Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 24908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
When I looked out, he was under the water, then he burst out in one jump and stomped into the house, the windows went dark, and I managed a few hours of sleep.
When I woke this morning, Tigor and his crew were already hard at work, raising some enormous timbers onto the corners of the house. I watched them throughout the day, especially Tigor. Grunting and sweating. The sun glinting off the hard angles of his torso as he worked.
Why the others left early for the day, I have no idea, but the timbers are in place and Tigor is now back out in the yard alone, pacing up and down totally naked beside the pool. And occasionally looking my way, even though I’m sure he can’t see me since I’m watching through a one-inch hole. On his side, all he can possibly see is wall.
“You gonna nail that?” Dominic asks, and I gasp as I turn his way.
“Sorry?”
He nods at the board I’m holding over the mouse hole. “You’ve been crouching there with that board for five minutes. You need some help?”
He starts to step my way and I pull back from the hole, shoving the board into place and grabbing a nail.
“I’ve got it,” I tell him. “It’s fine. Why don’t you get back to the wiring?”
The gas supply in this house is untrustworthy at best, and most places this far into the disputed lands are busy converting to solar for a more reliable service. Dominic has some skills in that department, but the whole place needs wiring up to the panels and battery—something I barely even understand—before it will be useable. The gas in this neighborhood is still working, when it wants to, but years of neglect have taken their toll. Dominic has been collecting old but serviceable wiring when he can, and piling it up in the garage, but we need a lot more before the appliances can be converted to run on electricity.
In the meantime, he’s got a couple of solar panels fixed up and is putting in wiring that will charge mobile phones and give us some security if we need it.
I pull the board away one last time and take a peek, seeing Tigor run and jump into the pool next door, the water splashing everywhere in his wake.
And that’s when I hear Darrell laughing.
“I wish we had a pool,” he says, and I have to move around the hole to catch sight of him standing on a crate on our side of the fence. Spying on our neighbour. I guess I’m not really one to talk.
Tigor raises his arms and brings them down hard on the water, sending a wave crashing into the fence just below Darrell’s face. He laughs as a few drops splash over him, and I find myself grinning.
“You swim here. Now.” Tigor glances up at the hole. “All of you.”
Fuck. Busted.
I stand up, still holding the board, and look down at the two of them.
Tigor’s tongues glance across his tusks. “You swim here.”
“Can we? Please?” Darrell now has his face turned my way as well, and my body is so confused, not knowing whether to be motherly and protective toward my little brother or needy and seductive toward my next-door neighbour.
I shake my head. “I don’t want you to get cold.”
Tigor growls. “It’s hot.”
“No it’s not, it’s like, 75 degrees. That water has to be freezing.”
“That’s hot. Too hot.” Tigor ducks back under the water as if to demonstrate, then comes up slowly and Darrell laughs.
“Please? Emmie, it looks good.”
“The water will be cold,” I protest. “I’m the one that will be up all night with you when you catch a cold.”
“I will warm the water.” Tigor pushes up off the bottom, leaping out of the pool and heading for their barbecue, firm naked buttocks pumping with every damn step. God. “You will all swim.”
Darrell looks up at me with a hopeful grin, and my defences have been worn down. “Fine,” I say. “If it’s warm, we’ll swim. But, you have to put something on. You’re going to traumatize the kid.”
“Yes!” Darrell jumps up, fist pumping the air.
I sigh as I watch Tigor at the barbecue lighting coals, then striding off into the grass and coming back with a huge rock, which he places beside the burning pile. As I turn around, I find Dominic staring at me.
“What? What was I supposed to do?”
He grins but shakes his head. “I’m not saying anything. But you’d better hand me that board if you’re going swimming.”
The pile of hot stones Tigor heaved into the deep end of the pool at regular intervals has done the job, I have to admit. It’s warm like a tropical lagoon and I have no worries about Darrell. It’s actually really good to see him smiling so much. Some of the things he’s seen, no kid his age should have to go through, but Tigor has done a good thing for him and that’s something he won’t forget in a hurry.