Pumping the Breaks 

Chapter 13

[ Summary: Theo returns to Odette's house in poor spirits that even his friend's growing curves can't seem to help. Then, he sees Odette. . .]

Theo

Theo’s eyes were drawn over the dashboard of Pari’s car to the edge of the Fresh Farmer parking lot where a mobile home’s worth of ambulance coasted gracefully in his direction. The lights weren’t on. No sirens blared. It was its sheer size that turned it into a spectacle, its vast white front with modern green lines for accents.

He welcomed the distraction as it approached from the right hand side. The events of Fresh Farmers earlier had left him feeling disjointed; incongruous, like the puzzle piece kicked under the couch, unfound for years, surviving even after the rest of the puzzle was discarded for “missing its last piece”.

And if he was that piece, then he regarded that last moment with Odette as the rest of the puzzle: the image of her body cast onto the cold, gray floor of the grocery store, small and alone, barely recognizable compared to the confident, cheery Odette that had disappeared into the crowd only minutes prior.

A near perfect image tossed aside by uncaring circumstances of. . .

“Stop it, Theo,” he scolded himself. As much as Odette praised him for his brains, he sure wished he could turn off the poetic waxing it did when he felt blue. “If I can annoy myself this much, I can only imagine how it comes off in front of the girls. . .”

One more thing he needed to apologize for.

One more thing to add to his list of things to brood over.

The ambulance drew closer, so big that it occupied both lanes, coasting as it gently swerved back and forth at no more than ten miles an hour. He wondered what kind of person could command such a roaring beast—he didn’t even know ambulances came so big. It looked more like a motorhome or RV.

And when he glanced up at the window on the driver’s side of the ambulance to identify the EMT behind the wheel, he threw his body over the steering wheel to get a second glance. The driver was a total cutie. Blonde hair, big eyes, a tense grin on her face, grim but bearing with whatever it was she was going through.

And. . . familiar. Theo knew the driver.

It hadn’t been an EMT.

It was Odette.

“The heck. . .” Theo muttered, his head craning around as the hulking vehicle passed in front of where he was parked.

At its moderate speed, he had several seconds to stare and question and wonder. Then, it pulled away, and he found himself looking in the side mirrors in hopes of seeing more than the reflection of the glass it was angled toward.

Then, after gawking so openly, he checked the cars parked beside him to see who had witnessed his apparent interest in EMS vehicles before slumping back in the driver’s seat to interrogate himself.

Was that an ambulance?

“That was an ambulance. . .”

And was there a blonde woman driving it?

“That was a really cute blonde. . .”

Did you happen to recognize the blonde woman?

“Odette Holiday was. . . driving an ambulance. An ambulance? Y-Yea. A huge ambulance—around the Fresh Farmer parking lot”

No further questions, your honor. . .

“Impossible. . .”

Theo consulted his anxiety, too. According to it, Odette was still frozen in time, still in the frozen food aisle inside the store. He could still hear a hiccuping sob coming from her. Could see the fluorescent lights washing out her golden hair, making it look white and stringy. He could see her body; the way it had. . . changed.

Changed.

Then, like time had suddenly leaped forward, he’d seen her again, just now, driving without a license. He looked up at the rear view mirror just as the left side of the ambulance passed opposite where he’d parked on the far side of Fresh Farmers. He followed the green streaked siding till it disappeared behind the wall of the building where he presumed there was a loading dock, unused pallets, and dumpsters.

“She’s safe. . .” he said. His head rolled back, shoulders sinking low. “And better than ever, apparently—. . .”

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzzzt!

His phone was vibrating. Theo fetched it from the cup holder and saw, “Neveah <3” on the caller ID. Pari. The perfect person to explain how Odette had gone from where she was in his head to where she was just sixty seconds ago.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get a chance to ask Pari for a debriefing because Pari already knew what she was going to tell him:

“Theo? Hey. I just wanted to tell you to meet us back at the house. We’ll be there shortly. Amanda said she would ride with you. She should be walking to you now. Hmm? Odette? She’s fine, too. Thank you for texting me when you did. We’ll chat soon. See you!”

Click.

Moments later, Amanda knocked on the passenger window of the car with a buggy full of groceries—the ones Theo had abandoned when he dove through the crowds to find Odette when she didn’t answer his phone calls. He jumped from the driver’s seat, helped Amanda load the bags into the backseat, cranked up, and drove them both to Odette’s house where he helped unload and unbag everything.

Just as it had taken minutes for everything to devolve into chaos in minutes, it was taking minutes for Theo’s friends to bind up every loose end and return back to schedule.

He remained quiet throughout, following orders, being compliant. He liked it that way, more actions than words. But the fact that the women in his life were so efficient in a realm where he was at a complete loss was both inspiring and discouraging.

And when Amanda returned from Pari’s room in a tank top and shorts and stringed and apron around her waist, Theo left her to begin cooking while he took his rat’s nest of emotions into the den to brood over them.

Minutes after collapsing into the center spot on the couch, he had a sense of being. . . off.

He theorized that the whole Fresh Farmer fiasco had something to do with it; the circus of not creeping Odette out while also having a good time, while also not having too much of a good time so he could remember to keep an eye on her, while also remembering to alert Neveah <3 aka Pari if his snooping resulted in anything worrisome.

He’d failed in every category: he’d lost track of Odette—gave up the track to her insistent begging, to be more accurate—and failed his snooping assignment by being too late to prevent what happened to her.

Oh, and he’d spent most of the trip just looking at her boobs, absolutely coming off as a creep in the process.

Complete and utter failure.

But beyond that was a broader sense of being “lesser”.

Out of his depth.

Like he was a lost puzzle piece, but one to a different puzzle entirely.

He’d been included into some of the things he felt left out of before, but no sooner than having been made apart, he scratched the surface on something he didn’t even have words to explain.

Had Odette stuffed bags of frozen chicken into her shirt? Was melting freezer ice the source of the small puddle he found her sitting in?

Would he believe that explanation even if Odette was the one to explain it to him?

Probably not.

But then, if he got no explanation, he’d once more feel like the younger sibling being dragged around by those older and more capable than him—a position he was grateful for, but one that cemented his identity as a misfit all the further.

After roughly half an hour of being lost in thought, he remembered hearing the garage door open and close. He heard familiar voices.

Pari.

Janet.

Odette.

Theirs were low, a few of them breaking off to go to Odette’s room. Pari passed in front of the den door, and went into the kitchen, striking up a conversation with Amanda, unaware or exceedingly compassionate toward Theo’s self-imposed exile.

Theo listened to their chattering at a distance, purposefully removed from it, only hearing bits and pieces and trying not to think too hard about what they might imply:

Warmth, tingles, reactions, bigger. . .

And. . . milk? Probably some ingredient he didn’t know went into the soup.

They were all on their same page—Amanda, Pari, then Janet later on. They always had been. Always seemed to be—just based on how they could so easily chat with one another.

It had never bothered him so much.

And it only did now because he could feel the conversation about his failings rubbing the inside of his belly raw, needing to come out. He wished someone would just pull him aside and demand of him what he knew he needed: a firm talking to. . .

Instead, he heard a cheery voice calling to him from outside the den yet another half hour later.

“Theo! Soups ready!” said Amanda, calling from the kitchen. “Come on before it gets cold.”

Theo stood from the couch and entered the kitchen without a word. Just before turning the corner, he paused, breathed deeply, and chanted “just get through it. Everything’s normal. They don’t think less of you so just. . . Just get by. It’s fine” at least ten times before appearing at the kitchen opening.

The kitchen stretched longer than it was wide, the refrigerator to the immediate left with lines of cabinets, a stove, and a pantry at the very back; renovated within the past decade, but chipped and stained and smudged enough to give off that it was used regularly.

Theo found Amanda’s at the stove, her right hand stirring the handle of a bamboo wooden spoon while she tugged at the apron she’d strung across the front of her body with her thumb. A pot of bubbling soup swirled at her behest, effort and care rising as a welcome fragrance, a magic that made Theo’s mouth water.

Unbidden emotion welled up in him. He sniffled. He saw the evidence of work on the counters and the promise of work to come stacked neatly in the sink in the form of unwashed dishes poking through sudsy water, and the orderliness of it all was so starkly different from how he’d felt for the past few hours that he felt gratitude moving him toward Amanda, eager to share his feelings with her.

He was about to compliment her. . . but stood awkwardly a few steps from the stove instead.

A compliment on how well she functioned in a kitchen would come across as rude.

Enthusiasm over soup was weird.

Showing his exposed seams would be oversharing. His friends had enough on their plates—at least as much as he had.

And he hadn’t even managed to do the one thing he set out to do by getting the groceries before something awful happened. . .

Theo said nothing.

He only sighed, defeated, gratitude tamped down manageably, neatly, so that the miracle of a hot fresh meal prepared by diligent, skillful hands was not but a monochrome malaise.

Amanda raised a spoonful of thick soup to her lips, tasted, and as she rolled the food over her tongue, she raised her eyes and found Theo watching her.

“Mmm,” she said, mouth occupied. “It’s good.”

“Looks good,” he said, abbreviated.

“Food emergency is ninety percent resolved, then.”

“Speaking of, how much do I owe? I, uh, said I’d pitch in.”

“Worry about it later.”

Her kindness stung a little. “Then c-can I help to make the ninety percent into one-hundred percent?”

“Hmm?”

“I-I’d like to be of help somehow. . .”

Amanda’s eyebrows rose as her lips dropped and bunched together; a thoughtful expression. “If you want to help, you can set out some bowls, napkins, and spoons. I have them laying over here.” Theo nodded as if to walk around Amanda, but she surprised him by spinning around with another spoonful of soup, adding, “Try it first. Does it need anything? I want it to be perfect—no getting up from the table for more salt or something.”

“I-I’m sure it’s—. . .”

“. . . but a second opinion.”

At the upward inflection of her voice, Theo took pause. He was a few steps into the kitchen, caught in the narrowness of the space with Amanda. As she neared and rose with the shallow, steamy soup in her spoon, he couldn’t figure out where he ought to be looking—the soup, the ceiling, Amanda herself.

Amanda herself. . .

Several hours enamored by Odette’s body had primed him inappropriately, and he lowered his gaze for a second before realizing his mistake and pushing away from Amanda’s invitation, his lower back crushed against the counter behind him.

Amanda stepped closer, head tilted, perfectly unbothered by his panic.

Theo leaned to his right, but stopped before it looked like he was running—because how offensive would running from her kindness look?

But Amanda persisted, and the longer it took for Theo not to taste the soup in her spoon, the more uncomfortable she seemed to look. She eventually used the hand that she held under the spoon to catch spilled soup to shift her apron again, her gaze unfocused as she worked.

Then, Theo’s attention fell to the shifting and he noticed them—two more reasons for feeling “lesser” when compared to the “grandness” of his four closest friends:

Breasts—not that he should have a pair, of course, but that they raised the bar of average attractiveness amongst their group of five to an intimidatingly high degree.

For example, Amanda’s chest, which jostled as her hooked thumb pulled out the apron from the side, caused her cleavage to slither momentarily, a magnet for Theo’s weary eyes. Captured in the window of the low apron and pushed up by the tank top she was wearing, he could see a wealth of cushy, inviting flesh and did so even with Amanda staring straight at him.

But had it only been lust causing the staring, shame would have risen up to overpower it—he was certain.

There was something else about Amanda’s body that beat out even the impression that his degeneracy was showing.

Why do they look so much. . . better than usual?

Not that she hadn’t always had fine breasts. Better than fine, actually. Suitably large, in-keeping with her frame; present without being distractingly large—which was a welcome break when he considered his friendships with Odette and Janet.

What a toxic thing to think, he thought.

But then, even as he jerked his eyes forcefully away to respect Amanda’s adjusting, the image of her body seemed seared into his mind, ever present even as he blinked.

She’d changed into one of Pari’s tank tops because her clothes were wet with something when she returned to the car in the Fresh Farmer lot. And behind the low scoop of what Theo would consider a casual day top, he found Amanda’s pink sphere’s overflowing as if pushed up by a well-padded bra. Her shifting the apron seemed to be a symptom of the fact that her tits looked several cup sizes larger than what was intended when the navy blue top was produced and sized.

He hated how detailed his snapshot had been. Even while admiring the cabinetry, he could still see how soft her breasts looked in the top, how they jiggled pleasantly as she pinched the side of her shirt, trying to pull the tightness of it away from her body. Their inability to cooperate had earned him a few seconds to appreciate how supple her skin was, to compare her size to that of cantaloupes, and to feel so bad for doing so that he all but froze when he realized what he was doing.

Then, Amanda groaned, and Theo felt a soft, wooden edge pressing into the side of his mouth.

“Taste,” Amanda insisted.

Theo, pressed on it, opened up and let his tongue be burned with the heat of soup fresh from the stovetop.

He didn’t stop his retreat this time, starting to pace urgently around the kitchen, his mouth open while blowing out puffs of air. Amanda laughed at his expense which, in fairness, he deserved. He was acting goofy.

And he hadn’t been able to control the compulsion to look at such pretty boobies.

But when he got past the scorched tongue, the soup brought him to a complete, wide-eyed stop. He swallowed, hands braced on the countertop a few feet away from where he’d started.

“That is amazing. I-I’ve never tasted chicken noodle soup that’s. . . sweet? It’s sweet, but not too sweet. Not sugary. But its savory, too?”

Amanda beamed proudly. “If you’re able to balance the fattiness of the broth and chicken, then a bit of sweetness actually adds to the dish. Little known fact, I know.”

“Whoa. . .” this time, he didn’t hold back the compliment. “You’re a fantastic chef, Amanda! How did you get this good?”

“I just like eating yummy food. . . as is evidenced by the size of my tits. . .” said Amanda, choking Theo on what remained of the soup in his throat with her reply. He gave a few wheezing breaths as Amanda continued. “Does that mean it’s fine the way it is? The soup, I mean?”

“Yes! Of course!” Theo paused to clear his throat. “Ch-Change nothing!”

Amanda snorted, like the exaggerated compliment was beyond her, but didn’t deny that she thought it was amazing. Instead, she turned back to the stove and removed the large, boiling pot from the heat, the glass topped stove’s glowing red eye exposed. When she was done, she went straight back to pulling out her apron.

“God—. . . You girls are killing me today,” she groaned.

And since nobody else was around, Theo assumed that he was being addressed with the complaint. “Uh. . .”

“Oh, uh. I mean, I know Pari’s got a slender figure, so that’s probably it. I’ve got a lot more to fit into this top. . . but I didn’t think my chest was that much bigger than hers,” said Amanda, finding a stack of white, ceramic bowls and a roll of paper towels beside the oven and handing them to Theo. She kept talking like she thought he ought to consider the conversation ordinary. “And she’s taller than me, right? So I figured everything would balance out. But I feel like I’m giving everybody a strip tease, walking around like this. It’s like I’m bigger somehow. Should I have gotten something that would fit Odette instead?”

“Uh. . . huh?”

“Right?”

“R-Right. Wait. What’s right?”

“That they look bigger for some reason. . .”

To Amanda’s credit, she gestured to her breasts by drawing a circle around the front of them with a finger and shrugging. It was the least provocative way she could bring attention to their size.

But as she mentioned, they did look bigger, and her gesturing only served to make Theo more aware of that fact. When she got into the car earlier, shirt drying but still wet, he’d caught a glimpse of her whole body in his periphery, noting her curves in a way that, in retrospect, was entirely innocuous. He didn’t ask her about it—again, the trip was silent and uneventful—but he remembered thinking that she didn’t look injured or upset. Just thoughtful.

Standing in Odette’s kitchen, it was like he was standing in front of a different person. Amanda’s curves were supposed to be equally proportioned to her heavier, fluffier size: large breasts, but also wide hips and a substantial purchase of real estate in the mid-section. That balance had tipped fiercely in the direction of being top heavy. Her knockers were bulging under her arms and were bisected by the straps of the tank top because they were pressing so forcefully into them. She placed her palms on the sides of each and gave a press to them and the rising tide of cleavage bubbled up far higher than Theo had seen on her.

It was. . . quite hot seeing her so huge. He always saw Amanda as the group’s motherly type, particularly after today’s events, but something about seeing her huffing, puffing discomfort at how much her chest strained against a shirt and its confines was shifting his focus to an appreciation of her sex appeal.

“How could there be this much swelling? I didn’t spill that much of it on me. Maybe I need to tell. . .” Amanda mused, trailing off. She looked up when she heard the tinkling of the bowls she’d placed in Theo’s hands, his nerves causing him to tremble. “I’m. . . making you uncomfortable, aren’t I.”

Theo shook his head, unable to verbalize the truth:

Yes, he was uncomfortable.

Yes, Amanda’s titties looked way bigger.

And yes, her chest was now “that much bigger” than Pari’s.

He knew because he’d seen Pari’s chest in the exact same size tank top earlier and noted that, while Pari could fill it pleasantly, Amanda had a quad-boobs situation going on, her breasts developing muffin tops in their search to go onward and upward, beyond the confines of a smaller top.

Just imagining that she’d spent the past hour in the kitchen, slaving over a stove, in an outfit she felt was suffocating her as her breasts seemed to puff up bigger and bigger unexplainably. . .

Hot.

But also, not? It sounded uncomfortable, too. And maybe he would have simple pleasure at the idea if it were a nameless, faceless stranger. . . but this was Amanda.

He momentarily overcame the initial lust of seeing huge boobs in a tight shirt, swallowed hard—hard—and replied to her question.

“I guess it is a-a little uncomfortable? But it sounds like, if anybody deserves sympathy for being uncomfortable, it’s probably you, Amanda. It, uh, doesn’t sound fun having to stand over a boiling pot of soup when your clothes aren’t cooperating.”

Amanda did the thing again with her eyebrows and lips; the brow going up and the lips going down, thoughtful.

“Hmm. . .”

Theo panicked. “Wh-What?”

“Good answer.”

“Wh-Why? Was I being tested?”

Amanda ceased her boob play. Without free hands to stop her, she gave the top of his head a few patronizingly pleasant pats. “Nothing! And hell yea, it sucks. I tried to put the apron on to help cover up, but the apron was made for Pari-sized people too, so now I just look like someone’s plus-sized bimbo housewife, prancing around a kitchen with my tits out.” She bopped her shoulders back and forth, batting her eyelashes to play the part.

“You’re not a bimbo, Amanda.”

“Tell that to my boobs, because they definitely feel more blown up than usual—. . .”

“Eeep!”

Theo jerked around. Something crashed to the ground behind him. The scream he recognized as Janet’s, though he hadn’t seen her in the kitchen and didn’t know how she could be screaming nearby.

He ditched the bowls on a counter and cautiously rushed to the back of the pantry, preparing himself mentally for the worst, more panicky than anything. However, when he stepped inside, he took in the scene of Janet on a step stool which was surrounded by three boxes of saltine crackers. Caught between her upwardly extended arms was yet another box—the only one she’d managed to save from the fall.

Theo went straight to work picking up the boxes. “Are you okay?” he asked, already presuming what her answer would be.

“Y-Y-Yes. I just, uh, couldn’t catch them all. They were really high up,” said Janet.

Amanda stepped in behind Theo. “Guess you found them. I didn’t think they’d that high up, but I guess Pari does the cooking and she wouldn’t have trouble reaching them.”

“They were stacked, too. And toward the back.” Janet pushed the box of saltines in her hand back onto the topmost shelf.

Unspoken, Theo began handing the boxes strewn across the floor to Janet, who returned them to their proper places. They did so effortlessly, Amanda pitching in as well.

Though, as Amanda bent down for a large, white box of saltine crackers—which Theo thought would taste amazing with the salty-sweet soup—Theo happened to catch her fixing her boobs again, stuffing them back into the tank top from where they had spilled free after her bending over.

Huge, he thought. Almost as distracting as Janet’s or Odette’s, actually. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around how much bigger they seemed than before. . .

But then he saw something exceptionally pink and plump before it could be tucked away and he quickly busied himself with the last box of saltines. Somehow seeing more than what he’d already seen was too much.

However, he pulled away just in time to see that Janet was still stretched, reaching high above her head and flexing her fingers to push the box of crackers to the back of the shelf where it had originated from. This extension pulled the baggy t-shirt she was wearing higher and higher until a pair of comfy, gray cotton shorts were revealed.

He blushed immediately.

If Amanda was stuffing her tank top, then Janet’s hips and butt were devouring what should have been a casual, cozy pair of lounge shorts.

The shirt had to have belonged to Pari, which made sense given that Pari was several inches taller and broader than Janet. It explained how flowy and large it looked on her, even with Janet’s impressive chest.

But what explanation was there for the wedgie that so distinctly outlined each of Janet’s ass cheeks? Both Janet and Pari were wide-hipped women. Shouldn’t there have been more compatibility when it came to replacing her leggings for something baggier?

Everyone’s changing into Pari’s clothes for some reason. What exactly happened between Pari showing up and everyone returning home?

He didn’t know and figured he never would—another one of those womanly areas he would always be kept at arm’s length from.

But he definitely felt he should know after almost running face first into the most gratuitously proportioned backside he had ever seen.

Theo jerked his head again. This time, instead of the cabinetry, he admired the well-organized nature of the pantry, the wide selection of healthy options, and the ample stock being kept up with. He even found a spice rack that looked more than adequately stocked despite how Amanda had invoked a state of emergency citing the lack of resources. Even with his extremely limited experience in the kitchen, Theo was confident he could make something out of what he saw in the vast walk-in pantry.

No chakalaka, though. . . he mentally noted.

But well-organized canned goods could only get him so far. Buzzing at the back of his brain was how both Janet’s cheeks drew her shorts across their spans like elastic, how her booty was more than a quarter exposed because there simply wasn’t enough material to keep them fully contained. At their widest, her cheeks were nearly as wide as Theo’s shoulders with thighs that were double the size of his own despite his advantage of height.

It was like Amanda but worse. . . or, erm, better? Where Amanda’s good boobs went to great boobs in Pari’s tank top, Janet’s great ass leaped to goddess status in Pari’s shorts.

Did Pari somehow purchase magic clothes or something? Theo wondered.

“Wasn’t there one more box?” Janet asked.

Theo quickly handed the box of saltines he’d held onto and obliged himself to leave the pantry, excusing himself as he shuffled around Amanda to re-enter the kitchen, not forgetting to look elsewhere while she shuffled her titty flesh around in her tank top once again.

Once he wasn’t in tight confines with his inordinately attractive friends, he breathed easily.

And with that easy breath, he could understand where his feeling of inadequacy came from:

How had he—someone who would rather spend hours rereading comics and manga or grinding world bosses in an MMORPG—stumbled into being surrounded by so many intimidatingly gorgeous women?

A position where he would always have to walk on eggshells.

A position where he would be presented with opportunity after opportunity but never with the confidence with which to take a shot.

A position where he would be forever stuck making the best friends he’d ever had feel awkward because of something out of his control yet within his responsibility.

“Oh my god, Janet—put that away? There’s a whole-ass moon out right now, girl!” Amanda yelled.

“Huh? Oh! Aww, n-no—. . . Eeep!”

“Pari didn’t have any bigger shorts? If not for the stitching and drawstring, those would straight up be panties on you. Seriously. I think I just saw the outline of. . . JANET! Stop bending like that, or—. . .”

“Kyah!~ You’re touching—. . .”

“Mmfh!”

Seemed he’d dodged a bullet.

Or maybe there was no bullet with him—the guy—involved.

Theo blushed then marched off. Maybe he was just imagining things. He thought they looked more curvy than usual—Amanda’s breasts more plump and Janet gaining at least ten pounds in just her lower half—but it would’ve been impossible for them to change size or shape so quickly. What wasn’t impossible was that he was unnecessarily and uncomfortably thirsty and that his inability to regulate himself made him hyper fixated on their curves. And in that case, he should take full responsibility by removing himself from the situation until he could calm down. . .

But he didn’t think he could. An hour in the den was supposed to decompress him and so far, his entire revelatory moment of clarity was in sympathizing with Amanda’s discomfort over having boobs that were entirely too big for the top she was wearing.

Pathetic. . .

The word came up time and time again—hundreds of times between his exiting the kitchen and reentering the den.

He could hardly stand the idea of being embarrassed like that—having to apologize to people who had done nothing but support and care for him, excusing his weirdness over and over, having to explain what he was doing in the first place when he found himself gawking shamelessly for seconds on end and having no good answer.

“Isolated” was a good word for what he was feeling. It hit it right on the head.

He sought it out as well, believing that being alone was more than merely a way to cleanse his compulsions, but a way of atoning for being so negligent with his privileged position.

Theo was already deciding that the den wasn’t quite far enough of a time out and had every intention of just getting in his car and driving home—an overreaction, but one he was too stressed out to not consider.

Then, he heard Odette’s voice, low and clear enough that he thought he’d made it up.

“Theo? That you? Hey, come here.”

She froze him in his tracks. Theo walked backward and peered into the den, finding Odette laying down with her legs up on the couch. She gestured widely with her arm, a low scooping “come hither” motion that made Theo’s chest hurt.

He didn’t want to get too close. . . but couldn’t just pretend to ignore her.

So he stepped down into the room and walked over to the couch while Odette sat up to give him some space, her feet still on the couch. He wasn’t there long before she smacked the couch cushion next to her with intention, insisting that he park himself. He did so, his left thigh inches from Odette’s ankle sock clad feet.

He couldn’t tell if praise or rebuke awaited him.

But if pleading guilty cut short the utter discomfort he’d felt since leaving Fresh Farmers, then he’d own up to every sin he thought he’d committed.

He didn’t look Odette in the eye. He simply sat, head lowered, resigned to the judgment he thought he deserved from her.

The silence between Odette and Theo was shattered when Theo heard a loud crunching sound and the rustle of a plastic bag.

Odette raised a fist full of orange-colored, cheesy animal crackers to her mouth, opened wide, and stuffed them behind her lips, cheeks puffed out as she chewed.

“These are good,” she said, matter-of-fact.

Not exactly where I thought this was going, thought Theo. Out loud, he said, “Yea? Uh, Cool.”

“Try some?” Odette pushed the box at Theo.

“W-Weren’t those supposed to go with the soup?”

Odette’s eyes shifted incredulously to some far off corner of the room. “. . .”

“Right. . .” said Theo.

“I had something to talk to you about. A few things, really. . . but first, eat.” Odette shook the box, shaking around the animal-shaped treats. Theo obliged and took a small handful, happy to have something to do with his hands. Odette waited until he was actually eating them to put the box away. “Okay. Now, for the important stuff. . .”

Theo’s heart sank.