Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
I no sooner had this thought when we were off to the cashier.
So I guess we were done at CB2.
He paid.
So I guess he was buying.
We went out to the truck and got in.
“Where’s this other place?” he asked.
“How about we grab an early lunch?”
He turned to me, forearm draped over the steering wheel. “You hungry?”
No, I was feeling weird.
“I just think that—”
“Christ, Hellen,” he bit off. “Kiki and I are over. I was surprised to see her. Don’t make something that’s not a thing, into a fucking thing. It’s you. I’m living with you. I’m fucking you. I’m in love with you.”
“I never doubted that.”
Or, at least I didn’t until he got pissed about talking about Kiki.
“So let it go and tell me where this other place is.”
We could walk there, but I didn’t say that, and anyway, it was best the bags were stowed in case we went crazy in West Elm and had to drag a whole bunch back.
I directed him where to go.
We got some lighted swags to drape around the media center, plus Christmas stockings for him, me and Nanook, and we did this trudging through West Elm like strangers forced to shop together.
When we got back in the truck, Core made an effort.
His voice was soft and even sweet when he asked, “Now, you want to get some lunch?”
I wasn’t feeling soft and sweet.
I was dwelling on Kiki.
“I’d just like to go home,” I told the windshield.
“And she hasn’t let it go,” he muttered irritably, soft and sweet a memory. He started up the truck and headed us home. He was driving for five minutes before he modulated his tone again and noted, “You wanted to get some presents.”
“I’ll shop online.”
“You wanted to go to physical stores because you don’t want them to disappear, because everyone shops online and something about how all the packing materials are gonna fuck up the environment,” he told me something I’d told him.
“I can do curbside pickup.”
He said no more.
When we got home, he pulled into the garage and did his usual, not letting me carry anything in. Truth told, it wasn’t that much. Not the massive, festive Christmas haul I’d fantasized about when thinking of shopping with him, bringing it home, unpacking it and putting it around the house. Then maybe doing something Christmas-y, like baking cookies or wrapping presents at the kitchen island.
It ended up being absolutely nothing like my Core-and-Me-Christmas Fantasy, seeing as I laid the polar bear/snowman arrangement on the kitchen island, he draped the swag, it took maybe five minutes for us both and we were in two separate rooms while we did it.
When I was done, I moved toward the hall on my way to grab some laundry and heard him remark, “So, that was fun.”
Okay.
No.
I whirled on him and declared, “You have a problem.”
“Just because you think I have a problem doesn’t mean I actually have a problem,” Core fired back.
“No,” I contradicted. “You have a problem.”
“So what’s my problem, Hellen?” he asked, putting his fists to his lean hips. “That my ex is hot, and you got a good look at her, and it’s flipping your shit?”
Oh my God!
“No,” I snapped. “Though, you keep saying things like that, I’ll start thinking on them.”
“Is that a threat?”
I threw my hands out to the sides. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Generally?” he asked, then waved a hand between us. “Or in the context of this shit?”
“Is it the laundry?”
“What?”
“The laundry. Me not doing the laundry?”
He appeared genuinely confused. “The laundry?”
“I haven’t done it in a couple of weeks.”
“Do you need laundry done?”
Was I going insane, or was this an extremely frustrating conversation?
No, an extremely frustrating day.
“Not really, but it’s overflowing.”
“You need the laundry done, I’ll do it. I steer clear because you got nicer clothes than I do so I don’t wanna fuck anything up. But if that’s your damage, when I hit something I don’t know what to do with it, I’ll ask.”
I crossed my arms on my chest. “I don’t want you to do laundry.”
“Then why are you talking about the laundry?”
I sought patience. “I’m asking if you’re pissed at me that I haven’t done laundry.”
“It’d be nice there wasn’t a mountain of dirty clothes in the corner of the closet, but—”
He cut himself off.
“But what?” I prompted.
He shook his head, not in a negative, as if he was clearing it.
Then he said, “Nothing. You want the laundry done, just take anything out that needs dry cleaned. I’ll drop it off and do the rest.”
Okay, wait.
What was happening?
I didn’t know, but I sensed something was very wrong because I was not insane, this conversation was frustrating, I just was no longer certain why it was.
“I do the laundry,” I pointed out carefully. “You do the cooking.”
“That’s the way it was, but if you need me to get on it, just tell me.”