Chapter Ten
At precisely ten of eleven in the morning, a most delightful text arrived on my phone.
If you’d like some leftovers for lunch, I’ll be warming up yesterday’s soup at noon.—A
I couldn’t reply fast enough. My thumbs nearly got knotted since they were trying to type out a reply so quickly.
Come twelve, I quietly snuck outside after turning the OPEN sign to CLOSED and spun to find Franny looking at me.
She stood there, bucket of salt in hand, spreading shiny crystals in front of her doorway, watching me like the proverbial hawk.
“You need a hand?” I shouted.
“Where you going?” she yelled back.
“Home. I forgot my lunch box,” I lied at great volume.
“It’s too cold to not wear socks!” she called at the top of her lungs.
“Yes, yes, it is. Is the quilting club meeting today at one?”
“No, it’s not fun. You should wear socks!”
Yep, I should and was. I lifted a hand and slipped into my chilly car and slunk off.
She observed me closely, her knitted scarf and sweater snapping in the wind.
I should have gone the other direction, which would have taken me home, but I’d not been thinking clearly.
If she quizzed me later, I’d say I was merely taking the scenic route.
The roads were clear, and the sun was bright but lacked much warmth. My list of jobs and work for the party wasn’t much shorter, but I had finished the fish sweater for Gilda, so go me! It cost me only a few precious hours of sleep. She was worth being a little tired.
Pulling into the neat little parking spot beside the camper, I made a beeline for the man standing outside with his arms open.
We kissed hungrily, fell into the camper in a tangle, and ended up on the bed.
Dicks were out before the sheets settled around us.
His mouth never left mine as we jerked each other off with wild abandon.
Afterward, panting like overworked mules, we lay side by side on the bed, smiling at the ceiling. The dirty tee we had wiped up with was bunched up beside me.
“I think lunch is my new favorite meal,” I confessed as my chest slowed.
“Mm, me too.”
“Can I just lie here for a few weeks?”
“You certainly may,” he replied, rolling to his side. I did the same, with our soft dicks facing each other. They were not shy about being limp and covered with drying spunk while going nose to nose, or tip to tip, I guess it would be.
“Thanks. That is so tempting. I still have so much to do for Gilda’s party. Oh! Shit, I’m so rude. Would you like to come?”
“I would love to.”
My chest grew warm. He did like my child. “Cool. It’s on the twenty-sixth at the Grouse Falls Fire Hall at four p.m. Her birthday is actually the twenty-fifth, so we’ll do a little family thing at home and have the big to-do the day after so her friends can be home for the holidays.”
“What a lovely Christmas present you were gifted. What does she like? Other than dogs.”
“Oh gosh, anything having to do with BSX2 obviously, or there’s a girl band that she loves called Sweet Poppy that’s also K-pop.”
His expression shifted from a sated lover to someone with a killer plan. “Would you mind if I surprised her with something that I am rather sure she will like?”
“Sure, yeah, I’m fine with that. As long as it’s not a light blue fish sweater or a pair of glitter high tops.
Or a new phone case. And maybe getting her ears pierced.
I’m still not sure about the piercing thing, but all of her friends have it done, so…
” I shrugged. Peer pressure. Even parents felt it and understood it. It certainly wasn’t a new thing.
“No, it is none of those things. I’m not sure I can even arrange it being such short notice, but I will do my best. If not, can I buy her something dainty, like earrings or a bracelet?
” He was quite excited now, so much so that he pushed to sit up, leaving me staring at Della peering at us over the edge of the bed.
“Let me ponder on whether the earrings will be clip on or pierced,” I said and rolled to my back to tuck and zip.
Anders seemed agreeable to that, and we then got moving.
Soup was warmed, bread buttered. Berries served over a fat slice of pound cake ended the lunch.
I truly did not want to leave that camper but duty and my cell alarm spurred me to grab a kiss.
“Tomorrow I can make something different if you’d like to come out again?” he asked as I shrugged into my coat. “Perhaps a nice stew. I have some beef and vegetables in the fridge.”
“I would love to enjoy a stew with you.” I cradled his face in my palms to kiss him goodbye. He moved into the kiss with a sigh. I carried that sigh and our lunch date with me throughout the rest of the day and into yet another busy evening.
***
Gilda led me around the lot, by the hand, warm knitted mitten gripping my cold hand, as she searched for the perfect tree for our humble home. Things were pretty picked out by now, but I had no doubt she would find the right one for our little corner.
“I liked this blue spruce,” she called over her shoulder, leading me past a rather nice but not blue spruce to gaze at a rather lopsided tree that was maybe four feet tall if it stood on its toes.
“It has lots of personality.” She released my hand to try to fluff up the scraggly thing to no avail.
“No one is going to take it, I don’t think, so we should adopt it. ”
Ah, there it was. Gilda, Lady of Drama and Tender Heart, who would bring in anything that looked lonely.
Like the time she was four and came proudly into the house with a shoebox filled with black and white kittens.
Only they were skunks. Tiny, thankfully, and unable to spray yet, but skunks just the same.
Their mother was upset, obviously, but thrilled to have her kits back.
Gilda was crushed, and for a year after that, she carried around a stuffed skunk to replace the “stinky kittens” I’d given back to their mother.
Then there were birds, worms, a garter snake, and a small toad.
The list was endless. Most went back to nature.
Sadly, some of the worms dried out and many tears were shed.
A few went to live under the shed like the snake and the toad but not at the same time.
Although the toad was five times larger than the skinny garter snake, I wasn’t too worried about Mr. Toad becoming dinner.
“Are we sure?” I asked, crossing my arms over my coat and tipping my head to the side. It would take forever to make the cockeyed tree look straight, if it ever would. “I saw a really nice Douglas fir a few rows over that would look great in the corner.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think this one will appreciate our taking him home and then planting it in the front yard.
” She nodded, which, much like Katie, meant the decision was final.
So, knowing when I was beat, I shrugged and went to find the man in charge of the live root Christmas tree lot.
He was so happy to get rid of the runty blue spruce, he gave us ten bucks off and a free tree spike to use when we planted it after the holidays.
Lying on its side, the root ball wrapped in burlap, we pulled away from the lot.
“I like them a lot. Most pine trees have male and female cones, so we should use they and them pronouns for this tree. Do you think they would like the name Titan?”
“Titan?” I glanced into the back of my car at the lilliputian blue spruce. “It’s going to take a lot of fertilizer for that little tree to become a titan of any sort.”
“I’m sure they’ll grow to great heights.” She was so positive that I could not disagree. Perhaps it would tower over our house someday just to prove me wrong. “Can we stop at the coffee shop to get some cocoa?”
“Sure, that sounds great. Then we have to get home to get Titan into a cool corner of the basement for a few days to let him—”
“Them.”
“Sorry…to let them acclimate a little before we cart them into the living room.”
“Okay, we can do that. We’ll get things ready for them to join us for the holidays and my birthday, and then we can plant them outside. Can we dig a hole, do you think?”
“We’ll find out.” I suspected the ground might be frozen slightly, but if I only had to dig an inch or so to get through some frost, I could get a hole dug.
“It’s just turned off really cold, so we might be good.
If not, the arborist said we’ll have to keep Titan in the basement and water them throughout the winter until we can plant them in the spring. ”
Not exactly what I wanted in my crawlspace-sized basement, but if Titan needed a place to chill until March, then so be it.
“I’ll water them until we plant Titan,” she vowed, so I would hold her to that promise if it came to that. “Are you going to make your double chocolate cake for my birthday?”
“Of course,” I replied with a smile. She nodded happily, already on her phone to relay whatever news needed to be relayed to her friends.
Affording the party would stretch our funds, but I wanted to be sure she had the best thirteenth party any girl in Grouse Falls ever had.
I’d even splurged on a DJ for the gala event.
“Can we have a small white cake for Belinda? She’s allergic to chocolate,” she asked as I hit the turn signal to pull into The Café Oh-Lay Coffee Shop just outside of town. They were doing a nice business being so close to the various tree farms. I found a slot and pulled in.
“Sure, a white and a double chocolate cake.” She grinned and bolted out of the car, barely taking time to unbuckle fully, and ran into the coffee shop. “Why is she in such a hurry?” I asked no one in particular.