Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“No. It’s all completely under control.” In the way a raging fire tearing through the dry bushveld in the middle of a drought was under control.
“Well, just shout if you need me.”
“I won’t need you,” she snapped, and then was forced to admit to herself that she sounded like a total bitch. “Thank you.”
She emptied the cold coffee down the kitchen sink.
“Okay, well, see you in…what? Four hours?”
“Uh huh,” she agreed, forcing herself to inject some cheer into the affirmative sound.
He reached for the doorknob and she swallowed thickly as she watched him turn it.
“Gideon,” she called, hating that she’d stopped him from leaving, but needing to say what she was going to say.
His hand fell away from the doorknob a little too eagerly and he lifted his head to look at her.
“Yeah?”
“Last night. You won’t tell Cam, right?”
“Jesus, no way in hell.”
Wow, such unflattering vehemence. But why did she care? It was the answer she needed from him.
“Okay, good. As long as we’re clear that nobody will ever know about it.”
“Scrappy, I’m trying to erase it from my memory bank as we speak. What about you? You won’t be bragging about the best sex of your life to any of your knitting circle buddies, will you?”
Her lips compressed and she gave him a glare.
“The b-best sex of my life happened three years ago. In Thailand.” She told the bald-faced lie without so much as a blink or a blush.
He laughed again, and she hated how smug he sounded.
“It did? What made it the best?”
“My lover was extremely talented. And-and…generous. And, y’know—?” Her cheeks went bright red and her voice faded miserably.
“I do not know,” he said. His shoulders were propped against the door, arms crossed over his chest, long legs folded at the ankles, as he watched her intently. “Do continue.”
“He had a very big uhm—” Penis. Say it. Penis. It’s just a word. Cock. Wang. Pecker. Member. “Th-thing.”
Oh, come on!
“He did? Girthy? Or are you a length girl?”
“Buh-uhm b-both.” Thanks to her stutter, Beth was a lamentably bad liar. She had largely managed to conquer the speech impediment, but it always tripped her up in a lie.
“Sounds intimidating.”
“It wasn’t. It was perfect. I refuse to discuss this any further. It’s personal.”
“Whatever you say, Scrappy.”
“Why do you call me that? Lizzy is bad enough, but now this. Why? I have a name, you know?”
“Why do I call you what?”
“Scrappy.”
He looked genuinely startled by her reply and gave her a slow, befuddled blink, before clearing his throat and pushing himself away from the door.
“I wasn’t aware that I was doing so. Sorry about that, Lizzy-bit.”
“Don’t call me that either,” she automatically protested.
“I have to call you something,” he said, infusing his voice with calm rationality. Annoying prick. As if him calling her by anything other than her name was rational.
“Here’s a novel idea, why not use my name? It’s Beth.”
“If you say so. I don’t see you as a Beth though.”
“Aargh,” she full on growled the actual word aargh, who did that? Certainly not Beth. At least she never had before now. “It doesn’t matter what you see me as, Gideon. My name is Beth.”
“Right. Well, I’ll see you later…B-uh…fuck.” He looked genuinely incapable of verbalizing her name. What the heck was that about? “Girl! I’ll see you later, girl. Lady. Woman.”
God, he was so strange. She was just exhausted and she needed him gone. Immediately. Her house was too small and claustrophobic with him there. Her cozy space felt alien and violated.
When he reached for the doorknob this time, she happily allowed him to turn it and drag the door inward. He was gone seconds later and it felt like the entire house breathed a huge sigh of relief at his departure.
Beth scrubbed trembling hands over her face and groaned. After tonight, she would be happy never to see that man again.
Ever.
She just had to get through tonight.
Chapter Three
“Well, well, well,” Cam drawled when Beth and Gideon entered his house in Claremont later that evening. “No wonder it’s so cold. For hell hath surely frozen over.”
“Very funny. And it’s far from cold,” Beth grumbled. Cam grabbed the oversized Tupperware container with the potato salad from her and put it on the sideboard before folding her into one of his overly enthusiastic bear hugs. “Happy birthday, Cam.”
“Thanks, Half-pint.”
What was it with this group of friends and their inability to use her name? Then again, she honestly didn’t mind it as much when Cam did it. He was her friend; he was being friendly and affectionate and he always found it hilarious to tease her about her lack of height.
Beth liked Cam and she was generous in the allowances she gave her friends.
It was her friends’ irritating friend with whom she had no patience.
She picked up her container and watched as Gideon and Cam exchanged one of those manly half-hugs complete with bruising back thumps.