Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Even the drawstring doesn’t keep them from falling off me.
“Why not wear your pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt?” Damon suggests. “Loose and comfy.”
I pick up my blue flannel bottoms with fish on them. I mean, I want to. They would be comfy. So what if I get a few raised brows? I yank them on. “You’re right. These also cling nicely to my arse.”
Damon cocks his head to see for himself. “Who’s your instructor?”
“Carter James.”
Damon throws his drawstring pants back at me. “These ones weren’t that bad . . .”
We head into town together and part at the town hall. I’m the last to join the fray of elderlies gossiping about how cute their instructor is. These women are none-too-subtle. Or perhaps they’re not aware how loudly their voices carry on account of impaired hearing. I hope he volunteers to show that slam-dunky move on me!
I look through a sea of grey heads—including Mar’s—to Carter grinning sweetly from an elevated platform. He’s a good-looking man. Blond, stylishly messy hair, barefoot and in a tank top. His pants are slung low and come to his calves, loose enough to move in, well-fitting enough to make a gaggle of old girls sigh.
He waves me in. “You must be Leon. Everyone, hold back on objectifying our newest member.”
There’s a collective shifting of heads, and Mar reaches for her cane to point it at me. “He’s taken, girls.”
Does she already know about the fake boyfriend scheme? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Damon did head outside to take a call last night, and he’s especially close to Mar. Perhaps he enlisted her to help spread the word in case Karl gets inquisitive with a local?
Someone else asks, “Who’s taken him?”
“My boy,” she says proudly, and I smile and nod.
“Her boy.”
Their sighs come at me like a tidal wave and I’m drowning in everyone asking me questions, wanting to know the lucky guy who’s taken up with their most beloved Damon.
I field them as best I can while our instructor looks on with amusement.
“Ohhh, since you have an in with our boy . . . We want better bingo prizes.”
“Yeah, we want a chance to win Damon all to ourselves.”
“What do you plan on doing with my boy, Gretchen?”
“I have a clogged gutter than needs tending to.”
“I have one of those too.”
“Stop giggling, Tiff.”
They look at me imploringly, and I palm my nape and look fretfully at the instructor. He’s rather throwing me in the deep end, having to fend off two dozen women after my man. Which I’m fairly sure is my role to play here. Though there is a highly amused other—bigger—part of me that wants to see one of these girls own Damon for a day. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The one called Gretchen sidles up to me and inspects my pyjama pants, positioning her bifocals at the end of her nose. “Those look fun.”
“Thanks, I made them.”
She peers up at me. “Some nice stitching. How much to whip me up a pair?”
“Ohh, me too, me too.”
“Can you do extra-long ones?”
I’m suddenly swarmed with requests to make everyone pyjamas they can wear to self-defence lessons, and I nod and promise I will.
“All right, all right, settle down now,” Carter says. “Who wants to show Leon some moves?”
I’m aching after the lesson, but I keep smiling as I use the rest of my day to pick up fabrics—for the curtains, and for two-dozen sets of pyjamas. Sewing sends me to my happy place.
Is it possible . . .
It’s not like I need the money, as such. But could something like this . . . I’m biting my lip on another hopeful smile when Damon returns from work, the glorious scent of fish and chips coming with him.
He stops halfway into the room, dinner under his arm. He’s cleaner this evening—fresh dark jeans and a black t-shirt. “Is that smile for me?”
I raise a brow. “No, but here’s one for”—I let it hang a moment and, when he starts a cocky smile of his own, finish with—“the dinner you brought home.”
He clutches the paper-wrapped food against his chest, exaggerating the hit. “These are just for me.”
I roll my eyes while he grabs the ketchup, mayonnaise and sweet chilli sauce from the fridge and even pulls out a stool for me to sit on, raising a brow as I wince and rub at my shoulder on the way over.
I shrug. “Mar had me on my back most of the morning.”
“Come again?”
“Your Mar had her wicked way with me.”
Damon is starting to look green.
“For someone who uses a cane, she’s got some moves. She had me locked between her thighs and there was nothing I could do about it—”
“Okay, okay. I promise I’ll never joke about what I do with your mum ever again.”
“Sorry,” I say with zero actual apology, “did I ruin your fun?”