Page 125 of Plus Size Player

I nodded as I chewed. After I swallowed, I looked over at him. “This is really good. What is this?”

“Penne carbonara. Instead of pancetta, I use extra bacon.”

I knew I smelled bacon. “It’s so good.”

“It’s my best dish.” He ate a forkful. “It’s my only dish.”

I snickered as I ate more. “This is the only thing you know how to cook?”

“I can cook some basic things, too. But this is the one meal I perfected. My dad said I had to have one in the artillery before I went to HU. So, my grandma taught me some tricks, and now I break this out for special occasions.”

With my eyes glued to him, I licked sauce from my lips and tried not to smile. “And today is a special occasion?”

“Any day with you is a special occasion.”

My stomach fluttered.

“Look,” he commanded suddenly, pointing out the window toward something in the water.

I squinted until I saw what he saw. “What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a laugh. “It has to be an animal. It doesn’t look like a person. I saw it a few days ago and it went underwater for too long to be a human.”

“What in the Loch Ness Monster is going on here?”

He chuckled. “Yoooooo! What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing!” I exclaimed. “I’m not the problem. You have thebeautiful home and the pretty view, and then you have the shape of water out there.”

He burst out laughing.

“The real problem is out there, lurking,” I continued. “And I’m just trying to figure out what type of horror movie setup this is so I can plan my next move accordingly.”

“This isn’t a horror movie.” He shook his head even though his shoulders still shook with amusement. “The place isn’t haunted. There isn’t some creature in the water. It’s—”

“It’s built on a burial ground,” I interrupted.

He cracked up. “No, it wasn’t!”

“How do you know?”

“I checked before it was built!”

“Then, explain that.” I pointed to the large figure floating in the water in the distance.

Amused, he shook his head. “I can’t. But—”

I lifted my hands. “I rest my case.”

We laughed and joked our way through our meal. We drank wine as we watched the sun set in the distance.

He opened his mouth to say something, but a loud noise rang out from the woods on the other side of the lake. We both swung our heads in the direction of the window.

He rose to his feet and walked around the table. “The fuck was that?”

I stared at the lake. “The Meg.”

Laughing, he peered out the window, scanning the area. “What is wrong with you, yo?”

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