Page 99 of Feels Like Home

Today, though, he picked me up from work early. He noticed this morning that I wasn’t feeling great and asked if I wanted to try to leave earlier than usual. I wasn’t in a place to fight it thismorning.

For a few weeks now, something has just felt off. Not bad. Not good. Just… different, and I can’t put my finger on it. I’m not willing to let it ruin our evening,though.

“What'swrong?”

I huff at how annoying it is that he’s so in tune with me. “Nothing!”

He narrows his eyes atme.

“Something’s wrong. What is it? MissingBri?”

Always.

She’s been gone for sixweeks.

But that’s notit.

“I said nothing's wrong with me! What's wrong withyou?”

He chuckles, obviously on to mydeflection.

“You gottapoop?”

“No I do not have to… poop.” I whisper the last word, looking around me, which makes no sense because we’re in his pickup,alone.

“Hey, it's okay if you do. I have some spray if you need it. Tess gave it to all the guys for Christmas. She came to the office one day and said she was sick of it smelling like shit, literally, in here so bought us each a bottle of this spray to use when wepoo.”

I scrunch up my nose and can’t help but ask, “Like to help youpoop?”

“No.” He busts out laughing, leaning over the steering wheel as he does it. When he finally regains composure, he looks at me then cracks up again. “Not to help you poop.” He wipes a tear from his eye. “I’m not like an eighty-year-old man who needs prunes in his diet. It’s to make it smell better when wedo.”

I shake my head. “I don'tunderstand.”

He pulls the bottle out of the console of his pickup and hands it tome.

“You carry it withyou?”

He gives me a look. “Yeah. What if I have to poop inpublic?”

“Then you go poop! What do you need sprayfor?”

“To make it smell better! I thought we covered thisalready.”

Oh, my goodness. I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. “And you said your shit doesn'tstink…”

“It doesn't! Now.” He laughs to himself. “So, is that it? You need to poop when we get to your house? I promise I won't judge. And I won't smell a thing — you just spray that” —he points to the bottle that's still resting in my hands— “in the toilet first, and I swear it's like poop magic! No smell. Trust me — it's necessary in our house of boys. You'll be grateful forever to Tess for introducing me to it. You'll never have to smell mypoop.”

“You do realize we've been talking about poop for fifteen minutes now,right?”

He shrugs. “Yeah? What else do you want to talkabout?”

The sneaky little shit! “Oh, you'regood.”

“I know.” He grins wide then looks at my panicked face and sighs. “Christine, baby, what'swrong?”

“You won’t let it go, willyou?”

“Not achance.”

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