The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

They thanked her and watched as she shambled away.

“Bet she chain smokes and swears like a sailor in her downtime,” Miles muttered, and Charity choked back a laugh.

“Probably wears leather and has a tattoo that says ‘Daddy’s Little Bitch’ on her left boob,” Charity added somberly, and this time Miles was the one who choked.

“Toy boy thirty-six years her junior.” Miles flung the words down like a gauntlet.

“Pothead,” Charity happily countered.

“Estie, or the toy boy?” he asked.

“They smoke together.”

“Probably right before she bones that kid like that there’s no tomorrow.”

Charity covered her face with both hands and shook her head.

“Stop! Oh my God,” she laughed. He joined her and when the laughter died down, they grinned at each other a little goofily.

He cleared his throat and picked up his fork. “Eat up before it gets cold.”

Charity happily complied and the first mouthful of pie was divine.

“This is so good,” she moaned, scooping up another bite. Miles watched her eat for a moment before digging in. His eyes widened, and he stared at her in shock.

“It’s pretty damned tasty,” he agreed with her.

While they ate, they chatted amiably about the weather, Stormy, and Miles’s attempts to help Amos in the garden. Safe topics—cautiously tiptoeing around the questions they really wanted to ask each other.

Several pretty brown hens wandered into the garden and

slowly meandered toward their table. They were busily bobbing their heads, scratching and picking at the ground, cheerfully clucking as they got closer and closer to where Charity and Miles were seated.

Charity watched them with a delighted smile and glanced over at Miles to share her enjoyment of the unexpected moment with him. But he looked less charmed by the chickens than she would have expected from a city boy. Instead, he appeared downright horrified.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.

He didn’t immediately respond, but glanced queasily at his plate before swallowing.

“Do you…” he began faintly, before clearing his throat and starting again. “Do you think we’re eating one of their siblings? Or, God forbid, offspring?”

He was starting to look green around the gills, and Charity bit her lips, fighting back a laugh.

“P-probably more than just one,” she joked, her voice shaky with suppressed laughter. The look he shot her was so appalled, that she immediately regretted teasing him.

“Shit, I should have ordered the lamb,” he muttered. He had no sooner uttered the words than a cute fluffy white lamb gamboled into the courtyard.

“Fuck.”

Charity covered her mouth with her hand, attempting to hide her smile from him.

“Perhaps you should consider converting to vegetarianism,” Charity suggested, her tongue firmly in her cheek. She knew how much the man loved a medium rare steak.

He winced, eyes still on the frolicking lamb, and shook his head in what looked like self-disgust. “I tried. When I was younger. But I didn’t have enough strength of conviction. I’m happy enough to eat meat and chicken but only prepackaged and refrigerated and store-bought.”

“They were all alive once,” Charity pointed out, once again finding herself charmed by another unexpected facet of this interesting man.

“I know it doesn’t make sense. I never order lobster either. I fucking hate it. And I avoid those restaurants with the tanks of live lobsters. The thought of them being cooked alive—” He left the sentence unfinished, but his shudder said it all.