The ground was caving in. It was, in a sense. The ground may not have physically caved in or crumbled beneath his feet, but it may as well have. His legs were not supporting him, and he was knee deep in mud, slowly sinking further.
Jake cursed. This was one hell of a day.
First, he woke up with a sore back from the lumpy mattress he had to borrow from his parents after moving into his new house, which the power had yet to be turned on at. Then the plumbing at the house was shut off because the city was doing maintenance on his block. Following that he was called into work on his day off because they were having a crisis that only he could fix and the problem with the copy machine took hours to fix on top of that. To top it all off, now when he should be having a wonderful date with Jennifer at a lovely restraint or other normal date ideal, he had just found himself in quicksand-like mud during their hike in Jennifer’s parents’ estuary.
Jake was not sure how this day could get any worse.
“It’s just a bit of mud,” Jennifer told him with a giggle, wading through the mud toward him. “Here, I’ll pull you out and then we can take a nice warm shower together back at the house.”
“But won’t your parents be object?” Jake asked.
Jennifer shook her head.
“They won’t care. They like you and they don’t need to know what we do behind closed doors. As soon as I can move out, it’ll be plenty of just us time.”
Jake grinned at that. He was tempted to ask her to move in with him but knew better; she needed her own space for a while and their relationship was not that far along. A little bit of showering together was one thing but living together permanently was another. He knew she was not ready for that yet and needed time to figure out her own situation. Spending the night at his place soon would be the next goal, then potentially moving in together. Jake was looking forward to that proposal.
“Besides,” Jennifer cut off his inner thoughts with a devious grin. “They should have left the house by now. They’ve got a dinner party they’re going to that should keep them out of the house till late this evening.”
“You mean-” Jake started to say.
“We’ll have the place to ourselves all evening,” Jennifer finished for him. “So what do you want to do?”
Jake grinned back at her.