He takes my mouth with his, a hand grazing my throat like a warm, rough necklace.
"Touch me," he breathes onto my lips.
My hands slip under his shirt, over his abdomen, his muscles tight and warm against my fingertips. I touch the places on him I'...
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Sunday, 8:26 AM
Formerly known as Chill Buddy, the disassembled carcass of our air conditioning unit, plucked right from the kitchen window, sits on the island before me. Beside it, last week's unopened mail, flyers, and old mugs with coffee-stained rims.
The morning sun streams through the open kitchen window, casting a glow over the pale yellow backsplash, but it also highlights the grease and oil on my hands.
Note to self: let Pat call the repair guy when the sound starts next time.
Apparently, this thing broke sometime last night. I spent the last hour taking it apart on the island to find out the refrigerant line failed.
I rub my eyes with the insides of my wrists, sighing again. "Think the hardware store will have a replacement line?"
Pat grunts. "We'll likely replace the whole thing. It's been an age and a day for that beast."
RIP Chill Buddy.
"Pat, do you know anything about repair guys next door?"
"What was that sweetheart?"
I glance over my shoulder. Pat sits at the kitchen table behind me, gnarled hands holding the day's paper. His blue work shirt is neatly tucked into dark blue cargo pants because he never takes his janitorial uniform off, even at home.
"Never mind. You really want to buy a new AC unit?" I ask, chewing my cheek. "They're not cheap."
His bushy grey eyebrows, thick and unruly, seem to be the only part of him that defies age, sprouting from his wrinkled forehead like wild foliage. And now, they draw together as he steals a glance at me.
"Gerry down at the hardware store might nudge me in a discounted direction. Brandon could take ya to investigate later, yes?"
The mention of Brandon does something weird in my chest. Something painful and tight. It isn't the sadness of a breakup, it's something worse, something weird and...wrong.
I purse my lips. "Brandon and I broke up."
Pat looks up, blinking. "What happened?"
Turning on the stool to face him fully, I search for the words to explain without explaining at all because I don't want to think about it anymore.
"Just...wasn't right."
"Well, there's plenty of fish in the sea... though I suppose we're more of a pond here."
Understatement. Middlebridge is more like a bog.
The steam from Pat's mug curls up into the air, blending with the scent of oil and metal in front of me. After a minute or so of silence, he folds his paper and sets it on the table.
"I had a chat with Veena last night." Pat muses his wiry grey moustache with rough, square-tipped fingers, studying me. "She said she's worried about university coming up for ya, Greyson hanging on."
