Page 22 of Smart@ss Cyborg

CHAPTER 8

Digging posts for fences and stringing fenceline involves a startling amount of physical labor. By the end of the first day, my muscles prove they are capable of doing something I never suspected: scream. They’re silent, of course.

But I’m not.

“Are you okay? You keep hissing through your teeth—” Becky starts.

My reply is cut off by the sound of loud screeching.

It’s the screen door’s metal hinges.

Then the door bangs shut.

Then the hinges screech again.

“QUIT TOUCHING THE DOOR!” I bellow at the jackass who’s playing with it.

Paco’s hooves shuffle, making the porch boards groan.

Yesterday, after I patched the hole of our dwelling made by the murderous gunman’s bullet the day of our arrival, I patiently taught Paco how to descend the steps by himself, and to thank me for my trouble he’s hardly left our porch. If I had the ability to move at a run, I’d chase him down the steps just to be sure he remembers how to use them.

“Are youokay?”Becky asks again, brows peaked, a wince on her face as she stares at me and takes the chair opposite mine at the dinner table, slowly sinking her slight frame onto the little padded cushion tied to the seat.

I have a padded cushion on my seat too, but I may as well be sitting on a brick of plascrete. My lower spine feels fused, my hips are protesting, and I believe I can feel my back muscles swelling.

“Noooo,”I reply, scowling as the word exits me in a full-body groan. “I may have discovered my physical limitations on land today.”

“So… what you’re saying is, you’re hurting in your superior muscles?” Becky asks me—and then she quickly grabs up her mug of steaming liquid and holds it high in front of her face.

“Yes,” I confirm. “Why are you doing that?”

She twitches, her eyes going wide. “Doing what?”

My gaze narrows. “Hiding your mouth with mass-produced ceramic. I can see your lips curving up behind it.”

She expels a rough noise, followed by a series of smaller bursts that originate in her throat but shake her shoulders, which she hunches.

I’ve seen something like this in vids.

“Are you…snickering?”I ask in disbelief.

“No!” she claims, and she slams her mug down and covers her face with her hands, hunkering down low along the table.

I stretch out my arm, baring my teeth when my deltoids, triceps, and biceps shake and tighten like they’re about to snap. With stiff fingers, I pick up a stray lock of her hair that’s escaped her tight bun, and flick it out of her plated mashed spuds and gravy.

She rears back at my touch, and her eyes take note of my hand’s placement—and then her gravy-laden strand of hair.

One corner of her mouth quirking up, she pinches her hair between her forefinger and thumb, strips it of gelled animal by-product, and pops her digits between her lips, sucking them clean.

For some reason, as I watch her do this, my lower abdomen’s frontal contents tighten and begins to heat.

I stiffen and frown. “Just when I think everything hurts, my body develops new pains.”

Becky meets my eyes, her face softening with sympathy. “Would you like a shoulder rub? I do it…” Her eyelids turn alarmingly puffy. “I used to… take care of Joel,” she whispers.

I start to shake my head—but the movement is arrested, my neck muscles spasming, and I hiss again, just as she accused me of doing.

Becky’s chair makes a dull screeching noise across the scuffed wood floor as she stands, forcing it back, and she rounds the table, nearing me. Her hands flutter over my arm, then my shoulder, and finally settle on my neck. “Here,” she mutters. And she places her thumbs just under my skull, and presses hard.

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