Page 30 of Unrivaled Love
My yogurt.
My organic, free-range dairy farm, Icelandic yogurt.
"That's mine!" I scold as I fold over and start climbing through the maze. Each up and down causing little grunts to leave my mouth while the fire of revenge builds from an ember to a wildfire in my veins.
I pause and straighten up, one strand gets caught on my shoulder and I see the pendant light over the island swinging. He attached this shit to everything. I glance over at him and he's just noshing away onmyyogurt. My six dollars a tub artisan yogurt.
What a booger brained dingleberry.
Energy renewed, I make my way through the rest of his maze. The amusement in his eyes is met with annoyance in mine and I get right up into his face as he flips the spoon backwards and sucks.
A slurping sound, that could be indecent if you had a dirty mind, comes from his mouth and I'm not sure if my heavy breathing is from the obstacle course I navigated or if I'm struggling to catch my breath because this is the closest I've been to Bryson Svoboda in years.
He’s right, in the last seven years he upgraded to a very nice smelling cologne.
It’s almost, dare I say, alluring.
I watch his eyes taking me in and I notice how his face has changed in the last decade. The baby fat is gone. He’s sporting stubble along his jaw. Little lines at the corners of his eyes as his smile spreads. He's more man than boy. Has he changed in other ways?
"Do you always wear your uniform?" He asks as he pulls the spoon from his mouth and uses it to indicate my outfit.
"No." I sneer and then I snatch the yogurt cup from his hand. I don't even have to look to tell you it's empty. "Don't eat my food."
"Ah so we're not the sharing groceries type of roommate?"
"We're not roommates."
"Cohabitators?"
"We're nothing except enemies."
"Eh, I'd call us rivals."
"What's the difference?" I know I'm getting baited but I’ll be damned if he gets the last word.
"’Enemies’ is so," he pauses while he thinks of the right word. He always scored higher than me on his English papers so I know he has a wide vocabulary at his disposal. "Dramatic."
"I am not dramatic!" I yell in his face and all he does is raise an eyebrow in response.
Fine, yelling might have been an overaction but I am not dramatic. "I hate you." I grumble as I cross over to the refrigerator. I get hangry under normal circumstances, especially first thing in the morning. And dealing with the giant irritation that is Bryson Svoboda on an empty stomach is a recipe for disaster.
I hurdle over one length of yarn and duck under the next only to find myself face-to-face with a saran wrapped fridge.
"Consider the yogurt payment for throwing away my cookies.” Bryson says as he flips the spoon in the air. “And I hid the scissors." He steps back to jump-shot his spoon into the sink. It clatters with the force of an airplane landing in the back yard and my shoulders hike up to my ears.
He gives me a wink and then slides out the patio door.
With my hands on my hips, I survey the room. He must have used a dozen skeins of yarn. I can see where he tied one to the next meaning this is all one giant string.
I don't need scissors to get through this though. A sharp knife should do.
I move over to the silverware drawer and find yarn looped through the handle in a figure eight between it and the cabinet below. I try to open one with the other but get stopped by a baby proofing lock.
"Fucking toddlers!" I yell out and I spin as fast as I can to where the butcher block knife holder is. I'll go for the big guns.
Even from a few feet away I can see the knives are gone and another note is attached to the block with blue fucking painters tape.
Jo -
