Just My Type(62)

Ember: You just saw me a few days ago, when we met for lunch.

Baker: That was in a public place, at a diner by your house. It doesn’t count. It’s been an entire week since I made you moan.

Ember: You mean since the otters made me moan. I faked it with you.

Baker: But did you really? *wiggles fingers

Ember: Fine. Get your ass to my house no later than six. I’m making Lincoln’s favorite dinner and dessert, and if you’re late, you get nothing.

Baker: I like it when you’re bossy. Will you spank me if I’m late?

Ember: Stop it. I’m trying to work, and you’re making it hard.

Ember: Don’t you dare say “That’s what he said.” I will poison your fucking dinner.

Baker: Now I’m definitely going to be late. It means you’ll touch my butt and I won’t die. That’s a win-win right there.

Ember: 6:00, or the only funny business you’ll partake in going forward is with Ron Jeremy’s tiny dick nubbin.

Baker: See you at 6 then. And stop saying nubbin. It’s freaking me out.

Ember: (Sends screenshot)

Tiny Dick Nubbin: I cannot believe you changed my name in your contacts to that. Just remember this when I’m finally inside you and you’re screaming my name.

Ember: But will I even know you’re in there, Tiny Dick Nubbin? Will I really?

Tiny Dick Nubbin: I’m hanging up now.

Ember: This is a text. You can’t hang up, TDN.

Tiny Dick Nubbin: ENDS CALL





CHAPTER 23





Ember

Can I Use a Spatula?


“Does this guy make you happy? Let you be your usual, charming self? Lincoln told me you used to think he was an asshat, but now you don’t, and he said this guy is too fun to be an asshat, and he made me promise not to tell you he said asshat. Then he made me FaceTime with that fucking rat for over an hour,” my brother Clint complains with a laugh, talking about Lincoln holding the phone in Ron Jeremy’s face the entire time he spoke to his uncle last night.

This is how it always goes when my brother calls Lincoln, ever since we moved. Lincoln goes in his room for some private “guy talk,” my brother calls me the next night so it doesn’t look suspicious, and then he gives me some of the dirt from their call. Not all, because I don’t want Lincoln to ever think he can’t trust his uncle, but enough dirt so I know he’s still adjusting okay in Chicago, and with the divorce, and that kids at school aren’t continuing to be assholes to him.

I understand my son is not always going to tell me everything, and that’s okay. As long as he’s talking to someone about whatever problems he might have, that’s all that matters to me.

“Baker makes me very happy, and he definitely likes me the way I am, mouth and all,” I reassure my brother for the seventh time since I answered his FaceTime call fifteen minutes ago, trying not to think of Baker and my mouth when I’m on the phone with my brother.

I take a break from setting the table to pull out a chair, getting eye-level with my phone that I propped against an unlit jar candle in the middle of the table. Clint is holding the phone at arm’s length in front of his face, and I have a bouncy, blurry view of the pumpkin fields behind him as he walks through them, surveying the plants. If I stare hard enough, I can almost smell the fresh dirt in the air, and feel the heat from the setting sun that casts a red glow over my brother’s shoulders.

“Crops look good,” I tell my brother, ignoring the lump in my throat that this will be the second pumpkin season I’ll be missing out on.

“Yeah. Boys and I got the straw all laid down last weekend. Brooklyn put a picture of my ass on the front page of the Timber Times, when I was bent over spreading it around, so that was fun,” he deadpans.

“I was promoting the farm in the most popular newspaper in White Timber, Clint!” Brooklyn shouts in annoyance as she walks up behind him on the screen, defending the newspaper she owns and runs in our small hometown. “Well, the only newspaper in White Timber. Nothing says Hastings Pumpkin Farm like a nice, juicy ass.”

I watch her come around to Clint’s side, lean in, and give him a kiss on his cheek, quickly waving to me before moving out of view.

“Anyway, so this Baker guy, he’s good to you? Give me his number. I’ll give the guy a call. I won’t threaten him or anything, but I won’t be sad if a little pee comes out of him.” Clint shrugs.

I roll my eyes at him, remembering one of the reasons why I was such a wild thing when I was younger. Because I basically had two dads hovering over me, polishing shotguns when my dates would pick me up, questioning my choices, and being overprotective. So, I snuck out, and I made a lot of bad choices to give them reasons to question me. I was a giver that way.

I’m rolling my eyes even though it’s kind of annoyingly adorable, and I kind of want to cry that this is the first time in my life my brother hasn’t sized up the man I was dating before I even hinted that I might like him. I am way past like at this point. And I know I’m a grown-ass woman, and my family’s opinion really shouldn’t matter at the end of the day as long as I’m happy, but my family’s opinion does matter. And it really sucks that I’m too far away to get it.

Since I know I can’t do anything about that, and I’m starting to annoy myself with this homesickness melodrama, I suck it up like a big girl. Because I’m happy.