33. The brother
33
THE brOTHER
HAZEL
The end of August oozed by, dragging with it a thick blanket of humidity. Construction was marching along at a fast clip. I had a roofing crew on top of the house, drywallers in the kitchen and on the second floor, and the Bishops everywhere.
Cam and I were excelling at pretending like we weren’t seeing each other naked regularly. We’d even taken a break from sex to grab dinner at a tourist-packed restaurant in Dominion after both agreeing it wasn’t a date. It was fuel for sex.
Best of all—despite the constant noise and interruptions—my words were flowing. I had the skeleton of an actual story and was making progress every day…thanks to all the naked inspiration my real-life hero was providing.
My heroine had just stepped out of the shower to discover her secret lover contractor locking the door. “I’ve got ten minutes to make you come before anyone notices I’m missing,” I typed gleefully as the hero dropped tool belt and trou.
Was there such a thing as too many sex scenes? According to my editor, yes. But real-life experience was proving that more was better. Way better.
I was pondering exactly how the hero was going to pleasure the heroine on the bathroom vanity when motion on the other side of my glass doors caught my eye.
I stripped off my headphones as Zoey strolled inside. “I’ve got news.”
I closed the lid of my laptop and left my characters unfulfilled.
“You need a chair in here,” she said with a frown.
“But then people will want to hang out in here where they’re not welcome.” I gave her a pointed and phony smile.
“Hey, you said you wanted to write until two. It is now four fifteen p.m.” she said, consulting her watch.
“Seriously?” I opened my laptop again and checked my word count. “Wow.”
“Making progress?” Zoey perched on the edge of my desk.
“Actually, yeah.”
“Good enough to send a few chapters to the publisher?”
“What? Why?” I demanded.
“Just think about it. I told your editor that you were working on something outside the Spring Gate series world, and she kind of may have freaked.”
I covered my face with my hands and moaned. “Zoey, why would you do that?”
“Because she was asking questions because…” The rest of her sentence was unintelligible, seeing as how she clamped her hand over her mouth before she said it.
“Say more words.”
“Because your editor ran into Jim at a cocktail party this weekend and he brought it up.”
“Why would he be talking to my editor about my book?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Because he’s a thieving bastard and was pumping her for thievy information?”
“So you told her I’m working on something new? Editors hate that, Zo. You know that. I have a contract to give them another Spring Gate book, not something new and untested.”
She winced. “I may have reacted defensively. But the good news is, once she sees a couple of chapters, she’s going to realize that you’re writing the best book of your career, and Jim’s head will explode.”
I dropped my unexploded head to my desk and thumped it.
Zoey patted my hair. “Just think about it.”
“I hate everything,” I muttered. All the good feelings from the day evaporated into a stinky, depressing mist.
“It’s a good thing I saved the good news for last.”
I picked my head off the desk. “This better be legitimately good news and not some bullshit-silver-lining-on-a-steaming-pile-of-turds news.”
She fanned herself. “I can only hope you’re committing these metaphors to the page.”
“Don’t make me have a burly construction worker throw you out of my house.”
Zoey triumphantly threw a lemon-yellow folder with a smiley face on the cover at me.
I opened it with suspicion. “This better not be a pity happy folder.”
“This is a legitimate happy folder, my friend. Starting off with the fact that your social media reach has tripled since you moved here. Granted, you were starting at basically invisible, but this is some serious growth in the right direction.”
“Okay. That’s not terrible.” I flipped to the next page.
“This is your newsletter opens. They’ve gone up too. Way up. But what I found really interesting is the fact that you’re getting replies. Dozens of them. Readers are connecting with this whole fresh-start, impulse-buying-a-house, small-town-life thing.”
“Huh. Well, Cam did say I’m living a fantasy,” I said.
“Oh, did he? When did the subject of fantasies come up? When you were picking out toilets?”
“Uhhhhh, what? No! It was just a comment. In passing. We were talking about closet space during the workday, and I was explaining what a fantasy storage is to people in Manhattan. Purely professional.”
I wasn’t used to keeping secrets from my best friend. My “nothing to see here” patter needed a bit of work.
She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re hiding something?”
“Maybe because you busted in here in the middle of a sex scene to tell me my editor isn’t happy, my ex-husband is sniffing around, and there’s a chance the publisher won’t accept this manuscript even if I manage to finish it.”
The best defense was always a good offense.
Zoey took a cleansing breath and let it out. “I’m sorry for reacting with a deep and abiding hate toward your shitbag ex-husband. But, Haze, sooner or later you’re going to have to show the publisher something. It’s smarter to do it now so we can make adjustments.”
“What adjustments, Zoey? I can’t write another Spring Gate book. It makes me physically ill to think about going back to that series when it doesn’t even belong to me anymore.”
“That’s not our only course of action. First of all, readers are already showing their interest in this story, so they’d be stupid to reject it. And if the publisher is stupid and they do reject your manuscript, we can get you out of your contract and find another publisher. Maybe one who doesn’t rub elbows with Fuckface McFuckington.”
“That could take months. And who in their right mind is going to want me? My last book was basically a flop, and I haven’t produced anything in two years.”
She reached over and squished my face in her hands. “You’re spiraling. Stop it. Nothing bad has happened. You’re writing, and your readers are paying attention. These are good things.”
I pulled my face free. “I need to go attack some weeds.”
“That’s the spirit. Go stab the crap out of some landscaping. You’ll feel better.”
My phone screen lit up at my elbow. Momzilla. “This day just keeps getting better and better,” I said, hitting Ignore.
“Maybe take some wine along for the dirt stabbing,” Zoey suggested. “Remember, you’re living a fantasy.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
My fantasy suddenly felt like a nightmare.
I skipped the wine and went straight to the weed murdering. The front yard was actually starting to take shape. The legitimate plants in the areas I’d already cleared were enjoying not being choked out and seemed to be blooming in excess. Maybe that was all they needed, a little room to grow.
The roofers were gone for the day and the drywallers packed it in shortly after. Right on the dot at 5:00 p.m., the Bishops marched outside.
I looked up from the prickly weed I was massacring with a hand shovel and watched the parade of handsome.
“Lookin’ good out here,” Gage called with a wink.
“That’s just what I was thinking,” I said, swiping an arm over my brow.
“Got dirt on your face,” Cam said with his trademark frown.
Levi just nodded and stared at me, his eyes intense.
“You closing up the store tonight?” Gage asked Cam.
“Yeah. Gonna grab a shower first,” he said before turning toward me. “We found where Bertha was getting in. There’s a broken window in the attic. We boarded it up, so you’ll have to feed her outside tonight.”
I shaded my eyes from the summer sun. “Are you sure you outsmarted her?”
“Trust me, your raccoon problem is over.”
“Care to put money on that?” I was flirting with him, but it was innocuous enough that I didn’t think anyone else would notice.
He grunted in response and glanced down at his phone. “See you tomorrow,” Cam said, without looking up from the device.
My phone pinged in my back pocket and I did my best to hide my smile. Cam and I didn’t see each other on nights that he closed the general store, but we did enjoy some racy texting.
“Forgot my keys inside,” Levi said, hooking his thumb toward the house as his brothers headed for their vehicles.
I waved goodbye and went back to attacking the weed of stabbage. “Come. On. You. Spiky. Son of a bitch!” My efforts were finally rewarded when the ground released the root, and I fell backward on my ass.
I lay there in the dirt and flowers and closed my eyes. If the universe wanted to humble me with a dirt bath, so be it.
I was just wondering how long it would take for my body to decompose when something strong and damp nudged my ankle.
Oink.
I opened one eye and found Rump Roast, the roaming pig, staring judgmentally at me. He had coarse wiry hair over spotted skin. His cornucopia-shaped ears twitched above tiny piggy eyes.
“Don’t judge me, Snorty MacGee. Like you don’t ever roll around in the dirt?” I grumbled.
Rump Roast snorted and then left a schnozz-shaped mud print on my shin before stomping over two azaleas on his way to the driveway.
My phone pinged again. On a grumble, I rolled onto my side and dug it out of my pocket. I opened one eye and squinted at the screen. I had two texts. One from Cam and one from Fucker McFuckerson.
My stomach dropped.
“Be brave,” I muttered to myself. I stabbed the screen and opened the message.
Jim: I heard you were writing something new. Do you really think it’s a good idea to break away from Spring Gate?
It took a considerable amount of restraint not to hurl the phone into the newly liberated azaleas.
“You narcissistic ass clown!” I bellowed.
A shadow fell over me, and I braced for a fish to the face. But instead of a badly behaved bald eagle, it was Levi.
Wordlessly, he offered me a hand, and I took it. He hauled me to my feet with ease.
“Want to get a drink?” he asked.
I couldn’t think of an unsuspicious way to decline without saying, “I’m sleeping with your brother.” Plus, I was curious. Levi Bishop was a vault, and if he was offering a peek inside that vault, I was absolutely going to take it. For research.
Also, I was still seething with rage over the nonconsensual contact with the man who had the gall to pretend he hadn’t screwed me over eight ways to Sunday. So alcohol sounded pretty damn good to me.
And that’s how I found my hastily showered self biking to Rusty’s Fish Hook thirty minutes later. I’d gone for “casual and breezy” in denim shorts and a blousy tank top. Of course, the six-minute ride in one thousand percent Pennsylvania humidity took casual and breezy and turned it into slovenly and drenched.
I locked my bike to a lamppost and took a second to sniff an armpit. “Well, that was a waste of a shower,” I grumbled.
Levi was waiting at the door, sunglasses on, arms crossed, looking more like a bouncer than my drinking companion when I took the ramp to the entrance. Judging from the manly soap scent wafting off him, he’d showered too. Did he think this was a date? Did an offer to go for drinks now constitute a date? Had I been off the dating market so long I no longer knew what was a date and what wasn’t?
What I had going with Cam was good. Really good. And I wasn’t interested in rocking that boat if it meant I’d have to return to self-administered orgasms.
“Hi,” I croaked.
He took off his sunglasses and looped them over his T-shirt. Those green eyes slid over me, and then he was wordlessly holding open the door for me. I swallowed audibly and stepped inside. The bar was decorated in what I’d call rustic lake life. The interior walls were done in stacked logs and stone. A gigantic canoe hung from the rafters, dividing the bar from the indoor dining room. The back wall of the place was all windows overlooking the deck and the lake beyond.
But the place, like the rest of Story Lake, was way emptier than it should have been on a sunny August afternoon.
“’Sup, Levi,” the middle-aged bartender with curly hair and a questionable mustache called.
“Hey, Rusty,” Levi responded and pointed in the direction of the deck.
“Grab a seat. Francie will find you.”
I followed Levi’s broad back through the door and out onto the covered deck. It had a similar setup to the bar in Dominion I’d visited with Laura. Shade and sun, an outdoor bar, and a killer water view. Though Story Lake wasn’t overflowing with Jet Skis and motorboats and the music was quieter. It felt more intimate, which was bad news for me.
Levi chose a table in the corner along the railing.
There were more people out here. They were all looking at us, including the wannabe journalist Garland, who was occupying a table with his laptop, cell phone, and voice recorder. I debated excusing myself to the restroom to text Cam and give him a heads-up that I might be on an accidental date with his brother.
“Something wrong?” Levi asked.
“Uh. No. Aren’t you worried people will see us here and think we’re on a date?” Cam had made it sound like being seen together would have earned us automatic entry into the ninth gate of hell.
“Nope.”
“You’re very succinct,” I complained.
That got me the tiniest twist of his mouth. “People’s opinions of me are none of my business.”
“That’s either a very healthy attitude to have or you’re some kind of sociopath.”
The twist got a little more pronounced. “Could go either way.”
A server with dark black curls fashioned into fun buns on top of her head strolled up to the table. She had a round face and blue sparkly fingernails that looked long enough to inhibit most daily activities.
“501!” she said to Levi, slamming her palm down on the table in front of him. “Long time no see.”
“Where is everyone tonight, Francie?” he asked.
She gave a little shrug. “Dominion’s throwing a ’90s theme night with a Nirvana cover band and fifty-cent wings. Stole our damn customers just like they steal everything else.”
“That sucks,” I said.
Francie’s face lit up. “Holy shit! You’re Hazel Hart, romance novelist extraordinaire.”
“More like ordinaire most days,” I joked.
She cocked her hip. “Well, the day I heard you moved here, I downloaded three of your books and devoured them. I heard you’re writing a story about our little town. How’s it coming? Do you need a spunky cocktail waitress slash nail technician for your storyline? Because, girl, I have stories.”
Levi looked like he was considering jumping in the lake. The guy was even less a fan of small talk than his brother.
“Wow. Well, thank you for reading my books…and for the offer. I’ll let you know if I need any inspiration.”
“Can I get a beer, Francie?” Levi asked before she could say anything else.
“Sure thing. The usual?”
“Yeah.”
I wanted a usual. And someone who knew it and would greet me with a cutesy nickname. Back in my bar-going days in Manhattan, there’d been too many places to visit, so I’d never found a watering hole home base. But here, anything was possible.
“Can I have a…?” The panic of choosing a drink that defined my personality to Francie froze my decision-making abilities.
“Here’s a drink menu.” She plucked a laminated page out of the napkin holder.
“Ah. Thanks.” I skimmed it, feeling the pressure.
Francie was tapping her pen against her notebook and looking over her shoulder at another table. Levi was meditating on the lake again.
For the love of God. Pick something, Hazel!
“I’ll have the Basskicker, please,” I said, pointing at the menu without reading the ingredients. How bad could it be? Alcohol was alcohol, right?
“You got it,” Francie said before disappearing.
Levi didn’t say anything, and I was too busy reeling from ordering something named after a species of fish to fill the dead air.
Thankfully, the drinks arrived in record time. Mine was greenish gray and foamy. It had a plastic fish tail secured to the rim.
“Been meaning to talk to you,” Levi said finally.
“About what?” I nearly launched across the table like I was conducting an interrogation. “I mean, you have?”
He rested his hand on his beer and squinted out over the shimmering lake, where two kayaks bobbed into view. I couldn’t tell if he was choosing his words carefully or if he hadn’t heard me. I was trying to decide if I should repeat myself at twice the volume when he looked at me, eyes sharp and focused.
“How did you know you wanted to write?”
I blinked and reflexively reached for my drink, pulled it closer. “Oh. Well, I guess it started with reading. I was always escaping into books as a kid. When I got a little older, I wanted to start telling my own stories. In college, I got more serious about it and took a bunch of creative writing classes. I was young and naive enough to think it wouldn’t be that hard to write an entire book.”
“Guess young, naive you was right,” he said.
I laughed. “Yeah. I guess so. I never thought of it that way. I didn’t let myself consider failure as an option.”
“What was it about the story that made you want to write the first book?” he asked.
“I caught my pseudo boyfriend and fellow creative writing major making out with another girl in his dorm room. And after plotting out several revenge scenarios with Zoey, I decided the best revenge would be to become a best-selling novelist who named shitty characters after the people who’d wronged me. I started writing the first draft that night. It never saw the light of day. Neither did the next two. But by the time I hit my mid-twenties, I’d figured out a few things.”
“You published your first novel when you were twenty-five,” he said.
Impressed, I picked up my drink. “You’ve done some research.”
He shrugged. “How long did it take you to write the first one that you sold?”
“Oh, gosh. Almost a year? I was working full-time as a bike messenger and part-time at whatever else paid the bills. I wrote between jobs and on breaks. But there was something about the potential of it all that made the writing feel like it wasn’t work.”
It felt like a long-forgotten daydream. Those stolen moments away from real life where anything could happen on the page and I was calling the shots.
“Do you ever see your story? Like, does it play in your head like you’re watching a movie?”
I cocked my head and looked at Levi. Really looked. “Are you a writer ?” I demanded.
He shrunk down in his chair, glancing around as if I’d accused him of being a baby panda puncher. “Keep it down.”
“Sorry. I was just excited. Is that what all this is about? You writing?” If Levi Bishop told me he was a closet romance writer, I would fall out of my chair and then get up and dance a jig with no previous jig-dancing experience.
Before he could deign to answer or squirm out of the interrogation, there was a commotion at the door.
Out strutted the Story Lake Warblers, dressed in red, white, and blue and holding Vote for Rump signs.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between, if we could have your attention, please,” Scooter said through cupped hands, which definitely wasn’t necessary considering there were only eight of us on the deck.
“Fuck me,” Levi muttered under his breath.
Scooter blew a note on his pitch pipe, and after a brief harmonization, the Warblers launched into a song.
“She knows our fish and knows our fowl
She’ll make bad guys throw in the towel
She’ll keep the peace after she’s won
Rump for chief, she’s number one!
Don’t be a chump
Vote for Rump!”
Everyone on the deck paused to gauge Levi’s reaction. On a long sigh, he put his hands together and applauded politely. Everyone else followed suit, and the Warblers breathed a sigh of relief.
“Sorry about this, Levi. She paid us to canvass the town,” Scooter said as the Warblers trooped off the deck.
Levi nodded.
I waited two whole seconds after the a cappella group disappeared before leaning in. “Back to this writing thing. Tell me everything. And don’t leave out the part where it took you this long to bring it up to me and why you look like you’d rather jump over the railing than let anyone else here know.”
The big strong manly man looked like he was calculating escape routes.
“Levi, buddy. Pal. Friend. I’m not here to judge. I won’t tell anyone else either. My lips are sealed.” I made a lock-and-key gesture before throwing the invisible key into the lake.
He took a reluctant breath and a fortifying sip of beer.
Recalling my college intro to psych class, I decided to make him more comfortable by mirroring him and took a sip of my own beverage.
Warring intense flavors hit my tongue and tonsils like a swarm of fire ants.
I tried to swallow. It was a valiant effort, but my body had shifted into survival mode and the only way to survive was to expel the ghastly beverage.
I barely got a napkin to my mouth before it came spraying out.
“I’m so sorry!” I choked, nearly swallowing the saturated napkin. “This is the worst drink I’ve ever had in my life.”
Through tear-blurred eyes, I could see that people were looking our way again.
Levi shoved his beer at me, and I drank deeply.
“Not a fan of the Basskicker?” he asked.
“I would rather eat carpet tacks for breakfast every day for a week than drink another one of those. Oh, God. I think it branded my tongue.” I scrubbed it with a fresh napkin.
“You need a new drink.”
“So do you,” I said and polished off his beer. I slid the empty glass toward him and picked up my own.
He reached out, lightning fast, and gripped my wrist. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, sounding amused.
“I need to throw it out. I don’t want Francie to know I didn’t like it. I wanted to have a usual. Like be in a place that knew me and knew my usual. But this monstrosity tastes like diesel fuel, fish guts, and stomach bile.” I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from dry heaving.
Levi took the glass from me, plucked out the plastic fish tail, and tossed the remaining contents over his shoulder. “Problem solved.” He signaled Francie.
“Ready for your next round?” she asked.
“I’ll have the same,” Levi said.
Francie’s eyes widened when she took in my splotchy, tear-stained face. “I’ll have what he’s having,” I rasped, pointing at his empty beer.
“Comin’ right up,” she promised.
I gave my throat another vigorous clearing.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.
I felt like I had a lungful of fish guts, but other than that, I seemed to have survived. “Totally fine. Back to your writing,” I prompted.
Levi nervously ran a hand up the back of his head.
“Oh, come on. I basically just humiliated myself by spitting a drink in your face. Be a gentleman and let me change the subject,” I begged.
“How do I know if I have something worth exploring?” he asked.
“You don’t have a book deal, right?”
He shook his head.
“No looming deadline from an editor?”
“No.”
“You didn’t promise an agent the first few chapters?”
“Still no.”
“Perfect! Don’t worry about anyone else and what they’re gonna think. Tell the story you want to tell. And when it’s done, then you can start worrying about what a bunch of strangers are going to have to say.”
“What if it’s…bad?”
“Bad?”
“Like fucking trash that never should have existed in the first place.”
I grinned. “You already sound like a real author.”
He shook his head. “No way. There’s no fucking way this is ‘part of the process,’” he insisted, throwing air quotes in my direction.
“Hate to break it to you, but it most definitely is. Most first drafts are flaming dumpster fires. But once you have the dumpster fire, you can do something about it.”
Levi scratched irritably at his eyebrow. “So you’re saying it should be painful and cause me to doubt myself with every word I write?”
“That’s generally how my process works.”