He raises his eyebrows, a quick grin passing over his face.
“Don’t do weird stuff with them.”
“Define ‘weird stuff.’”
I give him a look as he bends to grab our discarded condom with them.
“What? This isn't weird, it's logic."
"That is definitelynotthe weird stuff I was thinking of."
He shrugs. "If I was into sniffing panties, I’d smell my hand. If I wanted to get off, I’d find you. There’s nothing reallyweirdI can do with your panties other than—I guess—keeping them in my pocket. But like you said,logic.”
I shake my head as I make sure my skirt covers as much of my thighs as possible. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
“’Thank you, Ryder, for saving me from having toexplain why I’m carrying my own soaking wet panties around.’”
I roll my eyes. "Yeah. What you said." I hold my arms out to either side of me once I'm suitably dressed. “How do I look? Not freshly fucked, I hope?”
“Bend over and pull your skirt up, I’ll let you know.”
“Oh!” I nudge him with my elbow as we head back to the party. “You’re secretly dirty, aren’t you?”
He shrugs. “Not really. You’re just really hot.”
Before it's out of sight, I take one last glance back at the water wheel that will be forever different in my mind, albeit for a good reason.
And I realize it’s not moving.
I stop, searching for where the plank broke. It would make sense if the water wheel stopped moving because there was no leverage with which the water could move it.
Andthat, I could arguably file away in the back of my mind as something that I can probably fix myself tomorrow.
But as I retrace my steps back to the wheel, I realize the plank I broke was also attached to one of the large spokes that leads to the circular center plank. And that spoke, without the plank to hold it in place, has veered off course, the end shoved right into the grassy bank behind the water wheel.
And as a light gust of wind runs by us, the rogue plank splits right down the middle, the bottom portion creaking until it breaks in half and the top portion skidding further into the grass until it’s lifted into the air, turning in a long, lopsided circle as the water wheel starts moving again.
“That does not look good,” I say, frozen in place as I watch it do a full circle, dropping dramatically to the ground on the other side and dragging across the sloped ground.
“We can fix it,” Ryder tells me. “That’s not going to be a big deal.”
I glance at him, eyebrows raised, because he has no clue what he’s dealing with if he’s talking about the historical society.
I turn back to the water wheel just in time to see another spoke break free from the center, popping out of place sideways and catching on the ground just next to the water wheel, followed shortly by the next two spokes. With a quiet groan, they break in half.
I look back at Ryder. “Still not a big deal?”
He holds his hands up. “I promise you, it will be fixed in no time. Good as new. You won’t even notice the difference.”
As he speaks, we hear a sharp crack.
And when I turn to search for the cause of the noise, I see that the main circular plank in the middle has split clean in half with all the opposing leverage knocking it around.
“Still won’t notice the difference?”
He rests his hands on my shoulders, his eyes finding mine. “Evie, I promise you, we’re going to fix it. And it’s going to be so perfect that we’re going to laugh at this whenever we think back on it. Please don’t let a little rotten wood ruin our night.” His hands drop from my shoulders to my waist as he pulls me close. “Trust me to fix this for you.”
“You’re going to fix it?”
