Page 64 of Loathing My Boss
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get back at me for all my comments about how ancient and decrepit you are.”
“Decrepit,” he muses. “That’s a new one. I’ve not heard about my decrepitude before.”
I ask him point blank: “Are you treating me like a child on purpose?”
“I am the oldest brother of five. Loving someone to me leans heavily on taking care of them. I apologize if I’ve made you feel like a child. I will do my best to curb that.”
I sip my choccy milk and roll my eyes out the window. “It’s not…the worst thing ever…to be taken care of. I guess. I guess…I’m just not used to it.”
“I very much enjoy the honor.”
There he goes again. With these words likeprivilegeandhonor. As though I’ve blessed him with my existence, instead of cursed him with misery. Either he’s demented and pranking me, or I’m just terrible at torture.
Probably the first option.
Yeah.
Lifting my toast as Canter Creek comes into view, I crunch, and try not to think about anything else.
Chapter 22
?
Karma.
Crisis
After Viktor and I spent the entirety of yesterday holed up in our stall, both of us writing—although he doesn’t need to know that I was doing anything other than answering emails—we returned to my house for the night.
The entire exchange went almost painlessly, considering it was around midnight when we both finally shut our laptops down, yawned, and stared at theonly one bedbetween us for a solid sixty seconds.
He said,Fish room?
I said,Fish room.
He grabbed his keys, declaring softly,I love your fish room.
I probably muttered something along the lines ofgood to know you’ve still got functioning brain cells in your old ageas I corralled myself to the passenger seat of his car.
After that, I may or may not have fallen asleep on the way home. He may or may not have managed to lift me out of the seat before I woke up, rallying to carry me in like a toddler. I may or may not have startled awake at the sound of my keys leaving my purse. He may or may not have dropped me…when I thrust myself out of his arms with valiant fury and/or panic.
I may or may not hold a grudge forever and ever.
Anyway. It doesn’t matter right now.
Becauseright nowit islake day. Otherwise known as a day I suspect no one at all will get any work done. Henceforth to be calledstupid lake day.
As the forest path across the road from the main ranch buildings opens wide to reveal sunlight winking off the surface of a silver pool, I sigh. The stupid lake is beautiful. I’ll give it that much. Set into the valley between rising mountains, the still water ebbs against a shore that eases down into clear tides.
Without notice, half the guests charge into the shallows or off a long dock leading out into the deep, mysterious, plant-filled water. Their wherewithal and disregard for any fishlife lurking in the water makes my nose scrunch.
Disgrace. Every last one of them.
Could never be me, for many reasons, primarily my respect for fish, but secondarily…my lack of melanin.
I am pale, like the snow, but I don’t melt like snow beneath the rays of the evil sun. No. I turn into a little burnt crisp, then I peel, and pain and suffering are mine for days. Hence my wide-brim sun hat and my industrial-size bottle of sunscreen.
Huffing, I pop the cap on my sunscreen and fill my hands to lather my arms.
