…like designing a fireplace out of wood and expecting it to contain the flames kind of hot.
My heart goes on a wild race inside my chest, and all of a sudden, my nipples are doing regrettable things. Regrettable, as in, I’m wearing one of Thaddius’ T-shirts, and while it’s not white, it’s grey, and that’s close enough to make the fact that I’m currently going braless in order to wash all my clothing, including my undergarments, all that much more apparent. My nipples were practically poking through the soft, thin fabric before I got a load of the world’s best man-butt. Now my ovaries are definitely panting, and my nipples are trying to shred.
Not shred snow, either. I think that term is for snowboarding. God, I’m so uncool.
“What does it matter?” My parents weren’t worried about my cool factor. They weren’t worried about my hot factor either. I was carefully in the middle, which made it pretty easy to go unnoticed. I can’t say that anyone ever fought very hard for me, either. All my would-be boyfriends were easily chased off.
Herman Merman goes trailing behind Thaddius, and his donkey sway is super cute to watch. When Thaddius bends over to grab the handles of a wheelbarrow he’s going to start wheeling around, the donkey nudges him in the back with his head.
I can’t hear anything, but it makes me smile when Thaddius jumps and spins around like he didn’t know the donkey was there. He rubs a hand over his nose, and when Herman Merman shakes his head, Thaddius laughs.
He looks good when he laughs. Sun-kissed and glorious.
Ouch, now there’s some strange burning going on in my thighs. A full-scale stop is needed here.
As I turn my attention back to the burgers, I see a white blur wagging its tail as it comes up hard on Thaddius, and two streaking blurs, one black and one orange. It seems everyone wants pets. The chickens will probably converge on him next.
He might be single out here, but he’s not alone.
He has his animals and his garden and whatever else he does out here to fill his days.
It makes me lonely for my family, even if they kind of stabbed me in the back and lied to me my whole life about the marriage contract. They’re still my parents, and I miss them. My grandparents too.
I start measuring spices for the bowl of ground beef I have on the counter in front of me. It’s hard to be accurate given the fact that my eyes are swimming with tears, which blur just about everything. I’m too soft to hold out for long. Not that I’ll have to. When the week is up and my car is fixed, I’m going to have to drive back home. It’s really the only option I have. Where else am I going to go with no job, no money, and a half-finished college degree? A degree that I don’t know if I’ll even get to finish come fall because I have no idea if my parents will foot the bill. If I don’t get married, and they get disinherited, maybe they won’t be able to afford it. I truly have no idea what their real financial situation is.