Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Thaddius always gets up at the ungodly hour of dawn in order to feed and water the animals, let them out for the day, start cleaning…and avoid me—whatever he does.
At least it saved us from having the awkward confrontation of breakfast together. I mean, I haven’t avoided it yet. He could still be coming in. I’ve been making stuff for us lately because it’s something I can do.
I hug my arms around myself in the kitchen as bright beams of sunlight drift through the window. There doesn’t appear to be a bit of a breeze outside, though I’ve noticed mornings out here are unusually calm. Mornings and evenings, like the real weather, don’t pick up until later and then tire themselves out by bedtime. There are birds singing in the distance, and everything is bright green as far as I can see, except for the adorable red barn to the side and the long winding gravel driveway. It’s so peaceful, but there isn’t a sense of peace inside me.
I’m toying with the idea of making breakfast as a distraction when the front door bangs open, and big booted steps come thumping over the wood floorboards. “Nina?” I freeze at the sound of my name because the way Thaddius says it sends goosebumps up and down my arms.
God, he made me come yesterday, and not the kind of quick, half-hearted coming I’ve experienced in the past. Thaddius gave me that orgasm like he meant business and truly cared about my pleasure. He could have just stuck it in and done a few pumps, and okay, that probably would have made me come too, but he wanted me to come first. Without him. He wanted to give me pleasure, and gosh darn it, he was so freaking good at it that I’m never going to be able to forget what his tongue felt like on my…
Thaddius bursts into the kitchen. “We have a problem.”
We have all sorts of problems, so I don’t know which one he’s talking about specifically. “What kind of a problem?” I’m wearing the most normal piece of clothing I got so far, a floral dress that is total cottagecore but could also be very appropriately farmcore. It’s cute but not the kind of attire that lends itself to being good for solving problems. I don’t know what kind of problem he’s referring to, but I can already tell that a dress and whatever it is aren’t going to mix well.
“A chicken in the sky problem.”
“O—oh?”
“It’s in the sky, in a tree. At the top of that huge maple in the backyard. It’s either Henrietta or Cluckmuffin. I don’t know which one yet because when I stand on the ground and look up, all I see is a flash of white in the branches.”
“If she got up there, don’t you think she’ll be able to get back down?”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Plus, if she fell all that way, there would be mass carnage.”
“Oh my god!” I throw my hands over my mouth because thinking about that puts horrible mental images in my head. “Are you going to climb the tree? I don’t think that’s safe.” Great. Now I’m thinking about even bigger carnage if Thaddius falls out of the tree. “Shouldn’t you call the fire department or something?”
“I doubt they’d come all this way for a chicken,” Thaddius says with a sigh.
“If you went up and got stuck, they might come all this way for you.”
“I don’t want to test that theory.”
“I don’t want to test it either.” I don’t know what to do with my hands. They feel awkward and ungainly. Thaddius came in here to tell me because he needs help. He wants us to work together to figure out a solution to this problem. He came in here because he trusts me to have his back as he goes up a crazy tall tree to rescue a chicken he cares about. And that makes me feel all kinds of squishy inside, even if it also makes me ice-cold thinking about him dropping right in front of my eyes from the said tree. “We have to be safe! You have to be safe, Thaddius. Above all.” I think hard about how other people are safe when scaling great distances and doing the unthinkable. It might not be for a chicken, but an image pops into my head of a rock climber going straight up a sheer rock face. Most of them—the ones that don’t want a single chance of going splat—tether themselves. “Do you have any rope?” I ask him.
“I do. In the barn.”
“The kind of rope you can attach to a branch with one end and tie around your waist with the other so as to somehow prevent you from falling all the way if you slipped?”