I would!my vagina squeals.
And now my face is twitching again.
Flint lifts a quilted bag. “Peace offering,” he grunts.
“Cyanide and local poison berries?”
“Homemade meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, and green beans.”
He cooks!
I give up on discussing with my vagina howThis is not happeningand alsoHe probably got takeout and then put it in a bag to make it look like he cookedand let her do whatever it is she’s going to do.
“Isthatpoisoned?” I ask.
“Tony was ... a lot more relaxed than you about certain ...rulesabout having kids out on his property.”
If he makes my face twitch one more time, I might be the person who makes all those old wives’ tales come true when it gets stuck. That last one hurt. Who knew a cheek muscle could cramp like that?
I turn around and pick up the sledgehammer again. I’m so over people who like the rules only when they’re convenient. “Thank you for dinner. Junie will appreciate it.”
“It’s for you too.”
“Thank you. Not hungry.”
“Maisey—”
“I get it. You can’t let Junie on the soccer team. I can’t let you have kids out here until I get the right liability insurance. We don’t like each other. You’re trying to be nice because you still rent Uncle Tony’s gatehouse, and you’re going to be one of my kid’s teachers, and we’ll have to see each other regularly. Trust me, I can nice your ass off. Got alotof experience being pleasant around people I don’t like. You won’t even know if I paint your face on a wall that I take out with a sledgehammer again, okay?”
“We can find some middle ground here.”
“Can we? Are you capable of that? Because so far, the only message I’ve gotten from you is that I’m a huge inconvenience ruining your life, and you know what? I have enough of that from my teenager. I don’t need it from a grown-ass man too.”
All my frustration fuels my next swing into the stable wall.
“Okay, okay, I’ll talk to the kids on the soccer team about June trying out to rotate in every once in a while,” Flint says.
“I’m not—ungh—threatening—oof—or bribing—ermph—you to get my daughter—aarrrrggghhh—on the damn soccer—umph—team.” I drop the sledgehammer and hunch over, looking for my breath as I swing a quick glance around the dilapidated barn, wondering how this must look to Flint.
First seven stalls weren’t this hard to take out.
But swinging a sledgehammer for an hour will take it out of a girl. Especially after hauling out all the random other crap that needed to go into a dumpster.
Might be time for a real break.
“You have water out here?” Flint asks.
The irritated edge is gone from his voice, replaced with something I’d call concern if he were anyone else in town.
I wave to my empty water bottle. “I’m fine.”
Little black dots choose that moment to dance in my vision.
Crap.
I amnotfine.
The dots pass after one more deep breath, but Flint Jackson is once again frowning at me. He grabs a three-legged stool from a pile of broken boards and barn scrap that I haven’t gotten to the dumpster yet, flips it so he can sit on it, and digs into his quilted bag.
