Eighteen
TINY
Inever knew how much I didn't like Savannah Solomon until this very moment.
I've tolerated her backhanded comments about my weight or the fact that she dresses like some rockabilly whore for years...but this might be too much to bear. Her open and obvious flirting with Stone is making my stomach churn and starting to make me seriously consider ways I can convince my father to fire her.
Wait...somebody slap me.
This man hasn't even been in my house for more than a day, and I'm already being completely territorial. What is wrong with me? I need to pull myself together. I don't even like him.
I remove two microwavable bento boxes filled with Mediterranean styled grilled chicken, roasted veggies, and brown rice from my travel tote. Then I pull out a Ziploc bag of freshly cut pita bread and a small container of pine nut hummus made from scratch. While the food warms, I set the small card table my dad has set up for staff to eat at with a red and white checkered plastic tablecloth and some silver colored, heavy duty plastic cutlery I picked up from the dollar store. If I'm going to eat in the back of my father's bike shop, I at least would like to make the experience somewhat pleasurable.
I hear the bells on the door ring and not too shortly after, Stone appears in the back. Hiscustomermust have left. I quickly wonder if he was able to "pop his cherry" and get his first sale.
"You ready for me?" he asks in the grittiest voice I've ever heard.
I imagine those four words as one of the things that Stone may say right before he plunges his dick inside of a woman. But maybe these are the types of thoughts you have when you don't know any better. When you have no idea what a man says to a woman before he sleeps with them. When your only frame of reference is a Rated R movie or a steamy romance novel.
"Have a seat," I tell him. Doing my best to pretend that his mere presence doesn't affect me one iota.
Stone's eyes glaze over the meal on the table. I'm starting to think that he's always a lot hungrier than he lets on. He pulls up one of the foldable metal chairs and takes a seat. His gargantuan body is way too big for the table and chair, but he spreads his legs and tilts his body forward, so that he can get at least semi-comfortable.
"Smells good," he says.
"Hope you like it. It's just grilled chicken, veggies and hummus with pine nuts. Do you like hummus?"
"Never had it."
"Really?" I ask incredulously. "It's basically just mashed up chickpeas with tahini, garlic and olive oil."
"They don't sell hummus at the neighborhood bodegas in New York, and they definitely didn't serve it in jail."
"Oh," I say remembering that he's probably spent the last five years of his life probably eating crap. I may have sounded a little pretentious just now. "I apologize. Well then let me be the first to say, in the words of Savannah, it will be an honor topop your hummus cherry."
I smile goofily at my bad joke. Stone doesn't crack a smile at all, but he doesn't look angry either. He just stares at me with a look that I can best describe as...confusion. He probably thinks I'm the biggest dweeb on the planet.
"Seriously though, hummus is really good and pretty healthy for you," I continue to nervously babble. "I learned how to make it a few years ago. Take a piece of pita and dip it in the hummus like a chip."
Before he grabs the pita, I stop him.
"Oh, wait a minute."
I grab some sanitizer out of my bag.
"Give me your hands."
I pour a little sanitizer in each of Stone's hands. As he holds them out for me, I notice how his palms are covered in deeply etched lines. A bold love line. A long life line. (I went through a palm reading phase when I was fourteen years old.) Each line distinct and unique from the other. I begin to wonder if those hands could talk, what wicked secrets they would hold, and in particular how they would feel touching my skin.
"I'm a little neurotic when it comes to germs," I explain. "You know I'm a nurse."
I think I see a little smirk form at the corner of his mouth.
"I'm aware."
"I mean I get to see firsthand the havoc that a little bacteria can cause."
"You don't mind letting that dog of yours lick you."
