“Uh, as I recall, I was thoroughly and properly thanked for that this morning,” I say, my blood running south at the memory.
“Yeah, but then you thanked me back, also thoroughly and properly, so I had to plan something good for my thrill-seeking husband. Way more thrilling than a carriage ride.”
My chest warms at the word husband, and pride stirs in me at her admission. After she altered my DNA with the most passionate blow job I’ve ever gotten, I laid her out on the kitchen table and repaid the oral favor. I had hoped I matched her enthusiasm. I guess I succeeded.
Then, of course, she all but fled away to her room.
I wanted to hold her. I wanted to carry her to my bed, and not to have sex. Well, okay, maybe to have sex. But mostly to just be near her. Hold her while she sleeps. Have her scent on my pillows.
Which is a real bloody problem.
Scent on my pillows? What the actual hell is happening to me?
Something unwelcome, because clearly, she doesn’t feel the same.
Her phone buzzes again in her pocket and she tenses, but doesn’t check it. I still can’t figure out if she’s being secretive or not. She’s definitely being…careful. Guarded.
“C’mon, here comes the bus,” She pulls me out of my bleak thoughts.
“Alright,” I say, watching her jump excitedly out of the car. She looks adorable in her winter duds. Her gray hat brings out her eyes but I’m sure she’s in all black under the decent winter coat she let me buy her. It’s a dark purple. It suits her, just like I knew it would.
She asks about my latest trip as we climb onto the bus. I ask her about the great mustard mystery she’s solving one spreadsheet at a time. We chat easily together about everything and nothing, until Steven and Miles hop on at one of the stops. Our conversation transitions to the town and its latest gossip.
Apparently Betty Swanson swears she saw Mayor Bear clomping though the town’s Nativity scene display—not to be confused with the live action Nativity Scene that is not yet set up in front of the Baptist church—but Shelly Swanson, Betty’s sister, claims it was actually Betty’s dog that got out and wreaked havoc. Half the town feels Betty is trying to cover her tracks, er, her dog’s tracks. The teenager in charge of the Jolly Juniper High School e-newsletter has apparently launched an official investigation and all of it is utter nonsense. But Steven is so animated and Janelle is so passionately on Team Betty, who is a nurse at her Gran’s home, that I’m bloody enraptured by the whole tale.
Finally at the top, Miles and my wife almost to fisticuffs over which Swanson is in the wrong, we file out and I study my little wife.
“You sure you want to do this?”
“Yeah. I’m not unadventurous, you know. I ski, both snow and water, I’ve surfed. I haven’t jumped out of a plane or gotten a pilot’s license but I do stuff.”
“Alright, wifey, let’s get to it then.”
She pretends to be annoyed at the nickname as we go to the little shack with the tubes. We choose a bright orange inflatable shaped like the number eight and mosey to the line that’s formed at the top. When it’s time to go, I steer her to the front of the tube.
She pauses, “I don’t think I want to be in the front.”
“Not as adventurous now, my darling?”
“Nope, guess not. I just, this is like, much more of a mountain than I remember? This first time I think you should be in front and I’ll hold onto you.”
“I think more of the weight should be in the back, yeah?”
“I don’t know, boss, I’m not a physicist.” She rolls her eyes.
This is a bad idea. We’ll be front-heavy. But she seems genuinely afraid, and she’s already plopped down onto the thing. I’ll just lean back. It’ll be fine.
I sit down, she wraps her arms around me, and we push off.
Janelle screams bloody murder, I laugh. It’s good fun, sliding fast and smooth, only having to barely hold on. Until we hit a small hidden tree stump and, just as I feared, I stop. She doesn’t.
“Janie!” I yell as I watch her fly through the air and turn into a puff of white dust a few feet down the slope. “Janelle?” I cry again frantically trudging toward her. She waves an arm to show she’s able to move. “Are you alright my darling?” I pant when I finally reach her. My heart stops because she’s still, hand over her face and—she’s laughing. “You’re alright.”
“That was insane! I flew! I flew through the air like a freaking bird! Did you see that?”
“I did.”
She frowns, but still giggling, “Why aren’t you laughing?”
