Neanderthal Seeks Extra Yarns (Knitting in the City Book 8)

by Penny Reid

  Nico stirred and crossed the space with measured steps until he was just inches from me, his attention focused on the linoleum floor. “I said goodbye to him a month before the funeral. And the hardest thing for me after he died…” Nico paused, then met my gaze, his voice softening. His eyes lost focus even as they moved over my face; it was as though he was seeing a memory of me rather than as I was now. “The hardest part was watching you trying to deal with it.”

  I opened my mouth to respond but didn’t know what to say.

  He was still scrutinizing me but his expression gave away nothing tangible of his own feelings as he continued, “The irony is, I could have saved myself a world of hurt if I’d just walked away from you after the funeral, like you did to me at the end of the summer.”

  I flinched and my mouth snapped shut.

  His voice remained steady but his eyes burned with unveiled emotion. The precise emotion was unclear but I couldn’t have felt the general sentiment with any greater vehemence had he been screaming.

  “Why did you do it?” The restless energy returned and I realized that he hadn’t been tired earlier, he’d been controlling himself. “At what point did you decide?”

  Beginnings of confounding tears gathered behind my eyes. I didn’t feel justified trying to defend myself, so I met his glare as bravely as I could and decided to just listen. When it became clear to him I wasn’t going to respond, he took a half step back, and a frustrated sounding laugh emerged from his chest.

  “There you are!” Sandra’s voice, then hand on my arm, pulled me away from Nico’s angry expression. The rescue was not a moment too soon. His eyes were a black hole and I felt myself being stretched until I thought I would break.

  I blinked at her, at the entryway, at life in general. I blinked against the creeping and tight feeling in my middle. I blinked against the burning sensation of Nico’s stare where, I was certain, it still moved over my face.

  I gripped her hand like a lifeline. “Here I am!” I hoped she read the SOS clearly on my features.

  “I was looking for you. I wondered if…” She glanced between me and Nico, her pleasant expression becoming somewhat perplexed, but no less pleasant. “I wondered if you would—”

  “Yes! I do- let’s dance.” I nodded.

  She released a breathy laugh. “No- I meant, Micah and I—”

  “Mmm—” I interrupted her,. “Mmm- yes, I’ll dance with you guys..” I swallowed the last of my helplessness and turned, grabbing Sandra’s hand.

  However, before I could complete my escape, Nico stepped in my path.

  “Wait—”

  My heart continued to thump, picking up pace with his words. I fought against closing my eyes, covering my ears, and singing Mary Had a Little Lamb, la la la, I can’t hear you.

  I settled for not meeting his gaze as he continued, “Before you leave, I promised my mom—I promised Rose—I would invite you to breakfast at the restaurant tomorrow. Obviously, you’re both invited.”

  Again, Sandra and I spoke at the same time.

  Me: “Oh, no—we need to get an early start back…”

  Her: “Oh! Yes, we would love to. We don’t have to be back ’til late. What time should we be there?”

  I cringed, noting that she was smiling.

  As though I hadn’t spoken at all, Nico addressed Sandra, “That’s great. I’ll tell her to expect you both around, say, ten?”

  I didn’t even attempt to contradict but instead allowed Sandra to nod vigorously, “Yeah. Yes, we’ll be there at ten.”

  “Good,” he said. I felt him hesitate for a moment before taking a step back and out of my path. “See you then.”

  Sandra beamed at him, and I led her by the hand in the direction of Micah. He was waiting for her by the large double doors.

  “You can loosen your grip on my hand now—before you break something.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I immediately released Sandra’s hand and rubbed my suddenly sweaty palm against my skirt.

  “What did I interrupt between you two?”

  “What? Nothing! Nothing is going on.” The words were a little too loud, a little too fast, and way too false.

  “Riiiight. Anyway…” Sandra leaned closer to my ear. “Micah wanted to get out of here and get a drink. I was thinking of going with him, but that was before I knew you were trying to escape naughty Nico. I’ll just blow off Micah and we can—”

  I shook my head. “No, you should go. I’m good. I’ll just head back to the house and take advantage of this very rare sleep opportunity.”

  Sandra wrinkled her nose and brought us to a halt. “I’m staying with you. I came here to—”

  “You came with me to see the world’s largest trucker stop and I couldn’t even make that happen. Go with Micah. I’m just going to go to sleep when I get home.”

  She wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure?”

  I could tell she didn’t believe me so I decided to yawn for good measure. “Yeah”—big yawn—“yes! Now go and have a good time.”

  Sandra reached for and squeezed my hand. She gave me one last scrutinizing gaze before leaving me to join Micah.

  As soon as she turned, I bolted for the door, not wanting to give her an opportunity to change her mind, not wanting to interact with any more of my high school acquaintances, and not wanting to chance another Nico interaction.

  Deleted Scene: Hunting an Elk

  Author’s Note: This was one of the first scenes I wrote for the book and was based on a real-life incident/moment shared between me and my husband. Several scenes in my books are based on actual conversations and events. When something funny happens, or a situation I find particularly interesting, I write it down, describe it for later use.

  I couldn’t find a place for this short scene in the finished novel, so it was cut. This scene has never been shared.

  WE SAT AT the small green speckled table and eyeballed each other over weak tea, neither of us willing to speak first. The silence was deafening until I noticed an unusual sound emanating from the man at an adjacent table. At first it was just a throat clearing; however, after a time, I heard the definition of heavy breathing. Actually, it was halfway between a grunt and a sigh, a sound made through a closed mouth and flaring nostrils. It was distressing and disturbing and, as I linked eyes with Nico, incredibly funny for some reason.

  And just like that, the awkwardness between us was replaced with shared hilarity and we were both suddenly immature sixteen year-olds again.

  Eyes twinkling—because when were they not twinkling?—Nico covered the bottom half of his face with his palm and stared at me, his shoulders shaking subtly. I couldn’t look away from him, but I did shake my head, my lips mashed together so I wouldn’t laugh.

  Luckily, less than a minute later, the man stood from his table to leave. Unluckily, he pulled three previously unseen cats on a leashes from his expansive trench coat and placed them on the ground.

  Three. Three cats. On leashes!

  My mouth dropped open and I shared a wide-eyed stare with Nico. He’d stopped laughing, his jaw now slackened with astonishment and confusion. Meanwhile, the man with the flaring nostrils and three leased cats sneezed. And then he sneezed again.

  But back to the cats. Have you ever seen a cat on a leash? Have you ever seen three all together? And not cats who are accustomed to leashes, but pissed off cats who clearly feel a mortified loss of dignity by being leashed in public. Well, these cats were the latter, and they moaned, growled, and groaned all the way to the door, having to be pulled most of the way out by their body harnesses.

  I heard another three sneezes as the door swung shut behind the man and his cats, and I realized why he’d been breathing so strangely: he was allergic to cats.

  A short laugh burst from me followed by a much longer and deeper one. Soon, I was holding my belly and tears were streaming down my face. My jaw hurt.

  “What was that? What did I just see?” Nico was wiping at his eyes fruitlessly.


  “I have no idea. I don’t understand what just happened. Three cats!”

  “On leashes!” His eyes moved over me and he shook his head. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Clearly he needed medical attention.” His reprimand was ruined by his continued laughter.

  “What he needs is a neti pot, an allergy pill, and an improved sense of situational awareness.”

  That statement just made Nico laugh harder, his eyes scrunching up until he closed them. He waved a hand at me. “Stop. Stop. I can’t breathe.”

  “You know,” I sniffed, breathing out, “he’s probably taking care of the cats for someone else. Maybe they belong to his kid and he’s cat-sitting.”

  Twinkling eyes regarded me, his laughter tapering. “Or maybe he grooms cats for that cat beauty contest in Bucharest that Janie keeps mentioning.”

  “And he’s really good at it, his cats always win,” I continued the fiction.

  “But the tragedy is that he’s allergic to cats.”

  “—allergic to cats,” I finished with Nico, my smile uncalibrated, my heart oddly full and warm and abruptly picking up pace.

  Dammit. Because freaking Nico. So funny. So charming. So handsome. So good. So . . . handsome again.

  Who was I kidding? He was dreamy. He was effortlessly dreamy and he made my heart dance in my chest like a stripper who does it because she enjoys the work and not because of the money.

  “Jinx, you owe me a soda.” Nico leaned his elbows on the table, his gorgeous, mesmerizing eyes dropping to my mouth. “But I’ll let you have a sip of mine if you want.”

  Ahhh crapola.

  “I’ll have coffee.” I attempted to shrug, but it didn’t exactly work out for me. Instead, it was a weird, ungraceful movement because I was trying to shake the Nico-fueled haziness that was settling around me, the tunnel vision where all I saw was him and his too handsome face.

  “Mmm, I could go for coffee,” he said, leaning closer, his voice somehow deeper, as though implying something other than a preference for coffee.

  It flustered me. He flustered me a whole hell—er, heck of a lot.

  And so I cleared my throat, trying to sound totally normal as I said, “Be careful, though. The last time I was here, the coffee was hot as helk.”

  . . . helk? What is helk? I grimaced, hopeful he hadn’t caught the fumbled word.

  No such luck.

  “Did you just say ‘helk?’” He lifted an eyebrow, giving me an amused look.

  “Yes. Yes, I did.” I picked up my menu, ignoring the heat rising up my neck.

  “What does helk mean?”

  “Well,” I lifted my eyes to the ceiling, successfully fighting off the blush of embarrassment by admitting the truth, “I was going for hell but then decided to switch to heck midstream and ended up with helk. Janie has been after me to cuss less.”

  Nico’s smile was slow and beguilingly lopsided, his gaze seeming to heat as he inspected my face, as though something I’d said had been exceedingly alluring . . . or naughty. “I like it. I’m going to start using it.”

  “Go for it.” I glanced at the lunch specials, once again battling a blush, but this one was not due to embarrassment. This one was of the WHY DOES HE HAVE TO BE SO FREAKING SEXY ALL THE TIME??? variety.

  Then he added, “But only in the context of hunting an elk.”

  My eyes flew to his, another uncalibrated smile tugging at the corners of my mouth because his comment had caught me off guard. “Use it in a sentence.”

  “Ok, like this, ‘This is the shittiest helking trip ever.’”

  Once again, I busted out laughing. But this time I had the wherewithal to hide behind the menu, and I was careful not to look at him again while I laughed, not until I’d regained my composure. We’d laughed together too much, enjoyed each other’s wit and words and company too much.

  It couldn’t continue.

  I wouldn’t let it.

  I wouldn’t.

  Deleted Scene: Nico calls Elizabeth on her shit. . .

  Author’s Note: I found this scene in a random document that I had no idea (or recollection) existed. It’s true what they say about the sophomore book, it’s the hardest to write. Nico and Elizabeth were/are very dear to my heart, but I had several versions of their conflict scenes written (this being one of them). This was likely because I wasn’t sure how to best achieve my goals for the book, write true to their voices, and give my readers a follow up worthy of Janie and Quinn’s story. I’d only written one book. Therefore, I was definitely no expert. This short scene has never been shared.

  “THE PROBLEM, ELIZABETH, is not that you have changed. The problem is that you haven’t changed. You are exactly the same, except perhaps a little more vocal and free with your thoughts. You christen your insults by calling them honesty. But they’re still based on the immature musings of a sixteen year-old brain. You basically stopped all mental development when Garrett died.”

  I flinched and felt his words acutely, like a sucker punch.

  He either didn’t notice or care about the impact of his tirade and continued without drawing breath. “While I was working under the assumption that you were the same person as before just older, wiser, more mature, the truth is—”

  I snorted. Rolled my eyes. Then immediately regretted the instinctual reaction as I realized I’d just made his point.

  “—the truth is that you haven’t grown at all. And worse than that, you are so infuriatingly stubborn that you can’t admit there is anything wrong with behaving like a teenager.”

  “I act like a teenager? I do?” I couldn’t help the pitch and crack of my voice as I pushed against his chest. “Hello, pot. I’m kettle. You are completely full of shit. You might want to put a lid on that.”

  “How does your precious truth feel? I know how much you like to keep it real.”

  “You are the one with a TV show where women dance around in underwear—”

  “Bathing suits.”

  “—Whatever! They might as well be wearing nothing! And I’m the one who saves lives for a living.”

  He nodded slowly, his eyes spitting lava. “Kind of frightening, isn’t it? You aren’t even capable of dating someone you actually like, you’ve only ever had sex with someone as a form of recreation, you play practical jokes in a hospital and think that’s ok, you have no appreciation for culture, art, beauty, or depth of feeling, and yet the citizens of Chicago are entrusting you with their wellbeing.”

  “You are a fucking asshole!”

  “And you are incapable of engaging in a conversation without using obscene language.”

  I wanted to cuss at him again. Instead, I literally bit my tongue and held my breath. I waited a beat. We stood less than a foot apart, having gravitated into each other’s personal space as our voices rose. I was so mad. I was insanely furious. I felt in that moment that I hated him. And I fought with every stubborn inch of resolve against recognizing the truth in his words.

  When I felt more confident that the next words out of my mouth wouldn’t be a string of obscenities, I released the breath I’d been holding and notched my chin upward, trying to display pride I didn’t actually feel. “If I am so awful then what does that say about you?”

  His eyes moved between mine and the fury morphed into a palatable sadness. He released a shaky breath and glanced over my shoulder.

  “I didn’t— you’re not awful.” He shook his head, his forehead creasing, he looked frustrated. “You’re stuck.”

  My resolve wavered at the sight of his sadness and my heart thumped painfully. God, how I loved him. But how could I admit it? How could I tell him?

  Despite my intentions to keep quiet, I found myself saying before I could catch the words, “For the record, there was one time when it wasn’t for recreation.”

  “What?” His eyes came back to me, confused.

  “You said, earlier, that I’ve only ever had sex as recreation.” I waited for recollection to flicker over his expression before I con
tinued. “There was one time when it wasn’t recreation.”

  He held my stare. Our gazes tangled. I was again caught in the thorny vines. And I knew this time one of us was going to have to draw blood.

  Scene: Friends Most-Definitely-With Benefits

  (CANON)

  Author’s Note: Dear Reader, These scenes take place three days immediately after the bachelorette party in Neanderthal Marries Human, and were originally included in the limited release, Scenes from the City.

  I MUST’VE READ the note over a hundred times. Sometimes I would laugh, sometimes I would ball it up and throw it across whatever room I was in, sometimes I would sit silently and…try to remember.

  Dearest Wife,

  Now we don’t have to worry about setting a date. You’re welcome.

  Your Husband, Nico

  I’d missed my own wedding.

  Three days had passed; and every time I called my husband he’d answer, pretend there was static on the line, and hang up after telling me he loved me. That was my reality.

  Freaking Nico!

  But, damn it, I’d missed my own wedding! I’d missed Nico looking into my eyes and saying he loved me and vowing that we’d be together forever. I didn’t even know if I’d promised to obey him…. I hoped that I hadn’t because that was a promise I was incapable of keeping.

  Regardless, any promises made while under the influence of Sandra’s Amsterdam Absinthe and Ashley’s moonshine—supplied by one of her brothers who, of course, was named Cletus—could hardly be considered binding.

  Except that big one.

  You know, that big promise where we were now married by Elvis and I was Mrs. Manganiello (despite the fact that I still couldn’t pronounce the name).

  “When did that happen?”

  I blinked twice, bringing Dr. Ken Miles into focus.

  “What?”

  “You’re married?” he asked, his eyes moving between the rings on my finger and my face.