Page 41 of Pete and His Precious

By the way, she texted me and let me know that her plane landed safely in Paris. That was this evening as I was in the closet working on my project. I finished up editing my sweet romance and sent it back to the author.

She has a couple of weeks to go over it, make sure everything meets her specifications, and approve it. When she does that, she’ll pay me the rest of the money she owes me.

I hope she works fast.

Still, for the last thirty minutes or so, I’ve been listening for Pete. I know he’s not supposed to be home until nine, but I thought maybe he’d get off early. I don’t really know what Baxley’s bedtime routine is, but he comes in about 9:15.

I hear him pause outside in the hall.

Almost like he wants to walk to my door and knock on it. I hold my breath kinda hoping he will. But he doesn’t, and I hear him go in.

It isn’t long after that that I pick up Flipper, because wasn’t she the reason I am going over? I grab my keys and go out my door.

I like the idea of visiting the neighbor. I can’t deny that the idea of seeing Pete makes my stomach feel nervous in a weirdly happy way. I know that’s strange, but it’s true. There’s just something about him that makes my whole body want to see him.

And hear him. His voice does crazy things to me.

I knock, and it’s not two seconds later that he opens the door.

“You heard me,” he says as a greeting.

I nod. “I was listening.”

“I’m sorry I’m a little bit late. I didn’t realize Baxley was such a great ping-pong player,” he says as he stands back, opening the door wider as I walk in.

“She is?” I say. I didn’t know. Maybe we’ve had a few conversations about ping-pong, or something. I guess I’ve been downstairs to watch movies and I’ve seen the table, but if Baxley ever asked me to play, I don’t remember.

“Yeah. I thought I was good, but she beat me one game out of three.”

“So you won twice? By a lot?” I say, thinking that he might be being modest.

As I speak, Flipper jumps out of my arms, hops to the chair and onto the table. She has her eyes completely fixed on the bird.

“I’m sorry. I guess I never even thought that it’s probably rude to bring my cat if she’s just going to stand on your kitchen table the whole time.”

I hadn’t considered that at all, and honestly, I’m embarrassed.

“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t bother me, if it doesn’t bother you.”

“She’s not really allowed to be on my table, but I don’t get super strict about stuff, since it’s just me.”

“It might not always be just you, and then the people who you live with might not appreciate her being on the table.”

“That’s a good point.” I nod. Interestingly, the idea of being with someone is a lot more appealing to me than it used to be. I think that Pete has an awful lot to do with that.

“Leo’s love bunny. Leo’s love bunny,” Trixie says, maybe inspired to speak since all of us are looking at him. Or, maybe it’s Flipper. Because Trixie seems very interested in my cat.

“I’ve been trying to teach him to say ‘Pete’, but he won’t.”

“Precious. Precious.”

“That’s what he says instead,” Pete says, looking annoyed.

I haven’t seen an expression on his face yet that doesn’t make him look handsome. Annoyance is no exception.

It’s all I can do to tare my eyes away and looked back at the bird, instead of staring at Pete, which is what I want to do.

“So is everything okay?” I ask, wanting to know whether it is as difficult as he was afraid it was going to be.

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