Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 90682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Posey is tiny.
Then again, most people are when compared to me. At six-foot-four, I stand taller than most men, but even so, she’s an itty-bitty thing.
Swallowed up inside of a large, gray Harvard sweatshirt, she’s got on navy leggings with bare feet. Her light brown hair is in two braids now, looking more like a college student than a teacher herself.
Dark brown eyes.
Frowning mouth.
“Did you make me a pizza?”
Posey scoffs, turning her back to me so she can remove the pizza from the oven and set it on the counter using two giant oven mitts that look like bear paws.
“No, I didn’t make you a pizza. I made me a pizza.” She finally turns back around, removing the mitts one at a time. “You have ‘no refined carbs’ on your dietary needs, and this qualifies as a refined carb, so… Sorry.”
Her nose goes in the air.
“I can still eat it.”
When I made that stupid list, I was being difficult, testing not only Eli to deliver it to my temporary roommate but testing her as well. Only one of them passed the test, and it wasn’t her.
“Mmm, I don’t think so. I don’t need you clogging up the toilet pipes because the carbs make you sick. If you know what I mean.”
Is she implying that I’ll get the shits for eating carbs? ’Cause I won’t. I eat them plenty. In fact, just this morning at the airport, I ate a bagel and a piece of banana bread.
I press my mouth together while my stomach rumbles.
“I’m willing to take the chance,” I allow, trying to make her gimme that pizza. It has sausage and tons of cheese, steam rising from the center.
“I’m not. I have no desire to plunge the toilet after you’ve done your business.”
This conversation is ridiculous.
No woman has ever accused me of purposely trying to clog a toilet by taking a giant dump, least of all one this cute and pretty. With that being said, I’ve definitely dumped in a few toilets and backed them up. Even flooded my mama’s powder room one too many times growing up and got a whooping for it.
“I promise you I’m not gonna crap in the bathroom and make it your problem if the pizza does me dirty.” Besides, it’s a huge pizza. No way is she planning on eating the whole thing herself.
Maybe she’ll eat two pieces—maybe.
She’s just being stubborn.
“I’ll just eat it after you leave the room anyway,” I inform her.
“Not if I hide it.”
“Where are you going to hide pizza?”
She shrugs. “As if I’d tell you.” Posey tilts her head to study me. “Do you even like pineapple on your pizza?”
Is she implying she put pineapple on that pie?
I keep my face passive. “Never had pineapple on a pizza.”
“What about black olives?”
“Love.” I could eat an entire can as a snack. “Please. Feed me, I’m begging you.”
The plea works like I knew it would. Posey spins around and goes up on her tiptoes to open a cabinet and pull out two plates. She sets them on the counter before retrieving a round pizza cutter and getting to work cutting it into pie slices.
It’s steamier than cattle shit on a hot summer day, but it tastes damn delicious.
Scalding hot but fan-fucking-tastic.
“This doesn’t have pineapple on it,” I accuse her through narrowed eyes after a quick perusal.
She’s holding her plate and resting her hip against the counter; neither of us taking a seat at the table or at the small island.
“I didn’t say it did.” Posey smiles around her slice, teeth biting into a long string of cheese. “I asked if you liked it on your pizza.”
We eat in silence. Posey makes small sounds of pleasure, truly enjoying the pizza she made for herself—us, let’s be real here. Posey cleans up the kitchen once we’re done, or I assume she’d done so, considering I’d gone straight upstairs after setting my plate next to the sink.
We ignore one another for the remainder of the night.
I didn’t sleep for shit last night.
Seems someone forgot to tell the bed that I’m tall. I damn near had to lie catty-corner on the mattress so I’d fit. Nothing I haven’t had to do before, but it was next-level discomfort.
I resume my exploration, on the hunt for something very specific, an idea ingrained in my brain that I’m not going to let go of.
There’s gotta be one around here somewhere. I found the hooks on the tree in the backyard…
“Can I help you find something?” A voice scares the shit out of me, and I almost smash my head on the shelf above me, gas and oil cans lined up in a row, hammers and wrenches and jars of nails.
“Jesus Christ. What’re you doin’ sneakin’ up on someone like that?” I rub the top of my head dramatically, feeling for a wound.