Page 51 of A Shade of Myself
“Sorry. You’ve had your outside time for the day.” Sadie clapped her hands. “Now come along or I’ll get Nurse Ratched to medicate you.”
Jude tossed her napkin in the trash. “That’s what you get for not censoring her reading.”
“Don’t blame me.” I fished my car keys out of my purse. “That’s on Advanced Lit.”
We said goodbye to Jude and made our way home, Sadie’s leg bouncing for the entire ride. Even with the windows down, the car was boiling, the warm air doing nothing to cool things down.
“Why so anxious?” I flicked on my turn signal to take us onto East Broadway.
“No reason.” She glanced at her phone.
“Oh good. Then you can vacuum and dust the inside of the car when we get home.”
“Shouldn’t I stay safely in my room so you don’t worry?”
“Nope. I’m over it.” That wasn’t entirely true, but she’d flip out if I kept hovering. And teasing her like this helped restore my sense that all was well. “Vacuum the inside and do the windows as well. Unless you want to make dinner in this broiling weather.”
She sighed. “I’ll wash the car.”
“Great. Tell Caleb you’ll speak with him later.” Her mouth fell open and I laughed. “Old people for the win.”
I got the better end of that deal because all I had to do was throw the sausages on the BBQ, while Sadie gave me the stink eye for forcing her into child labor.
Later that evening, she locked herself in her room to call her boyfriend and I pulled out my phone having found a working cable to finally charge it. I wasn’t sleepy and I didn’t want to be alone, but who should I call? I’d just seen Jude, Daya had mentioned the other day that she had a crazy number of C-sections to perform, and Ava was working tonight.
Even though Ryann was going to phone me when they found the stranger, I left a message asking her to call.
I hovered my finger over Laurent’s contact. He’d become a close friend. I could call him if I wanted to, but before I could, I got a text from Military Marsha inquiring about my book club preparations. I screamed into a sofa cushion because I’d forgotten it was on Sunday. As in the day I was supposed to finally get it on with Laurent.
I was never getting laid. My Hannukah bush would become a withered shrub, a mass of dead foliage, a desolate no-man’s-land. I’d wander around with it for forty years and then I’d die. I stabbed out a reply to Marsha that I had the preparations well in hand (versus what I really wanted in my hand or my mouth or really any part of me at this point), then texted Laurent that I wouldn’t be able to see him on Sunday because I’d be too exhausted from hosting book club.
He didn’t respond and I figured, whatever, one more person blowing me off. I went to sleep in a huff and didn’t even touch my book.
The last thing I expected was to be woken up ridiculously early by the wolf shifter knocking at my front door.
He hadn’t shaved yet, his dark stubble as scruffy as his curls. He wore basketball shorts that ended just above his well-defined calves and the faded “Bite Me” T-shirt that I’d first seen him in.
Never had I wanted to follow orders so badly. Yawning, I leaned against the door frame. “What are you doing here?”
“Training,” he barked.
“You woke me up to watch you work out?” I squinted at him, debating the merits of the idea. On the one hand, sleep. On the other, watching his muscles flex and clench, sweat rivulets rolling down the hard line of his body. Ooh, maybe I could provide him with a water bottle to douse over his head, necessitating the removal of his shirt.
“Not my training. Yours.”
Talk about bitter disappointment. “I think not.”
Yawning, Sadie trundled down the stairs in her penguin pj’s, strands of hair escaping her braids. “Who comes over at 6AM?”
“No one reasonable,” I said. “And definitely not anyone expecting me to exercise.”
“Your mother has to learn to protect herself,” Laurent said.
“Whatever,” my kid mumbled. “I’ll start the coffee since you’ve deprived me of my last hour of precious sleep. I’m sure exhaustion won’t affect my brain development or anything.”
“Not any more than the caffeine will,” I said. “One shot of espresso only.”
“Just because it’s early doesn’t mean you have to be a monster,” she said without heat.
