Page 51 of Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal
“Wow, thanks. Good morning to you too.” I take my reindeer hat out of my back pocket and I fix it on my head. “How’s that?”
“Better.” She examines me. “The scruff on your face is thicker.”
“Because it’s seven in the morning and I didn’t get much sleep last night. The wheels have been spinning, Storee.”
“Really? I slept great last night.” She leans in. “Cole did this thing with his tongue?—”
I hold my hand out, stopping her. “I will not sit here and listen to you talk about your sex life with my best friend. It’s bad enough I know what you did in my barn with a candy cane. I refuse to hear about tongue action.”
“Are you sure? Might be beneficial for you.”
“Trust me, I know exactly what to do with my tongue.”
“When was the last time you used your tongue in that way?”
“Uh, don’t you think that’s a little private?” I ask as Tanya, the blessed woman, sets down my coffee. Guess she didn’t need me to take off the mask to know who I was. If she asks why I was wearing it, I’ll tell her wind chill was hurting my face this morning. She’ll buy it. “Thank you,” I say to her. She nods and walks away.
“When have you ever been private?” Storee asks. “A few weeks ago, you were telling me about the boner you woke up with.”
“Because it was so hard, and I was sleeping on my stomach. It practically jackknifed me off the bed. Like a spring letting loose from its coil.”
“That right there. That is why Cole is not helping you. You say such ridiculous things.”
“It’s true,” I whisper. “That boner levitated me.”
“I can’t.” She tosses her hands up and starts to move out of her booth, but I stop her.
“Fine. It didn’t levitate me, but it did in my dream.”
She rolls her eyes and then sets her arms on the table. “Listen up. We’re doing this the right way, okay? And we won’t be ridiculous and hysterical and overthink and embellish. We have a job to do, and it’s to save the farm. And the way we’re doing that is by wooing Betty. Now, I was able to score her information from Martha, who asked for it from Dwight. I asked her to meet me here.”
“What? Now?” I ask, looking over my back. “I’m not ready. I’m not prepped. I don’t know what to say or do. This is an ambush.”
“Shhhhhh,” Storee says, tamping down my energy with a motion of her hand. “She won’t be here for another half hour. I told her I wanted to meet up with her since she’s new in town, and see if she needed a friend.”
“Ooo, good one.”
“Thank you.” Storee smiles. “I met her at the farm and already put the offer out there, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’ll get intel from her, and we can use that for the wooing.”
“Wow, that’s . . . that’s really smart.”
“And that’s why you’re working with me and not my grumpy husband.”
“You’re right about that.” I take a sip of my coffee, feeling the caffeine spike through my veins.
“But I want you here when she arrives. We’ll make it seem like you just ran into me. You’ll pick up Flo and bounce heraround a bit before shooting off for a day on the farm. We want to make you seem approachable, loving, a gentleman.”
“Everything that I already am.” I smirk at her, causing her to roll her eyes.
“But you can’t be your outlandish self, okay? Reel that shit in.”
“I’m not outlandish.”
She levels with me, her brow picking up. “Minutes ago, you told me your boner levitated you off your mattress.”
“That’s not outlandish. That’s just providing context.”
“You know what I mean, Atlas. You have to be normal.”
