Chapter 9
Waking up in a strange place in a furs-covered bed was confusing, to say the least. Waking up with a woolly male beside me, blasting heat like a furnace all the way from his side of the bed I’d hazard a guess he’d made himself, like the rest of the cabin-hut-like structure I found myself in, was a unique experience all its own.
Even more strange to me, was the hand lightly resting over mine so that despite the respectful distance he’d offered we were still touching, and the urge to jerk away from him was nonexistent.
I felt drawn to him, in a similar way I found myself caught up with Elm and Cy.
If anything, I itched to draw closer. It was an oddity all its own.
Sitting up with a groan, my hands absently began to pat about my person. My hip ached from laying too long in the same position. Nothing felt out of place. Same clothes, my things were still on my person, picture, ring box, hoodie and hat. The only thing missing was my boots.
Still all here.
Other than a bit of a crick in my neck and the ache in my hip, the need to relieve my bladder, the disorientation of waking up in a foreign to me place, the shock still humming through me from everything up until this point, I actually felt kind of…
I wouldn’t say good but… Holed up in here, warm and cozy with Kehl with everything else out there, I felt protected, safe.
I knew Kehl would look out for me. I felt it with such an intensity it worried me.
My head was killing me yesterday to not even a pinch of pain today. Pink Eye wasn’t joking when he’d claimed his village’s healers could help me.
Hefting my legs over the side of the bed, I knocked the boots in question I was wondering about over in my haste. Cy’s blanket was loosely draped over me, my hoodie rucked up exposing my t-shirt beneath. It was rather warm in all these layers, bundled up in Kehl’s place.
I was aware I’d awoken briefly in my long winter nap and groggily partook of the tea and bread Kehl had offered, then basically dozed off right there at the table, a table I spied as I glanced around the room. Unless that was all a very detailed dream.
Huh. Odd contraptions littered large sections of the open concept home he lived in. Heavy dark purple drapes covered large windows. Swaths of material took up a wall.
Gaining my feet, I spied with my sleep filled eyes a large fire place, an old school looking cookstove not unlike stuff I’ve read about, definitely before my time.
“Thirsty? Wake?” Kehl grumbled as he snuffled awake and sat up.
Was I thirsty? “Yeah, but I need to take care of things first,” I admitted. “If you know what I mean.”
“Take care things?” he questioned.
Right. Blunt was going to work better here unless I wanted to have a little accident. “I really need to pee, my dude.”
“Kehl Lo denaii, not due-ed” he muttered at my response, but stood and motioned for me to follow him.
Following him to a backroom at the very far end of his home, he motioned to a little door that was pretty heavy. One glance inside and I pinched my nose, just in case. “You have an outhouse inside?” My face said it all if my tone didn’t.
It was too early to remember my manners. I was running on autopilot and that bitch could be kinda rude, much as I truly appreciated him allowing me to crash at his pad like this.
“No smell. Door thick ‘nough. Kehl use mix for tank, break up stinks. No smell.” Standing there, waiting, he meant for me to have a try. Miming walking me through the process of flushing, he insisted. “Know how use?”
“As long as there aren’t also three sea shells involved at some point, I can probably hazard a guess,” I ventured.
“Need Kehl show, Purr-roo?” he questioned, looking uncertain. “No shells.”
“No!” Clearing my throat, expression pinching at my outburst, I tried again. “No. I was joking. I’m good. Thanks. I think I’ve got it from here.”
Nodding, he leaned in anyway at the last moment as I stepped inside. “Use this, need wash rinse, this wipes,” he instructed, showing me a little water bucket with a smaller cup inside, and a bundle of fibrous looking, toilet paper thin material.
My face pinkened but I nodded.
“Wash hands in kid-chen after,” he added. “Soaps, water, cloth.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to remind him that I too valued good bathroom hygiene and not to fret on that front, Cap’n, but I couldn’t bring myself to snark at him like that.
He’s letting me crash at his place, he’s been taking care of me, he was protective of me. Honestly, he’s been awesome. Snarking at him would be mean and ungrateful.
“I think I’m good to go,” I told him. A moment passed that lingered as he stood in the doorway.
Blunt. Be blunt. He seems to thrive on that.
“I’m gonna bust a bladder here if I don’t urinate soon, and I’m pee shy. I can’t, uh, you know, go with someone watching me,” I admitted a little bashfully. I was just really not used to having to have these kinds of conversations.
Cy may have barged in on one of my showers but he understood some things in the bathroom did not need an audience.
Kehl let out a grunt that was as good as an “Oh” and stepped back to allow me to shut the door on him.
He was still wearing that hooded piece that looked like fur that I’d noted earlier. Did he wear it constantly? Was that comfortable? Was it purely cosmetic? Protective?
Knowing what it’s like to be peppered with questions when it’s rather rude and intrusive, simply because they think they can because my lack of hair is obvious, I refused to be the person that does that to him.
Once finished in the bathroom, doing as he’d instructed on the indoor porta potty flushing front, I had to appreciate the ingenuity. No smell, no fuss.
Making my way over to the kitchen area to wash my hands, I spied Kehl’s broad back as he got to work heating a pan on the fat, pot bellied stove he used to keep his place all comfy cozy.
Glancing over my shoulder as I washed my hands, I asked, “Can I help?”
“No know how do. Kehl do,” he grunted out as he mixed batter to pour it into a pan, then started cracking weird looking eggs to dump them into a bowl and stir.
“I could learn… if you’d teach me.”
Kehl glanced up sharply at my softly worded response. He hesitated for a moment before letting out a short grunt and jerking his chin at me to come closer.
“Have you ever been through the portal?” I asked as he handed me the egg bowl with a tool not unlike a whisk inside, and set a pile of eggs next to me.
“This like humans make, jes?” he grumbled.
“Scrambled eggs,” I confirmed with a nod.
“Goot.” Kehl let out a soft grunt and got back to the enormous, flap jack looking mega pancakes he was cooking in the pan he’d placed over the top of the stove.
“What is this made of?” I wondered allowed, eyeing the bowl I was using.
“Clay,” he said simply.
“From where?”
“Ground,” he grunted out without looking up as he poked at the bread in the pan to test if it was done.
“It just air hardens?”
“No.”
Okay. Was I bothering him? Was he having second thoughts on having me here?
I wanted to ask him but hesitated. He was scowling but that felt pretty typical for him. He could just be concentrating on his task.
Focusing on the eggs as unease began to slither through me, I’d just finished whipping them all up when he pulled the mega pancake off the stove. Flipping it over onto a plate, he growled.
My gaze went from his teeth baring death glare to the slightly burned mega pancake he was angrily growling at.
I shouldn’t find his growl sexy, or immediately wonder what noises he made in the bedroom, or stand here unperturbed as he growl-speak cursed out a pancake.
If anything, I found it kind of funny.
I must have done something to give myself away. His nostrils flared and he whipped towards me sharply.
Before he could speak, I shrugged and picked up one of the weird looking utensils he had on what I took for a drying rack.
“It’s not bad,” I murmured. “See?” Leaning over him, I used the utensil to remove the burned parts.
“I have a horrible track record for burning things. It’s why my mom banned me from large event kitchen duties.
I could set a timer and forget about it,” I admitted with a laugh.
Kehl wasn’t scowling anymore. His brow beetled as I spoke. “Purr-roo mama say you no make the food, you burn it.” He didn’t phrase it as a question but I took it as one.
“Yeah. Can’t blame her. I once burned three pans of cookies in a row.
Even I was shocked by my ineptitude. I’m really bad if the bake times are super long or tragically short.
I’m not a fan of hanging around the kitchen babysitting food and it’s hard for me to remember to check in with long cook times.
” My shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I get bored, find something to occupy myself in the mean time, and accidentally forget.” With a sheepish grimaced, I admitted, “I feel really bad about it. I don’t mean to do it. ”
“Kehl no mean burn food make for Purr-roo,” he rumbled out quietly. Scowling at the pancake again, he muttered, “Kehl eat this one.”
“I want it,” I said quickly.
Kehl looked to me sharply, then leaned in and sniffed me.
“No lie.” I smiled then. “You made it for me. It’s perfectly fine. I want to eat that one.” Lifting my hand, I pointed at my pick.
Kehl let out a few grumbling-grunts but finally nodded.
Another mega pancake thing that resembled cornbread more than anything was poured into the pan and placed over the stove.
“I wish I had my phone,” I muttered. “Then we could use it for a timer. And listen to some tunes while we cook.”
“Phone at mates’ hut?” he rumbled out quietly, curiously.