36. Fart Blaster 2000
36
FART BLASTER 2000
CAMPBELL
Dinner prep in my parents’ kitchen was like four Gordon Ramsays yelling at the same time while pots boiled over, ingredients were hurled across the room, and dogs made tripping humans a professional sport.
We affectionately referred to the experience as the Hunger Games.
It was a full house with Dad switching closing shifts with our part-timer Conner. Laura’s kids were here too, abandoning whatever social events they had on their calendars. Mom’s meatloaf had that effect on people.
Hazel and Zoey were building a salad and watching the chaos with glasses of wine from the safety of barstools. I was up to my elbows in ground beef, eggs, and breadcrumbs, which forced me to keep my hands to myself. Something I wasn’t thrilled about.
Mom had taken one look at my face when I’d reappeared from my all-too-brief make-out session with Hazel and reassigned me to meat duty. We’d never figured out how she could take one look at us and know things, but Pep Bishop had elite parenting instincts.
Between the fight with Levi and Hazel disappearing all day, I’d realized there were more important things than the family knowing I was “dating” a client.
But that discussion would have to come later since I was forced to strangle raw meat while Hazel explained what she’d overheard in Dominion.
“They can’t just absorb Story Lake, can they?” Zoey demanded with indignation.
“Technically yes. It’s called annexation. But it wouldn’t be easy. There’d have to be some kind of financial motivation, and the councils on both sides would have to agree. I don’t see that happening,” Gage said as he and Laura peeled potatoes.
“Well, Nina’s obviously got someone from our side in her pocket already,” Mom pointed out as she swung around holding a platter of sweet corn. She stopped short and nearly bobbled the plate as Melvin cut in front of her. “That’s it! Kids, take the dogs outside and go husk the corn.”
My nephews shepherded the dogs to the door, and Isla took the corn.
“Don’t know what you did to that girl, but she sure carries a grudge,” Dad said, clapping me on the back.
Hazel and I locked gazes for a beat.
“Cam dated Nina in high school and for a year or two after,” Mom explained to Hazel helpfully.
“She knows, Mom,” I said in irritation.
“How does Nina think she’s going to force us into annexation?” Levi asked from the table, where he was peeling a small mountain of potatoes.
“For a candidate for chief of police, you’d think you’d be more up-to-date on town secrets,” Gage said.
“The sewer treatment clusterfuck,” Laura explained.
“We don’t have the money,” Dad continued.
“Shit,” Levi said.
“Literally,” Laura said.
“So what do we do?” Zoey asked.
Mom looked pointedly at Hazel, who ducked her head. “No use being shy now. Not when you have a plan to present to the whole town tomorrow.”
Hazel looked like she wanted to throw up in the salad bowl. “Can’t someone else do it? I mean, shouldn’t someone else do it? I’ve only been here for a few weeks.”
“This town needs some fresh ideas,” Dad insisted. “And I’m not just saying that because you’re our biggest client right now.”
“I appreciate that, Frank,” Hazel said wryly.
“What’s the plan, Big City?” Gage asked.
She hesitated. “It’s more of an idea.”
“Revenge,” Laura said gleefully.
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
“So basically we’d be stealing tourists from Dominion. The ones who aren’t looking for a busy town and drunken speedboat races and partying till dawn.”
“Parents with little kids,” Laura said.
“Retired couples,” Dad said, goosing Mom at the sink as he went for a fresh beer.
“People who wanna kayak without drowning in Jet Ski wakes,” Levi added.
“Exactly,” Hazel said. She darted a nervous look at me as I squashed the last of the meatloaf mix into the third glass pan.
“It’s not a bad idea,” I said. High praise coming from me. Laura bounced a floret of broccoli off my head. “Mom! Larry hit me with broccoli.”
“Don’t waste good vegetables on your brother’s thick skull, Laura,” Mom said automatically.
“It’s better than not bad,” Gage told Hazel. “We’ve all gotten used to Dominion coming out on top. It would be nice to take something back for a change.”
“The question is how?” Zoey said.
We weighed and discarded options until the meatloaf was in the oven and the potatoes were mashed. Hazel looked overwhelmed but entertained.
“We’ve got about half an hour before dinner’s ready. Cam, why don’t you give Hazel a quick tour of the farm?” Mom suggested, shooting me a pointed look.
I frowned, trying to figure out her game. But the idea of some alone time with the woman I was trying to convince to return to my bed was worth whatever tricks my mother had up her sleeve.
“I can do it,” Levi volunteered, shooting me a smug look.
“No, you can’t. You’ll be too busy trimming Melvin’s toenails since you’re the only one he lets do it,” I said, thinking on my feet.
“Ohmygod! You’ll save me a trip to the groomer and the up-charge for him being a gigantic baby about it,” Laura said, clapping her hands together. “Best brother ever.”
Levi glared at me. “If you ever need a kidney, I’m not sharing.”
I smirked at him before grabbing Hazel’s hand. “Come on.”
“Zoey, you should come with us,” Hazel said pointedly. “You love…farms.”
Zoey looked like she was two seconds away from running for her car and hightailing it back to civilization.
“She can’t. Because she has to make that important call,” I said.
Hazel frowned. “What important call?”
“The one she’s been talking about nonstop since she got here,” I lied.
“Oh, that important call,” Zoey said. She made a show of checking her watch. “Yes, I do have to get on a call at exactly five nineteen p.m. Thanks, Cam.”
“I don’t remember you mentioning anything about?—”
Hazel didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence because I was already towing her out the door.
“What. The. Hell, Cam?” she demanded, trying to tug her hand free when we exited down the ramp off the kitchen. “I thought you didn’t want your family to know we were having sex.”
I’d gotten a lot less concerned about that in the past day or so but didn’t feel like now was a good time to bring that up.
“Are we still having sex?” I asked, pulling her along toward the barn.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Then I have half an hour to convince you to let me see you naked again.” I led her around to the open garage door on the back of the barn. The scents of feed, bedding, and animals reminded me of home just as much as the meatloaf in the oven. “Quad or side-by-side?”
“Are those sex positions, and if so, can you describe them in detail?”
“Quad or side-by-side?” I repeated, pointing at the four-wheeler and the UTV parked next to each other.
“Disappointing. And since I don’t trust you at all, let’s go with the one with seat belts,” she decided.
I grabbed the keys off the hook on the wall and tossed them to her. “You’re driving.”
“Me? I’ve never operated a UTI.”
“UTV. Utility task vehicle,” I corrected her. “Think of it as a driving lesson. You need a damn car. You’ll die of dehydration in the summer and turn into a block of ice in the winter on a bike.”
“It’s on my list,” she said, giving me a wide berth as she approached the driver’s side of the muddy two-door vehicle. It was already full of dents and dings from nearly a decade of farm life.
I got in next to her and fastened my seat belt. “Key goes in the ignition. Gas, brake, shifter, just like a car. Try not to hit anything.”
Her glare was withering.
“Hurry it up, Trouble. I’m not missing out on meatloaf.”
She grumbled a few uncomplimentary things under her breath but still managed to get the UTV started.
“Gas pedal’s a little?—”
We shot through the open bay into the field before I could finish my warning. The hay bale on the flatbed behind us went flying. Hazel stomped on the brake, giving us both near whiplash when we came to a fast stop.
“Shut up,” she said preemptively.
“Let’s try that again,” I said, trying to make my death grip on the roll bar look casual.
This time she eased the gas down, and I didn’t nearly put my teeth through my tongue when we took off.
“Go around and follow the driveway,” I directed. “And keep it slow around the house or Mom’ll be pissed about the dust.”
Teeth in her lower lip and hands gripping the wheel like she was strangling it, Hazel carefully followed my directions. The cows and Diva the donkey were already lining up at the fence to be led across to the barn for their dinner.
“Park it, lead foot,” I said, with a tap on her thigh.
She brought us to a gravel-crunching halt, and I hopped out.
“What are you doing?”
“Feeding the girls,” I called over my shoulder. “Ready for dinner, ladies?” The three Holsteins flicked their tails. Bambi, the biggest one, let out an impatient mooo! Diva kicked at the ground and let loose an eardrum-splitting heehaw .
I swung the barnyard gate open, then backtracked to the pasture gate. “Get ready to chase down any runners,” I teased.
“Are you kidding me?” Hazel squawked from behind the wheel.
“Relax. They know where home is.” I opened the pasture gate and gave all three cows a slap on the rump when they paraded past into the yard. Diva followed, pausing for neck scratches. I put out their feed, checked their water, and, after a headbutt from Bambi, I secured the gate and climbed back in the vehicle.
“Your parents live on a petting zoo,” Hazel observed.
“A petting zoo for rejects. We used to have dairy cows and grow corn. But Dad couldn’t keep up with the labor after his stroke. Now we’re just a hobby farm for rescues.”
“People would come. Here I mean,” she said. “They’d pay money to come see the animals that you saved. Hear their stories. They’d donate so you could save more animals.”
“You’re saying tourists would come to Story Lake and pay money to pet Fart Blaster 2000?” I gestured toward the smaller of the cows, who had stuck her head over the fence and was trying to get one last scratch from me.
“Please tell me your nickname is Fart Blaster 2000,” she deadpanned.
“My parents made the epic grandparent mistake of letting Laura’s kids name all the rescues for a year,” I explained.
Hazel shook her head.
“What?” I asked.
“The guy I’ve been sleeping with just tucked in his cows and donkey for the night. Sometimes I think I’m having one long fever dream and I’m going to wake up in Manhattan.”
“Is that what you want?” I gestured for her to resume our drive.
“Right now, I’m more interested in kicking Dominion’s ass,” she said.
I directed her west, into the sun. “Gage’s place is over the hill that way. He renovated an old barn and turned it into a house.”
“A literal barn? Well, there goes my diabolical plan of fixing him up with Zoey so she’s forced to move here permanently.”
I rolled my eyes. She was supposed to be thinking about letting me back into her bed, not maneuvering her friend into my brother’s. To remind her of this, I casually draped my free arm over her shoulders. She jerked the wheel at my touch, bouncing us off the trail before overcorrecting and swerving back in the opposite direction.
“Why are you and I the only ones on this driving tour?” she asked, as my bones rattled over a rut.
“Mom has her reasons. Not that she’d share them with anyone. Pretty sure she knows about us.”
“First Levi and now your mom? Does this mean our past indiscretions are going to be all over town by morning?”
“First of all, no one said we’re done indiscretioning,” I shot back.
“My editor would call you out on that word.”
“Secondly, there’s a difference between family gossip and town gossip. Are we going back in there to everyone knowing we’ve been having sex? Absolutely. But they’re not gonna go running their mouths around town.”
“Why aren’t you more upset? You’re the one who didn’t want anyone to know about us, yet you’re sitting there frowning your usual amount.”
“Maybe I’ve reconsidered.”
“Maybe?” She looked at me as we crested a low hill, pastures rolling out on both sides of us.
I grabbed for the “oh shit” handle a second before Hazel plowed into a pothole the size of a car.
“You don’t have to steer into every single rut you see,” I told her.
“I can’t talk and drive at the same time. There’s too much to concentrate on.”
“If you can write with a houseful of construction noise, you can drive and talk.”
“Why did you maybe reconsider?” she asked, swerving hard to avoid another bump.
“I don’t know, and I don’t really care to get introspective about it. I like what we were doing. Maybe when I saw you out in public, laughing with my assface brother, I thought that looked like a good time too.”
“You acted like an idiot,” she pointed out.
“I know.”
“I don’t know if flowers, an impromptu make-out session, and a tour of your petting zoo are enough to get back into my good graces. And even if they were, I don’t know if I’m ready for something more public.”
“Hazel, we’re adults having a good time. Sometimes you just have to say, ‘Fuck it.’” I didn’t know why I was pushing for this. Why I wanted to be the one taking her out on the town, sharing drinks and secrets. But there wasn’t much point in dissecting it. I wanted it, so I was going after it.
“And by ‘it,’ you mean you.”
I flashed her a cocky grin before turning her chin to look forward at the trail. “If you’re looking for poetry and romance, you’re with the wrong guy.”
“I write romance all day long. What I need is a man who isn’t going to throw a temper tantrum every time I do something he doesn’t appreciate.”
“I’ll keep the temper tantrums to a minimum as long as you communicate better.”
“I cannot believe you of all people think I’m bad at communicating,” she complained.
“Imagine how much worse you are at it for me to be the one to say something.”
“Fine. I’ll think about it,” she said.
“That’s all I ask.”
We were approaching a curve in the trail.
“Ease up on the gas,” I advised. “You don’t have to keep it floored to get where you’re going.”
Hazel scoffed but did as she was told. “That is such a small-town thing to say.”