horseboykarl

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful, and I won’t say anything about anyone else.” I say goodbye to Hugo and hang up the phone, belatedly aware that someone is standing beside the wall.

“Suppose you tell me what’s going on.”

( I stall. “How did you know where I was?” )

I have been summoned, by perhaps the only person in my life with the power to make me drop anything and go to her. She was vague on the phone, just said that I needed to come up to the farm. It seems like I barely stay at home since I moved back to Wellie, but I could use her straightforward common sense about now. Not that I can tell her what the real problem is, but she’ll see the evidence of some of it on my face. It hurts a little to chew, my eye is a delightful greenish-purple color and my forehead is still a bit swollen. Paris has the fucking hardest head I’ve ever run across.

And the rest of the evidence of my ongoing battle with Éomer is starting to feel better, it had been a little red and swollen at first until I got the antibiotics, but today it seems to have gone down some. I wonder if I should show her my piercing, but she’d probably like it, knowing her, and want me to get some sort of Maori scarification tattoo to go with it. I shudder, maybe I won’t show her.

If I take Ire, I’m going to have to take the truck, and I’d rather have the wind in my face just now, so I arrange for him to stay with my neighbor who will also feed Smokey. The bike growls between my thighs and eats up the miles, I’m taking the back roads outside of Hastings before I know it.

I pull into the lane and bump my way up to the house. She’s not around this time of day, but I’m buzzing from the road and not going to hunt her down. I walk through the unlocked door to the kitchen and sort through her fridge for some beer and I find some crisps in the cupboard. I sprawl on one of the chairs on the porch to wait, sun will be going down soon, she’ll be back.

I must of dozed off, for the next thing I hear is a shout. “Where’s that no-good scamp Karl Urban?”

( I stand up and watch her walk toward me from her truck. )