Page 22 of My Grumpy Sweetheart
“Okay, I’ll prepare the filling. It’s probably better that way because I have plenty of experience at being filled.”
He started coughing, and I couldn’t contain the giggle.
His cheeks were bright red, and he had this look again. Fire in his eyes, a dark murdery expression, and yeah… that was doing things to my insides.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I was a lunatic.
But a cute one — he’d see.
Not wanting to stress him out too much, I actually got to work by peeling the apples. All the apples. A never-ending amount of apples… okay. Seven. I peeled seven apples, but it seemed like a never-ending amount because I fucking hated peeling anything. I even cooked all my potatoes with the skin because I hated peeling stuff so much.
I snagged a strip of the peel, shoved it in my mouth, and started munching away, humming happily because even the little bit of actual apple I got like this were juicy and incredibly tasty. A little sweet, a little sour, crisp. Basically, I was in heaven.
“Are you seriously eating the peel?”
“Did your mom never tell you that most of the vitamins are in or directly under the peel?” I asked, popping another bit into my mouth.
Dakota just shook his head, glaring at the peel as if it’d done something to personally offend him.
“A – I’m pretty sure that’s just an excuse parents tell their children to get out of having to peel their fruit, and B – my mom was more theif you haven’t eaten your dinner by the time your dad is home, he’ll show you not to disrespect metype of parent. She didn’t need to make excuses for not peeling my apples because the threat of my dad beating me with the wooden cloth hanger was pretty effective.”
I stared at him in horror, mouth wide open, my heart stuttering in my chest at the casual way he’d just dropped that bomb of abuse on me without a second thought while he didn’t even stop weighing the flour as if nothing had happened and this was just a conversational topic.
A couple seconds went by, and I was still trying to come up with something to say becauseThat’s horrible, while certainly true, wasn’t the right thing to say, butI’m so sorrydidn’t sound right to me, either.
Finally, he looked up from his bowl of flour and ice-cold butter. His eyes met mine, and I saw the exact moment he realized what he’d just said. Within the blink of an eye, his face was ashen, and he buried his hand in his hair, tugging hard.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice a little rough, “My friends are used to me saying stuff like that, and I wasn’t thinking…”
“It’s okay,” I said when it became obvious he wouldn’t finish the sentence. And it really was. It was a little fucked up, but my brain couldn’t get over the fact that he apparently felt as comfortable with me as he did with hisfriends. “After all, this is a date, and we’re supposed to get to know each other, so it’s alright.”
“I’m pretty sure that conversation is not first-date material,” Dakota grumbled, averting his eyes. Apparently, he needed something to do, at least it seemed that way when he started spooning ice water into his crust mix and kneading like his life depended on it.
“We’re old enough to decide on our own what first date material is. Do you want me to tell you something I usually wouldn’t say on a first date?”
That got his attention.
Good.
I started chopping up the apples while I was waiting for his answer.
“Fine,” he finally said. “Out with it.”
“Okay. Hmm…” I laughed, tipping my finger against my bottom lip as if I needed to think about it really hard. “Icouldtell you that I occasionally like to wear lingerie — like silky panties and stuff? — but I’ve totally told that on a first date before. Or… ohh… I could tell you about an ex. Talking about exes on the first date is a no-go, right? But honestly, they’re all boring and in the end, it was always the same: they couldn’t handle me having more energy than most people or me being so cheery.”
“Douchebags,” Dakota grunted.
“Exactly,” I agreed, winking at him. “So… do you want to know more about lingerie or the one time my mom accidentally opened a package for me and came face to face with a purple, sparkly dragon cock?”
That shocked a laugh out of him, and I giggled.
“You… what?”
“It was the summer break before my senior year of college,” I began the embarrassing tale. “I was staying with my parents and was browsing one of my favorite fantasy-dildo sites when I came upon that one dragon cock that was different than all the others.”
“Because it sparkled?”
“Duh,” I said, waving with the knife in my hand. “I looked at it for a solid three days until I was running out of arguments not to buy it. So I ordered it, delivered to my parents’ house. Not a big deal, right? My name would be on the outside of the box, right? And they offered discreet packaging, so my mom wouldn’t have the first clue. Only… my mom had ordered a new hair dryer the same day as I’d ordered my dragon dildo, soo… One day I came home to an open box sitting on the kitchen table, the tip of the purple cock peeking out and an extremely flustered Mom who tried to explain that she hadn’t opened it on purpose and would never do anything like that again.”
