Page 56 of You Were Warned: Part One

Rue nods and reaches for the cheese.

“He is fucking annoying.”

“I know.”

“Has no concept of personal space. Follows me around all the time.” Rue turns around and adds the cheese to the eggs. “He thinks death threats are flirting and likes when I hurt him.” Rue’s shoulders move slightly, and I narrow my eyes. “Are you laughing?” He shakes his head. “You are! You think this is funny.”

He pours the egg mixture into the pan, and I sit there feeling increasingly irritated by the fact that he is laughing at my predicament.

“And now he is gone,” I snap, realizing it came out of my mouth before I can take it back.

Rue glances at me over his shoulder. “He leaves all the time, Vesper.”

“I fucking know that.”

“So why is it different this time?” he asks, then focuses back on flipping the omelet he’s making me.

“It isn’t.”

Rue turns to look at me again.

“Stop fucking looking at me.”

He turns back around, and I pick at a scratch in the countertop.

“He didn’t say anything.”

Rue stops moving for a second. “Does he normally tell you when he is leaving?”

“No.” Well, yes, but not directly. He tells me everything, because the man has never had a thought in his life that he didn’t think I needed to hear. The last time he left, he rambled about it, but I was barely listening. If he goes to the mainland for supplies, he asks if I need anything. Once he informed me that he was walking to the other side of the island to see if a dead raccoon Noa found was still there because he wanted the skull. “But he tells me shit.”

Rue puts the omelet on a plate. “What kind of shit?”

“Everything. Useless shit mostly, stuff I don’t want to know. Where he is going, what he’s doing. What he’s growing in his stupid garden.”

Rue puts the plate down in front of me and leans against the opposite counter as I take a bite.

“I think you need to admit you miss him.”

“No,” I snap, and Rue doesn’t react. “Fuck you.”

Rue remains quiet while I aggressively stab at the food as I eat it. How dare he think I miss that moron!

“Fine, maybe a little.”

Rue smirks, the smug bastard. I want to crawl into a hole and die from having to say it out loud.

“I don’t miss people,” I snap.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t.”

“I don’t want to.”

“That’s not really how it works.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, Dr. Phil. Any other words of wisdom you would like to share?”

Rue shrugs.