Chapter 30 Wesley #2
“She wants to fire me, doesn’t she?” Rosie slumped, and her words came out dejected.
And out of nowhere this big rock-like creature came bumbling through legs and made his way to her, slowly, but I’ll be damned.
He definitely could sense her discomfort and was bulldozing his way to her, regardless of what was in his way.
“Ouch!” the girl whose name I still didn’t know yelped.
“I’m beginning to think he holds a grudge against you, Carol.” Ah, Carol. “He goes for you every time.”
“Now you know why I was shocked when you said you wanted him.” She took a bite of eggs that were on her plate.
“He’s cute,” I said as I bent over to pet him.
“No!” a chorus of multiple voices rang out the same sentiment, and I pulled my hand back fast. “He bites!”
“Turtles can bite?” I questioned.
“He’s a tortoise ,and he absolutely does.”
“He’s wearing a pink hat, and you’re telling me he bites.” I tried to rationalize it all in my head. A tortoise who is fine wearing a pink hat but will bite. Okay.
“Can we please get back to the important matters?” A French accent spoke out. “I want to know how the date went, and despite the grass smoothie, did you get laid?”
I felt faint at her words and braced myself for the answer by holding on tightly to the counter I was next to, “Uh, no. We did not have sex.”
“Did you want to?” Carol asked. At that point, I was sure she was asking just to see me squirm.
“I think the vomiting really ruined the mood, but before that”—she bit her lip before she answered, and I felt myself sway—“he lava lamp really wasn’t doing it for my libido.”
The ladies erupted in fits of no way and a few remarks to Evelyn about what was she thinking before Carol’s voice cut through the chaos. “What’s wrong with someone who has a lava lamp? I think we are being really unfair here.” She looked guilty.
“Do…do you have a lava lamp?” I wanted to take the words back as soon as I said them, but the question was out now.
“It helps me sleep!” she argued, and the ladies were back at it.
“Okay, okay, enough. Real talk, are you going to see him again?” Meredith inquired, and my heart stopped beating for the third time in ten minutes.
“No. Sorry, Evelyn. I will not be seeing Peter again.”
Relief flooded my system at an unhealthy level. I stumbled over something and let out my second high-pitched scream of the night as a sharp knick hit my fingers. I looked down to see a turtle latched onto the skin of my forefinger.
“Lionel!” Rosie ran over to us. “Let him go,” she demanded. I almost questioned her sanity for arguing with a tortoise, but he let me go almost the second she asked him to.
“Oh my god, you’re bleeding. I am so sorry.
He’s such a pest. A good pest, most of the time, but really, a pest.” She grabbed a towel off the counter.
Everyone was watching the interaction go down, but Rosie was completely focused on me, and I had to stop myself from puffing my chest out like a peacock.
She pulled me into the downstairs bathroom, where I knew she kept the first aid kit; where I put it when I bought it for her.
“It’s really okay.” I tried to calm her down because I saw the way her chest was rising and falling in rapid succession, and I’d have bet it was partially due to the recreational activity she took part in not long ago.
“It’s not okay. You’re bleeding. Lionel made you bleed.” She looked so distraught at my finger that I really could use a stitch or two.
“Rosie, love, it’s okay. Nothing a little glue won’t fix.”
“Glue?” The tears started to fall now.
“Please don’t cry. It’s just a finger. I have nine others. I barely need it.” I grabbed the glue from the first aid kid and applied it, sucking in the hiss that threatened to make its way out because that shit fucking stung.
“He’s sorry, I promise.” She said the words on a hiccup, and she was so goddamn adorable that my heart fluttered out of my chest and promptly got stuck in hers. How could I have been so blind? I lived for this, always had, ever since I met her.
I used my thumbs to wipe away her tears. “You always were an emotional smoker.”
“You’re right,” she huffed out, and I couldn’t help the way my thumb moved to trace over her pouty lips. Her tongue darted out to wet them, and I started to lean in to kiss her.
A banging on the bathroom door had me rearing back. “Time to go, Wes!” The moment was officially ruined as Rosie created distance between us before she yanked open the door and all but ran away from me.
The ladies were collecting their belongings, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Wait, we didn’t even talk about a book?”
“You wouldn’t have read it anyway. Rosie, same time next week.
Vincent is up for Friday.” That green monster was smashing his teeth at the words Maggie spoke.
“Wesley, since you seem to be joining the we still don’t have a name figured out book club, I have a personal assignment for you since you seem to be behind the rest of us. ”
I shot her a questioning look, and she handed me a book.
My Many Colored Days, by Dr. Seuss.
I knew the book. My parents once gave me that story. It was about expressions, emotions, and feelings—for children.
She gave me a book on expressing emotion for children.
I had a long way to go.