Chapter 4

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Feeding my baby girl.”

“Big baby,” Carmen said.

“That she is.”

“I’m almost there. You ready?”

“All but clothes. Oops.”

“What?”

I didn’t feel like telling Carmen the refrigerator had just seen my dick. “Brr.” Maybe the towel had been more about warmth than modesty, anyway.

“‘Brr?’ It’s like summer out here, Nero, warm enough for crocuses to come up. I love spring.”

“Technically, the plants would have been up a while now—leaves and stems.” I’d Googled “Growing crocuses” on my way to the shower. “The buds needed more warmth to open. Once they did, the yellow was obviously way harder to miss.”

“True.”

“Though I can’t help but wonder if I at least wouldn’t have noticed the bright green stems in the snow.”

“Did you? Some of them are places you go every day, like work.”

“I did not.”