“She makes me feel terrible about myself.”
“And your father?”
“Kind of terrible.”
“And your siblings?”
“They’re not as bad. They only make me feel really crappy sometimes.”
“Only sometimes? You know what they call someone who makes you feel terrible about yourself? They call that person an asshole. Say it. You’ll feel better.”
“I’m not going to call my family assholes. They love me.”
Erick put his arm around her and steered her to the table. He pulled out her chair and she sat down. He sat down in the chair facing her.
“Your family does love you. And I’m sure they aren’t actual assholes. They probably have no idea they’re making you feel so bad. But that isn’t an excuse. They shouldn’t make you feel bad. They should do what normal healthy families do and ignore you and your personal life until you screw up and they have to bail you out of jail. I’m speaking from experience here.”
“My family does not ignore me. I wish they ignored me. I’d kill for them to ignore me.”
“We’ll make it easy on them.”
“How?”
“We’re going to go away for two days. If you want to. I’m not making you. Ruthie says men shouldn’t dictate what happens on dates. I’m not dictating, only suggesting. I suggest we go away for two days.”
“Away? Where away?”
“We’re going to go all the way...five miles from here.”
“I think they have phones five miles from here. Five miles from here isn’t outer space. Unless we’re going five miles straight up.”
“Not straight up. Straight northwest. And it’ll be like space because you aren’t taking your phone with you. I talked to Chris Steffensen’s girlfriend, Joey, who’s also his property manager. She’s letting us test out one of their new rental cabins for two nights. We’re going to leave your phone here at this house. In case of emergency, we’ll have my phone to call 911 if a bear tries to get in the cabin or something. And while your phone is here, we’ll be there—eating, sleeping and having all the sex. What do you say to that?”
“Two days without answering my phone? My family will freak out.”
“How will you know they’re freaking if they can’t reach you?”
“They’ll freak out ten times as much when they do reach me.”
“You won’t see them until Thanksgiving. They’re not going to freak out on Thanksgiving because I’ll be there. Then they’ll meet me, it’ll calm them down when they see how great I am—”
“You are pretty great.”
“I am and I’m even better at faking being great. I’ll charm their pants off—not literally—and they’ll finally shut up about your personal life because they will finally see with their own judgmental eyes that you are in these two very capable hands.”
He held out his hands in front of her, palms up. They were quite capable-looking hands. They’d stripped her panties off her in a split second last night, massaged her breasts this morning and fixed her deck. Truly talented hands.
She put her hands in his, and he wrapped his fingers around hers, then lifted both her hands to his lips and kissed the backs of them.
“How does that sound?” he asked.
“It sounds pretty good,” she said. “Especially the part about being in your hands.”
“That was my favorite part, too.” His dark eyes twinkled mischievously. “I think you’ll like this place. I’ve already swung by and checked it out. It’s nice.”
“Do I need to bring anything?”
“I stocked the fridge already and brought over towels and stuff. They aren’t quite ready for business but the furniture’s all there, the appliances work and the electricity and water are running. Pack a bag for two nights and relax, because I’ve taken care of everything else.”