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“Seven-thirty.” She repeats like she’s never heard of that time. Maybe she’s never been awake to see it. “It feels like it should be later. I’ve been awake for hours. I even tried communicating telepathically with you but I don’t see donuts in your hands so I guess we need more practice. Here, read my mind.” She furrows her brows.
“Um.” I rub my chin pretending to read her mind. “You want a donut?”
“Ah!” She pokes a finger at my chest. “It does work! You just chose not to bring me one.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I apologize. Next time I’ll buy you a dozen.”
She beams. “If you insist.” She grabs her purse from the side table, turns off the TV, and pushes out into the hall. “You know, it’s like a whole new world without technology. I feel so alive. Like life is more vibrant.”
“Weren’t you using the TV?”
“I was using it to block out my thoughts while I worked.”
“You were working in there? Who got a fresh cut, the fake flowers or the curtains?”
“For your information, I’m good at a lot of things besides cutting hair. And I had to pick up a new hobby, since my last one…” Her voice trails off.
Because her last one became a murder weapon? That is quite unfortunate.
“But I didn’t have much to work with and my neighbor was making these weird grunting noises.”
I clear my throat.
“So, I learned kung fu from a fitness channel on the TV.” She slices a hand through the air, barely missing a sconce.
I’ve never seen a kung fu class broadcast on TV. “And what did you learn?”
“That I’m excellent at karate.”
I stop walking before I get smacked in the chest by her wild arms. “I thought you were learning kung fu.”
“Same difference.”
Not at all.
“So…” I pull her phone out of my back pocket. “Since you enjoyed your technology-free morning, should we toss this?” I hold it over the trash.
“Don’t you dare.” She lunges for it, but I anticipate as much and spin around, keeping the phone out of reach and hitting the elevator button.
She pulls a hand back by her ear. “Don’t make me do it. Don’t make me render you speechless with the Wuxi Finger hold.” She wiggles her pinky finger in the air.
I grin at her seriousness. “Wait, what fitness channel was this? And were the characters possibly animated?”
“Kung Fu Panda is a classic!” she yells, and then launches her body into my chest, latching on like an octopus with way too many arms.
I stagger back trying to maintain my balance. I did not predict that, and I am surprisingly speechless. Because I like this, more than I should. But I also like that I never seem to know what this woman will do. It only makes me want to stick around to witness it all.
Her fingers dig into my armpits and I jump, slinging an arm around her back before I accidentally drop her to the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Tickling you.”
Her sharp claws are doing the very opposite. “You’re not very good at it,” I grimace as I get another poke to the armpit.
“I’m an excellent tickler, you’re just not ticklish.”
I have the strange urge to find out if she is and before I can stop myself, my fingers find her ribcage. She instantly shrieks and tries to get out of my arms by climbing up my body like a monkey. Her foot connects with my groin and the blazing pain takes control of my body. I drop both of us to the ground in a heap of limbs.
I groan and roll to the side, finding a pair of pink slippers an inch from my nose. I glance up at an older woman, holding a matching pink bathrobe in place and looking rather amused.