Complete some sort of graduate program.
Be done with school by 25.
Engaged by 28.
Married by 30.
Kids by 33.
A silly conversation we had one evening swinging at the rusty playground that I haven’t forgotten for a second. The bullet points are fundamentally a part of me now.
“Yeah, dove. I’ll be waiting at the altar when you’re 30.”
Chapter Fifteen
Liv
“It’s outside of your contracted hours to be here so early,” I speak into thin air when I step onto my back porch at six am.
The tingle on the back of my neck recognizes the aura emanating from my patio furniture.
“Seeing that you’re not paying me, I’d consider a contract pretty irrelevant. Besides, I’m not here early if I never left.”
“Did you sleep back here?” It must’ve gotten down to 40 degrees last night.
“No, I slept in my car. Just came back here to take a leak in the woods.”
I roll my eyes. “Nice,” I chuff sarcastically.
“Well, go inside and make yourself decent for work. We’re still leaving on time.”
“Yes, boss,” he smirks, rising from his seat slowly. Except he stops before he gets to the back door, watching me with his hands in his pockets.
“What?”
He shrugs, but has a glint in his eye.
“Are you waiting for me to disrobe?”
“Can you blame me?” He smiles, and I hear the challenge in his tone.
Never one to back down easily, I don’t blink as I let my robe fall, revealing one of the little cheap bikinis I keep on rotation for my cold plunge.
His jaw unhinges, and he doesn’t move until I’m submerged to my shoulders in the ice water.
“What?” I breathe through the cold.
“You have your nipples pierced?”
He has seen me in a bikini before, but this one doesn’t have the padding in the top like the last one. “One of many reckless decisions made in college.”
He still doesn’t move, and his eyes look almost completely out of focus.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he clears his throat. “Just a lifetime worth of fantasies in my head I need to rewrite.”
I almost laugh, but my breath gets caught in my throat. He looks distraught as he turns to go inside. He’s completely serious…
