Page 32 of Forever Your Touch

“It’s just shitty, you being alone.”

She laughed. “That’s what I have my FIBB for, I thought?”

“Fuck, yeah. This FIBB is there for anything you want me for, baby girl.” He took another long swig from his beer bottle.

“You’re insane.”

“And proud of it, sugar doll.”

“You really are drunk.” Again, her laughter floated over the phone, and it calmed him even more.

“Yeah, but not so drunk I don’t remember you were sick. Stomach bug, right?”

“Mmhmm.” Mason heard ruffling and the sound of her mattress. “I’m feeling better now, though.”

“You sleepy?” Another yawn tackled him.

“I think you need sleep more than I do, Mase.”

“Can’t go inside.”

“Why not?”

“The date’s inside. I think I’ll sleep out here against the fence.”

“Mason, you can’t sleep against the fence.”

“Why not?” It felt damn comfortable.

“Well, because you can’t.”

“I like it out here.”

“You won’t when you wake up cold with a big crick in your neck.”

“A what?”

“A crick.”

“Why the hell would I have a cricket in my neck?” The longer he talked, his accent became more dominant. Hell, he barely understood himself, it was so thick.

“Not a cricket, a crick. A pulled muscle in your neck. Feels swollen and stiff. It’s an American thing.”

He snorted. “I got something swollen and stiff, all right, but it ain’t no fucking cricket.”

She went completely silent, and he frowned, trying to figure out why. His eyes widened. “Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes.”

“Shit. Sorry,moye dragotsennyy.” He needed to hang up the damn phone before he said anything else he didn’t mean to.

“You never told me what that meant.”

“Google it.”

“I tried, but I think I misspelled it or something.”

“It means ‘my precious.’”

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