Chapter Three #2
“I hadn’t noticed.” Because I don’t monitor you twenty-four-seven, and I have not once followed you to Walmart on your shopping days, just to bike past your car while you’re waiting in a pickup spot…
Ahem. I’ve done that eight times. In three years.
Which is perfectly exemplar willpower, if I do say so myself.
And it has nothing to do with the fact I occasionally convince myself she’s going to get in a car crash, and I’ll never see her again.
“We’re having a lovely conversation right now, aren’t we?
Surely you can do this, with goals and intention, a few dozen more times? ”
“I so utterly would rather die.”
My stomach knots. “That doesn’t work for me.”
She slumps, self-preservation levels depleting ever further. “Can’t you con someone else into helping you?”
“There’s no con. And I’m not sure you understand the situation. I don’t want to ‘con’ someone into helping me. Yes or no, Ceres. You are thoroughly calm around me, even under these circumstances, so answer me outright, and make it the right answer.”
She lifts a precious shoulder garbed in a frilly sleeve. “I could take you.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“You’re scrawny.”
My brows rise. “What?” I look at myself. Tall, broad, toned. I work out. I bike everywhere . Even my wrists have muscles, for throwing cards, obviously. My arms might be modest, but they’re well proportioned enough. I think. “I’m…not, though?”
Her head lolls away from me, toward her sliding glass door and the wealth of plants overwhelming her yard. “Well, I guess not, but compared to your brother…”
My eye twitches, again, and I scoot to the edge of the couch cushion. “Listen, it’s unfair to compare me to Jovey. He’s a tank . Broad shoulders can still be broad when you don’t have to walk sideways through doorways.”
“Can they though?” She lets her darling nose wrinkle. “Can they really ?”
This woman. She’s going to give me a complex. As though I’m not already dealing with enough mental health conditions.
“I’m just saying. Sometimes you’re named after a Roman god…but you’re not built like a Greek one. And that is totally okay.” Her eyes close. “No shame. But I could take you.”
I’m putting whey protein in my next batch of carrot cake and I’m putting myself on a strict shoulders routine. If Jovey’s got them, they’re in my genes. Surely. I will unlock them for the woman I love.
Perfectly acceptable and modestly muscled arms crossed, I resort to threats.
Which might constitute coercion, but only if you get “technical” about it, and I’m not going to.
“You’re going to help me, or I will personally remove all of your tires, set them out in front of your house, fill them with dirt, and plant flowers in them. ”
“So you won’t damage them and you’ll get me free flowers?
” She cracks an eyelid to peek at me. “I don’t know if you know this, but I can repot things, put the tires back by myself, and get them rotated to make sure they’re balanced.
I’m overdue for a rotation anyway and need the motivation to manage it. ”
“I’ll move in.” What am I saying?
“You will…move in…to my house?”
“Did I stutter?”
She mutters, “I think your two working brain cells did. I’ll just go next door, talk to Jupiter—”
“ Jove .”
“—and get him to bring you to therapy.”
“How dare you say something so mean to me.”
She smiles. Actually smiles . Not the forced things she’s been giving me thus far.
And so, naturally, my heart forgets how to beat.
Proud of herself, she provides an ever-delicate: “Mean? I’m not being mean .
I gave you two entire brain cells that work .
I didn’t want to think that one might be lonely. ”
She is kindness incarnate.
“Even if assuming you have any at all stretches my suspended disbelief.”
I am sticking to my assessment. Given that a little ribbing is how she’s responding to a practical stranger making demands in her house, kindness incarnate remains accurate.
Unfortunately, I’m bad with patience. The longer I’m here, the more chance she’ll reject me completely, not just my outlandish propositions.
Rising, I move toward Ceres and lean against the back of her loveseat, shadowing her with my “scrawny” shoulders.
To avoid touching her, as that would be highly inappropriate at this point in our relationship, I tilt her chin up on one of my cards.
“Are we really going to do this the hard way, little goddess?”
Heat swells in her cheeks as stars glitter in her hazel eyes. “Well, I am ever a fan of taking roads less traveled.”
“Are you busy tomorrow?” I ask.
“I have a deadline and plans, yes.”
Her only plans are to pick up a grocery order. “You still need to eat, don’t you?”
Her pretty, sparkling eyes trace away from me. “Debatable.”
I sigh. “Ceres…have you not eaten today?”
“I may have gotten distracted.”
And shopping day might be tomorrow , which might mean that she is out of quick snacks, which surely means that there is nothing in her kitchen potent enough to pull her away from her work.
I have had to watch her abuse herself for three years . Now that I’m here, with her, something has to change.
She says, “I’ll make myself something once you stop harassing me.”
Harassing . Ha. As if this counts as harassment.
“Yes, I’m sure you will.” She won’t. Even if she does mean to in this moment, she will simply forget and go back to work once I’m out the door. “Or, consider, I could continue ‘harassing’ you if I take you out to dinner.”
A laugh breathes from her. “Are you asking me if I’ll get into a car with a man who showed up in the middle of my living room uninvited?”
I think. Maybe. I actually…just asked her on a date , but sure. Yes. Of course. Anything but that .
Straightening, I set the card I was holding at her chin against my own and peer down into her glistening, amused, and invested eyes. Heart racing, I say, “Absolutely. Maybe I’ve taken a perverted interest in running tests on just how little self-preservation you possess.”
She stands, putting us barely inches apart as she looks up at me. Her lashes flutter, and she provides me with another heart-stopping smile. “You should have said it was for science. I’ll get my coat.” She sneaks past the arm of her chair, murmuring, “I’ve always wanted to be a woman in STEM.”