Sneak Peek – Weko1 – Wesley Cooper (and a confession)

Day four of the 2016 NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing month (a worldwide writing challenge), and I’m not too far off the daily goal. In fact, I may be able to catch up tonight. Well, looking at the time – 12:26 a.m. – maybe not. But I’ll give it my best shot. It’s the weekend, I might be able to sleep in. 😀

Okay, confession time. A little over a year and a half ago, I got ‘glutened.’ Glutened is what happens when you think a food or supplement you think is safe to eat, so you don’t bother reading the label. But it isn’t safe because there’s a little surprise wheat in it.

So I had a bit of a tantrum. I won’t go into details because I blogged about it in The I.Q. of a Gnat (if you want to read it), but suffice it to say I’ve had trouble getting back on the gluten-free wagon since. I did try off and on for the rest of 2015 … but I’ve eaten whatever I’ve wanted this year.

It finally hit me a few weeks ago that this has most likely been a huge reason I’ve been so exhausted. I’ve blamed it on being up many nights with the baby, but that’s not it. Not all of it. I’ve been getting far less sleep than I am now – for most of the past eight years – and not been this tired.

I’d intended to just keep going until after the holidays. I mean, it’s just a couple of months and pies and breads are so much better with regular flour, right? But my ability to walk and breathe at the same time – my main symptom of gluten sensitivity (and maybe a wheat allergy) – has been getting worse. A lot worse. Like scary, lungs-burning-like-I-just-tried-to-run-a-mile worse. 

So I picked up a few gluten-free items tonight and I’m back on the wagon again. If I report that the extreme fatigue has improved over the next few weeks, please feel free to tell me ‘I told you so!’ if I ever get stupid like this again.

And now for the sneak peek. Just keep in mind that at the moment, Wesley still has a lot of growing up to do. 🙂

~~~~~

“You owe me, Wes,” Chase said, his voice low. Wesley pressed the phone closer to his ear. “I’m stuck doing a 5k run because you thought signing me up was fun. Now I’m cashing in my twin card.”

The whole twin card thing was getting old, he thought, flopping down onto the edge of his bed. They’d been ‘trading’ it since they were kids. If one of them took advantage of the fact that they were identical, though only in looks, then the other had to do whatever the ‘victim’ decided was fair retribution.

“Dating Brenda’s cousin for two months is asking a little much, don’t you think?”

“I’m going to be running my butt off for the next eight months to get in shape for that marathon next spring, baby brother, so no. I don’t think eight weeks of your time is asking too much.” Yeah, maybe the marathon was going a little too far, he admitted, but only to himself. He’d gotten a lot of laughs out of it though.

“So why can’t this chick get her own dates? Does she look like Frankenstein? Or Frankenstein’s curvy sister?” Because usually, when friends or family badgered him into something like this, the girl wasn’t anything to write home about. And more often than not, she had a weight problem.

“I’m guessing it’s a weight thing,” Chase admitted reluctantly. “Brenda did say she was a really pretty girl.”

“And what’s this girl’s name?”

“Lainey.”

“Last name?”

“No clue. She’s only referred to her as Lainey. So are you going to do it?”

“How many dates?”

“I don’t know. Maybe once a week. We’ll have to take her out and Brenda doesn’t want her feeling like a third wheel. But you have to be nice to her, Wes.”

“How nice?”

“Well, we don’t expect you to marry her so not that nice. But not rude.”

“Okay, fine.” Until they renegotiated the twin card, he didn’t really have any choice. Fair was fair. But they were going to discuss this at the first opportunity. “Will that square us up then?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. I’ll still have six months of running after she goes back to Ohio.”

“Whatever. But don’t push your luck.”

As soon as they ended the call, Wesley opened Facebook, found Brenda’s account and started going through her friends’ list. There was no Lainey, Lainy, Lainie, or any other form of the name he could think of. There was, however, an Elaine. And Elaine was listed as a cousin. A cousin who definitely didn’t wear clothes in single digit sizes.

Wesley sighed. Yeah. Maybe it was time to put an end to the twin card.

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com