Taking the Leap (River Rain 3)

And he thought I couldn’t deal with a disabled person?

Sure, there were probably disability bigots in any field.

But…me in mine?

Honestly, when he’d said that to me, he might as well have slapped me across the face while doing it.

Though, it felt like he did, just hearing the words.

One could say I was o-v-e-r over my crush on Rix Hendrix.

Ugh.

He was a jerk.

This was good, since we had to work together, and I had no business crushing so bad on a co-worker that might play with me because he had no one else to flirt with but would never go there, not with me, and oh, by the by, he thought I was an intolerant loser.

Huh.

Okay, so, when he hit my desk around lunchtime that day and dialed up his naturally oozing charm to ask me to lunch, I had a mild rekindling of the belly flutters that would always get out of control when I was around him.

But luckily, Chloe showed up out of the blue and informed Rix she was “whisking me away” (her words), something she did in order to treat me to lunch at Farm Provisions for a “girlie personal celebration” (again, her words) of my recent promotion.

This was unnecessary, but I was happy for the excuse to say no to Rix.

Rix appeared unhappy, very much so.

Whatever.

Exacerbating this situation was the fact that I was getting calls from home.

Since Thursday, my sister called (twice), my mother called, and that day, my father called.

This happened.

Primarily it went like this:

Blake, my sister, remembered she had a sister and immediately grew concerned her lifetime of effort was seeping away, and as such, would get in touch with me in order to top up her endeavors to make certain I didn’t start feeling less peculiar and inferior than she wanted me to feel (which was to say, she wanted me to feel these things a lot).

If, in a timely manner (she usually gave it an hour or two), I did not pick up or respond, my sister would call our mother to remind her she had another daughter and complain about my lack of attention to her desires.

My mother would then call to tell me to phone my sister.

When I avoided my mother, she’d call my father, and since he hated hearing from my mother (they’d been divorced when I was seven, and they were as acrimoniously divorced as they had been married), he’d call to demand I get in touch with my sister as well as contact my mother. He did this mostly so he wouldn’t have to personally deal with one of Blake’s tantrums, and he wouldn’t have to deal with Mum at all.

They seemed oblivious to the fact that I got as far away from them as I could go and not end up in California (nothing against California, I just hated traffic, was an introvert so not big on being around huge populations of people, and it was damned expensive to live there, regardless of the fact I was a millionaire trust-fund baby—I had money, but I didn’t want to spend it on a house I wouldn’t be in very much).

Now, it was the weekend.

Now, it was time to decide whether to throw my tent in my Subaru and head out somewhere or spend time at home, maybe switching out the annual flowers in the pots scattered all over my deck (autumn was coming, it was time) and take a few day trips hiking or paddleboarding.

I was dumping my bag on the kitchen counter, contemplating this, as well as dinner, when my phone rang.

I dug it out of my hobo, looked at it, and even though the number was local, I didn’t know it.

So I ignored it, tossed my phone on my bag, and went to my fridge to open it, stare in it and decide if I wanted beer, cider, or wine (along with deciding what I might cook to go with one of those, or if I wanted to drive back down the mountain to grab something at Wildflower).

I moved from fridge to cupboard and inspiration struck.

Spaghetti with turkey-meat red sauce.

Fast, yummy, and a good evening carbo load for the long hike I’d just decided to take the next morning.

I had a glass of red wine in hand, was letting the red sauce simmer (nothing to get excited about, it was a jar of Ragu, but I always spiced it up with Italian seasoning, minced garlic and red pepper flakes, and in order not to waste anything, rinsing the jar out with a big chug of water that had to cook down), when I turned and gave myself a moment to take in my space.

The shack was two floors, staggered since it was built into the mountain. It had five “rooms,” even if two of those weren’t strictly rooms.