The look she sent him said she thought it was a stupid question.
“Yeah, all right,” he said, “but what were you going to do after that?”
She rolled her eyes.
He leaned against the counter. “Honey, if you think marital bliss will keep you busy for two straight weeks, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Just saying.”
She put her book on her lap with a thud. “I’m sitting beside a stocked bookcase, holding a novel. I planned on doing a lot of reading over the next two weeks.” She brought the book to her face again. “For someone who refused to father my baby, you have a one-track mind about the subject.”
“I…”Reading. All those meaningful gazes on her part had been about reading? Maybe hewasdeveloping a one-track mind. He glanced around the room. “You were just going to read for two weeks?”
“There’s a computer with some movies loaded on it, but I hadn’t planned on getting that out until the evening when the solar panels stop charging and the lights dim.”
He peered at the light fixtures on the ceiling. “Those stop working at nightfall?”
“We’ll still have battery power to run the important things. There are also board games in the hallway cupboard, but I don’t feel like playing. I’ve already played enough games with you.”
Fine. Reading it was then.
He strolled to the bookcase and scanned the titles. Tolkien. Austen. Sanderson. “I didn’t read these books when I was in school and actually had grades riding on it. Do you have anything besides the classics?”
“They’re notallclassics.”
Others were history, self-help, and survival. Some were religious. “Yeah, if I wanted to find edible berries, inner peace, or Jesus, I’d be set for the next two weeks.” He pulled out a book for a better look. Poetry. “Who chose these books?”
She snapped a glare at him. “I did. I figured my husband and I would have things in common, and he’d like the same kind of books I did.” She flipped a page. “Wrong again.”
He shut his eyes and dragged in a breath. “Can you please stop doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Stabbing me with your words every single sentence.”
“Stabbing?” she repeated.
“Yeah, and hatefully flipping your pages.” He put a hand to his chest. “It’s hurting my feelings.”
“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t promise not to hurt you.”
“That’s a stab.”
She huffed and flipped a page. “Why do you care what I think? I don’t matter to you.”
He shouldn’t care. But he did. “I think we should try and get along while we’re stuck here.”
She flipped another page. Hatefully.
He pointed at her. “You didn’t even have time to read that page. You turned it just to bother me.”
“If you want a better conversationalist, next time, don’t reject a woman, steal her stuff, and leave her handcuffed to the appliances.”
Yeah. Next time. He went and stood in front of her. “Look, you clearly want to hurt me, and I don’t blame you. But is there another way that wouldn’t involve a two-week-long tongue-lashing and guilt trip—something quicker and less emotionally draining? How about we wrestle, and you can take out your aggression that way?”
She blinked at him in disbelief. “You want to wrestle? You’re taller, stronger, and trained. That wouldn’t exactly be a fair fight.”
“True, but I was recently stabbed by a raider, so that gives me a handicap.”
She straightened and her eyes went wide. “You were stabbed? Where?”