Out of Bounds - Quick Snap

I could understand that. I’d only held it and I felt the same way. Still, it was too funny to drop. “If you say so.”

“I haven’t,” she hissed, her hands finally dropping back into her lap.

Biting down on my bottom lip, I hit the screen of my phone to play what I’d found for this moment while I was putting things in her bag. The sounds of Elmo giggling and telling whoever he was with to tickle him played loudly in my living room making the blush on her cheeks deepen.

I only just managed to catch her as she launched herself at me, and fell down onto my back on the ground, making sure she didn’t put any weight on her feet.

She might have been trying to tickle me under my arms and down my sides—something I hated—but she was laughing at me at the same time so I rolled with it.

And that’s when it hit me. This woman was different to any of the ones I’d met before now. She made me laugh, she didn’t get angry when she was embarrassed, I actually looked forward to spending time with her, I never knew what to expect but I knew I’d end up feeling good after it… she was like Will’s Meg.Apparently needing ‘open foot surgery’ meant that Ashley needed Pizza to ‘get her strength back’. So, regardless of the fact that I normally followed a strict diet, I was currently sitting on the floor with her, watching Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw with her and getting what she called ‘pizza wasted’.

“I don’t know, if Idris Elba came up to me—bad guy or not—I’d probably just jump him. In fact, if I close my eyes and listen to him and Jason Statham arguing, it’s like soft porn with their accents,” she told me, throwing her crust back into the box.

Normally, that would be a problem for me. I had issues with people touching my food, and that included a half-eaten crust knocking against a piece of pizza. Looking at the slice in question, I waited for the nausea that normally hit me when this happened, but nothing happened.

“Are you okay?” Ashley asked, bringing my attention back onto her.

“Yeah, sorry. I have this thing about things touching my food, and I was waiting for my normal reaction when your crust touched that slice of pizza,” I pointed at the slice, not seeing the point in lying about it.

Following where I was looking, she winced. “Sorry. I didn’t even think.”

Waving my hand and making a point of picking up the piece, I leaned back and took a big bite.

“Normally I’d feel sick, and the fact that a kitchen of people I don’t know touching the food with their hands to make it would hit me, but I’m okay.”

There was silence from her, but then she reached across and picked up a napkin from the stack on the coffee table and discretely spat the food in her mouth out into one. “Gross!”

Seeing what I’d described to her clearly in my mind now, I followed suit and then grabbed my bottle of water and gargled with it.

“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have shared that with you,” I admitted. “It’s also why I usually make all of my meals. The only reason I was okay at the charity dinner was because I know for a fact that the catering company are almost religious about wearing gloves and hats when they prepare and serve the food. I’m kind of a mess about it, to be honest. I never know where their hands have been, and all I can picture is bacteria and shit.”

Staring sadly at the leftover pieces of pizza, she muttered, “You’ve ruined my favoritest thing in the world. I don’t think I’ll ever eat pizza again, and it’s a main food group.”

Bursting out laughing at how disappointed she sounded, I got up to go to the kitchen to get her something I knew would make her feel better, and tore one of the crusts up for her dog to eat having been reassured earlier he wouldn’t have the same reaction as he did with cupcakes.

He was as close to a toddler as a pet could get. He got bored with walking easily and would demand to be picked up as soon as it happened, refused to sit on the floor, only drank filtered water, and had issues with boundaries like closed doors while you were going to the bathroom, but I kinda liked the little guy.

Getting the surprise out of the freezer, I nabbed two spoons and went back to where she was engrossed in the movie again. Not saying a word, I sat down beside her and lifted the lid on the box, licking my lips at what was inside it.

While she’d been in the car waiting for me to pick up some stuff from the store, Will had picked up a Baskin-Robbins birthday cake and dropped it off before we’d gotten back. I knew for a fact they had enough hygiene rules there to appease my phobia, so I was going to make up for the pizza fail.