Page 59 of Sass in the Grass

“Why?” Alan asked.

“Well, he’s so rugged. He’s more like a caveman, and he’d sling a guy over that amazingly broad shoulder and carry him to a cave, but…he carried me like…”

“He carried you?” Kathy asked.

“There are snakes here? Did you know that?”

All three of them fell backwards onto the bunks.

“What? There are!”

When they recovered, Jovian told them about the date, and all three leaned in, hanging on every word. Alan, twice, whispered, “Wow, that’s hot.”

Kathy was fanning herself. “Either I took too much E, or I’m just swooning.”

“E? You took ecstasy?”

“Estrogen, Jovian. Estrogen.”

“Oh! Right. Well, I know I’m swooning. He’s just incredible, and I’m falling hard for him, but that’s not good. I never, ever wanted to fall. I wanted the other guy to fall so I could hold all the strings, but…”

“This, Jovian, is better,” Mike assured him. “Don’t hold strings. Hold his heart. Let him hold yours, if all this gets that far. Don’t play games with him. I don’t know him in that way, but guys like Dixon don’t like games.”

“I can see that. That’s the problem. I only know games when it comes to trying to get a guy.”

“What did you do today?” Alan asked him.

“Um…” Jovian couldn’t think of anything, except what he’d planned to do. That had gone out the window fast. “I tried for about a minute to be aloof.”

“Good. You said tried. You’re doing fine, Jovian. Stopped worrying and just go with it. It’s not like you’re totally gone for the guy. You’re just getting used to this.”

“I guess, but…what if I screw it up? You guys have got to be my Jimmy Cricket.”

Alan barked a laugh and then snorted on top of that. “Jiminy Cricket.”

“Whatever, Alan. You don’t have to be rude.”

Kathy grabbed Jovian’s hand. “I’ll try, but I’m new to this, too.”

“Your date went well, mine did, so I guess we’re about to be wifed up.”

“Jovian, you’d be a husband,” Mike reminded him.

“He carried me like a bride.”

“Lord. Okay, fine, but neither of you should count your chickens before they hatch.”

Aghast, Jovian whispered harshly, “You don’t think he has chickens, do you? Oh, god, did I eat a chicken that was alive recently?”

“How long do you think it takes the stores to get them? I’d wager he killed one of his chickens. He has meat chickens and egg-laying hens,” Mike told him.

“That’s awful!”

“Jovian, Coach Dix is self-sufficient. He relies very little on going to the store. He grows and raises his own food, hunts for it, gathers in the woods for it, and what he can’t get that way, he buys.”

“Well, I will talk him out of all that once we’re together. I refuse to get to know an animal just to eat it. We’ll…make the chickens pets, and just take their eggs, but only if they don’t want them.”

Alan whispered to Mike, “He’s going to make a chicken rescue and adoption agency.”

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