Excerpt from Get Over It, April Evans
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Get Over It, April Evans
The next contemporary romance by Ashley Herring Blake
April Evans knew she was prone to astrological panic.
She’d always put a lot of stock in the stars, knew when some planet’s position was messing with everyone’s communication skills, and had three different Zodiac-themed tattoos. Still, she’d like to think panic was the wrong word, despite what her parents would say about it. She was simply dealing with at least twenty complicated feelings at any given time, just like any triple Scorpio.
But right now, as she stood in her own driveway and handed her house keys over to a divorced MILF with shiny brown hair named Trudy, while her two kids poked their fingers through the holes of April’s cat carriers, April definitely felt a sense of astrological doom.
“So garbage day is on Monday,” she said to Trudy, even though these sorts of details were posted on the refrigerator. “And if you have any trouble with the faucet in the hallway bathroom, just shoot me a text.”
“Perfect,” Trudy said, tucking the keys into her linen shorts. “I know the kids and I are going to love summering here. Your house is adorable. So eclectic!”
April smiled without her teeth, her eyes gazing up at her admittedly adorable mint-green bungalow. She’d bought it nearly eight years ago, the first year her tattoo shop made a profit, and now she was a landlord, renting it out to a Clover Lake summer person for the next three months because she could no longer afford her mortgage.
She looked at all her houseplants on the front porch, which Trudy had promised to water, but she nevertheless had a sinking feeling in her gut they’d all be dried out and brown by August.
Just like her life.
Okay, fine, that was dramatic, but in her defense, her horoscope for the last month had been nothing but darkness and gloom, words like change and risk and decisions constantly floating before her eyes. She shivered, thinking of Madame Andromeda’s declaration about her life just this very morning.
Lately, you’ve been feeling small and overlooked. As a Scorpio, this is unfamiliar territory. So this week, try to view challenges as bright new opportunities to grow—there is always something beautiful hiding in the unexpected.
She was fucking tired of unexpected . And while she was a devout believer in Andromeda’s clairvoyant insights, this proclamation was simply a sugar-coated way of saying Buckle up, bitch.
And she’d really, really rather not.
“Mommy, can’t we keep the kitties?” one of the Trudy’s kids asked. The smaller one named Coltrane or Copeland or something else that sounded like a jazz musician’s last name. The tiny imp pressed her face against the carrier’s door. Bianca del Kitty, April’s grouchy lynx point Siamese cat she’d had for seven years, hissed, while Bob the Drag Cat, her beloved orange dum-dum, lounged in his own carrier like he was at a spa.
“I don’t think so, honey,” Trudy said, but then lifted her eyebrows at April. “Any chance you need a couple of cat sitters for the summer?” She placed a hand on top of each of her children’s heads. “They’d take good care of them.”
April nearly clutched at her chest, appalled. This woman had taken her house—granted, April had freely offered it to her—but she would not take her fucking cats.
They were literally all she had at this point.
Two cats, one broken-down business, and a partridge in a pear tree.
In reality, she knew she had a lot more than that, like disapproving parents and a failed engagement, a best friend who lived three thousand miles away and hadn’t responded to her last three texts, and a love life that made her want to drill a hole through her skull. Add uncertain financial future to the list, and she was a cornucopia of angst and, well, astrological panic.
“I’m good, thanks,” she said as calmly as she could, then said a quick goodbye before she could add catnapping to her list of grievances. She grabbed the carrier handles and hauled them to her ten-year-old turquoise Mini Cooper, which was already stuffed to overflowing. She didn’t look at her house as she backed out of the driveway, nor did she mentally acknowledge the lump rising in her throat. And she definitely didn’t glance at Wonderlust Ink as she drove through downtown, her tattoo shop that she’d only just closed four weeks ago.
Permanently.
She’d been fighting against the decision for over a year. Just six months ago, she’d let Mac go—her only employee, who was now working at a fancy shop in Concord—but that hardly fixed April’s financial woes. A small-town like Clover Lake had only so many regular clients, and the summer crowd was no longer keeping her in the black. She’d lived in the red for the last two years, but when she started struggling to pay for high-quality ink and other crucial supplies, she knew it was time to throw in the proverbial towel.
So, about a month ago, she’d referred her regulars to Mac, flipped the sign to Closed on her shop door, and proceeded to spend the next week on her couch eating Cheddar Jalapeno Cheetos and trying to will Paris and Rory from Gilmore Girls to kiss.
Needless to say, they never smashed, and April had to face the reality of her situation, which was how she ended up renting out her home, packing her bags for the summer, and taking a job teaching an art class at Cloverwild, the fancy new resort opening in just a few days on the north shore. The position came with room and board—a tiny lakeside cabin complete with a cabinmate—and the owner, Mia Gallagher, had asked absolutely zero questions about April’s suddenly wide-open schedule when she’d applied.
April hadn’t exactly told anyone about closing her business. Not her parents, not her best friend Ramona. Only Bianca and Bob knew her secrets, and they weren’t talking. In Clover Lake, it was only a matter of time before the news broke, but she’d like to maintain her dignity as long as possible.
She pulled into a parking spot in front of Clover Moon Café, then stepped out into the warm June sunshine. The New Hampshire weather wouldn’t get truly hot until July, so she cracked the windows, promised Bianca and Bob she’d only be a second, then ducked into the café for some coffee. She’d enjoyed a cup this morning, sitting in her quaint kitchen for the last time and soaking up the way the pale sunlight streamed through her vintage-style windows, but she needed another hit to get through this day.
She stepped inside, the bell over the door dinging, and took in the familiar vibe of Clover Moon, all rustic wood, navy and green accents, and mismatched chairs. She slid onto a barstool and smiled at the owner, Owen—a bald man in his fifties and covered in tattoos, a lot of which April did herself.
“Usual latte, please,” April said. “Oat milk if you’ve got it.”
“I’ve got it,” he said, wiping down the counter in front of her. “Triple?”
“Do I look like a woman who wants a small amount of caffeine right now?” April asked, plucking at the bags under her eyes.
Owen pressed his lips together. “I’m going to shut my mouth and get to work on a quad shot oat milk latte.”
“Good man,” April said, then rested her elbows on the counter. Behind her the diner buzzed with activity from the usual clientele—Violet Chalmers sipping on a mocha latte spiked with a few dribbles of Baileys that she kept in her purse; Duke Hansard and his brother, Jake, with their daily helping of sausage links wrapped in buttermilk pancakes, then smothered in strawberry syrup; Logan and Natalie Adler fighting about what to name their soon-to-be-born twins. Personally, April liked Natalie’s most recent faves, Maple and Oak.
“Hey, darling, how are those cutie patootie cats of yours?” Penny Hampton asked, popping up next to April like an annoying neighbor in a sitcom.
April startled but managed a smile. “They’re little demons.”
Penny laughed, clicking her long russet-colored nails on the plastic menu in front of her. “Good company, I imagine.”
April said nothing, not sure how to take that. Plus, the last thing she wanted was to show up as some story in Penny’s gossip blog, Penny for Your Thoughts .
“Any juicy news from Ramona lately?” Penny asked, eyeing April over the tops of her tortoiseshell reading glasses. Her hair was copper red—just like a penny—and April was pretty sure she was wearing bright green contact lenses, which were new.
“Not lately, no,” April said, widening her eyes at Owen to hurry it up. He just smirked at her, happily steaming milk.
When people started plying April for Hollywood news, it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Mostly because she had no idea what Ramona was up to these days. At least, not the details. She knew Ramona was immersed in a historical romance for Netflix with her boss, Noelle Yang. She knew Dylan, Ramona’s movie star girlfriend, was just about to wrap filming a biopic that she’d been working on for over a year, in which she played Marlene Dietrich. But specifics? Those details were spotty at best, like bad cell reception on the south end of the lake.
She glanced at her phone, eyes drifting over her and Ramona’s last text interaction. Several blue bubbles sent from April, asking Ramona if she thought getting a tattoo of a tattoo gun was a little too on the nose. And underneath the last text—the last text with no response from Ramona—were the words Read 8:41 PM .
That was two days ago.
April really didn’t want to use the L-word— lonely— but ever since Ramona had moved to LA to work as a costume designer nearly two years ago, the word haunted her like Ms. Havisham’s ghost. Ramona was crushing it as Noelle’s assistant, taking on more and more responsibility with each project. It was everything Ramona had ever wanted, everything she deserved after giving up her whole life when she was nineteen to help raise her little sister after her father’s car accident, and she certainly didn’t need her small potatoes BFF whining about loneliness and a struggling business.
Still, over the last few months, her texts with Ramona were sporadic at best, and she couldn’t remember the last time they’d FaceTimed. She did know, however, that they hadn’t seen each other in person since last November, when Ramona and Dylan had come back to Clover Lake with Dylan’s ’90s rock icon parents for Thanksgiving. Even then, their time was taken up with Ramona’s family, and April hadn’t wanted to impose.
Her own Thanksgiving was a quiet affair with Dr. and Dr. Evans, sipping red wine around her mother’s immaculate table while trying to deal with her father’s insistence that she invest Wonderlust’s profits—that was a laugh—in the stock market and her mother’s constant hints about settling down . April didn’t think Jacqueline Evans, a Capricorn through and through, would appreciate April’s long-term plans of becoming a cat lady, or how she’d recently decided to give up dating altogether, because what the hell was the point, so instead she’d sipped her drink and gotten a little too tipsy, which had only invited further disapproval from her parents.
Then, after walking home in a red-wine haze because her dad hadn’t wanted to drive in the inch of snow that had fallen the night before, she’d promptly opened up her favorite dating app looking for…well, something , and was met with the same boring people asking her the same boring questions.
Casual dating had been her bread and butter for the last three years, after her engagement had imploded in spectacular fashion, but it all felt so tiresome to her—the first dates that she never had any interest turning into a second, getting naked in front of someone new, the whole song and dance afterward, when all she wanted was go home and sleep in her own bed.
She wasn’t really interested in anyone she dated—and hadn’t been since Elena. No matter how much she tried to open her mind to possibilities, no one stimulated her imagination or affections, no one made her stomach flutter with that first-crush feeling or caused her heart feel like it was going to bust right through her rib cage. No one made her smile uncontrollably or wake up in the morning marveling at how fucking lucky she was.
Lately, the only thing she woke up to was a hairball vomited up by one of her cats on the kitchen floor.
But even if some Riley or Simon or Anna had inspired such feelings, April had been there, done that, and consequently been crushed into oblivion when the only person she’d ever fallen madly in love with left her after three years together for a twenty-two-year-old artist named Daphne Love.
She’d rather not relive that experience, thanks, no matter what Ramona, her mother, or the entire town of Clover Lake thought about it.
“Ah, well,” Penny said now, shoving her glasses back up on her nose. “We’ve got enough going on with the fancy new resort opening this weekend.”
April hmm ’d politely, dug her debit card from her bag, and tossed it on the counter. Owen whipped it away, then set her latte in front her. She gulped at it greedily, burning her tongue a bit.
“I hear it’s to be quite the gaudy affair,” Penny said, leaning closer to April and whispering. Loudly. Penny didn’t really do quiet.
April nodded as Owen handed back her card and receipt. She knew Cloverwild was a luxury resort and was indeed rumored to be extravagant. April had no idea if it actually was gaudy ; she hadn’t seen it yet, but when a vacation spot’s entire purpose was to bring in tourists with a lot of money, it was bound to be pretty high-end.
“It’s not gaudy,” Owen said. “It’s Mia. She’s a classy broad.”
“Ah, yes,” April said, tucking her card away again. “Just what every classy broad wants to be called.”
Owen laughed. “I’ve seen the main lodge,” he said, wiping down the counter. “It’s gorgeous. Should bring in a lot of good business.”
“There’s a fine line between gorgeous and gaudy,” Penny said, pointing her straw at him before sliding it into her water, and turning to face April again. “Your car outside has a lot of stuff in it. Heading out of town?”
April sighed. No way around it really—sooner or later people would notice there were vacationers in her house and she wasn’t frequenting the city square quite as much.
Goddamn small towns.
“Actually, Penny ,” she said, voice probably a bit too saturated with attitude, “I’m headed to Cloverwild myself. Going to teach an art class there this summer.”
Penny’s brows shot up. “And you’re living there? Why in god’s name would you do that?”
April gave her a toothless smile.
“Ah, well, maybe you’ll meet a nice hot thing while you’re there,” Penny said, her voice dripping with meaning . “It’s been, what? Three years?”
April’s smile dropped away. “Not you too,” she said.
Penny presented her palms in surrender but proceeded to surrender absolutely nothing. “I’m just saying that Elena what’s-her-name was always too big for her britches. And Ramona’s got her one true love now, living her dream. It’s your turn, isn’t it?”
She smiled beatifically at April, who refused to show any emotion whatsoever on her face. Absolutely not.
“And on that horrifying note,” she said, taking her coffee and tucking her phone into her pocket. She hopped off the stool while Penny tutted, Owen cracking up behind the counter. “Have a lovely day, everyone.”
She walked to her car and opened the door, but as she slid inside, the lid from her coffee cup popped off, and half of the heavenly brew spilled down her favorite Sleater-Kinney T-shirt. She fell into her seat, Bianca hissing as April just sat there, letting the warm liquid soak through the cotton to her skin.
“Fucking figures,” she said, then started the engine and drove toward Cloverwild and all her bright new opportunities.
Owen had been right—Cloverwild was gorgeous.
The lodge itself was a huge, two-story Craftsman facing the lake, with a large patio area built over the water that contained a firepit and several Adirondack chairs. Cabins dotted the property in the distance, along with a pier and a dock where canoes and kayaks bobbed in the lake. Carrying both Bianca and Bob in their carriers, who were growing quite restless by this point, April walked up the white-and-gray pebbled path to the wrap-around front porch, which was filled with cushioned furniture, rocking chairs, and tiny rustic tables the color of maple syrup. A string of lights circled the porch, already lit and dancing softly in the early afternoon breeze.
She climbed the stairs and set the cat carriers behind a chair, hoping they’d stay hidden and quiet while she checked in with Mia and got her cabin key. She hadn’t exactly cleared housing her cats with Mia, but she had no other options at this point.
“Be right back, babies,” she said.
Bob mewled pathetically, and Bianca simply glared at her through the slats in the carrier, her ice-blue eyes disdainful.
“Yes, yes, I know, I’m a mess,” she said, straightening and catching sight of her warped reflection in the wavy glass set into the large oak door. She pulled her black blazer tighter around her coffee-soaked shirt, hoping it hid most of the stain. Her hair fell just shy of her shoulders, and her most recent color experiment—purple and teal streaks through her natural dark—was starting to grow out a little, giving her locks a faded, iridescent look she loved. Her makeup was on point—winged liner and dark red lips—despite the slight shadows under her eyes.
She blew out a breath, buttoned her blazer, the scent of espresso wafting around her as she did so, then pushed the door open.
Inside the lodge’s lobby, it was just as immaculate. Rustic wooden beams crossed the twenty-foot ceilings, squashy couches were arranged by a roaring fire, their buttery brown leather accented with plaid-patterned pillows in navy and hunter green and burgundy for a bit of color. An enormous wagon wheel chandelier cast a warm amber light throughout the room, in addition to the watery glow of a single stained-glass lamp on the oak reception desk by the staircase. It was simple and decadent all at once.
The space was busy, full of preparations for opening day, which would kick off with a party tomorrow evening. People hurried about, carrying luxury sheets and towels to guest rooms upstairs, as well as outside to the larger guest cabins near the lake and the smaller staff cabins around back toward the woods. Others filled rustic shelves with colorful books and knickknacks, carried racks of clear glasses to the bar, straightened paintings on the walls.
She even spotted a two people walking by in pink leotards and leggings, sheer skirts around their waists, hair in tight buns at the napes of their neck. April remembered hearing Cloverwild would have dance instructors à la Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing , as well as gourmet meals served in a huge dining room complete with a shiny dance floor, waterskiing, guided midnight hikes to Moon Lover’s Trail, spa treatments, watercolor classes, and pottery. You name it, Cloverwild was probably offering it.
For the right price.
April spotted Mia behind the front desk, her phone cradled between her ear and shoulder while she tapped way on her iPad. Mia was in her midforties and had brown skin and long dark-and-silver braids. Her family’s grocery store—which had started as a stall at the Clover Lake farmer’s market back in the 1940s and was now a statewide chain, soon to go national if the rumors were to be believed—had given her the means to invest in prime lakefront real estate and open a resort such as Cloverwild.
“Hey, there,” Mia said as April approached the desk, taking her phone off her ear and tossing it—a bit violently, if you asked April, onto the desk. “Good to see you.”
“Everything going okay?” April asked as Mia took a slug from the largest coffee cup April had ever seen. It was like a Big Gulp from 7-11.
“Ask me tomorrow,” Mia said. “No, wait, ask me next month. Maybe even September. Hell, ask me in five years.”
“That good, huh?” April asked. She knew opening a new business was hard as shit—she couldn’t imagine getting one of this scale off the ground.
Closing a business, however…
April shook her head, ignoring the sudden spike of panic and sadness in her gut.
Mia seesawed her hand in the air. “Big picture is fine. Little tiny details that make me question my existence on earth? That’s a different story.”
April laughed. Mia was funny. Always had been. She had a dry sense of humor April appreciated, and as one of the first out-and-proud lesbians April ever met, Mia was a bit of an icon in April’s mind, a touchstone for all the baby queers in Clover Lake.
“Let me grab your cabin key,” Mia said. “Your cabinmate hasn’t checked in quite yet.”
“No worries,” April said. “More time to get settled.” She’d known from the jump that she’d have a cabinmate, who was also her assistant teacher for the art class. April was ready for the distraction, and actually excited to plan a fun and unique curriculum for the guests.
“Here you go,” Mia said, handing her a gold key dangling from a dark green keychain in the shape of a canoe, along with a single sheet of paper. “That’s your itinerary, your cabinmate’s number, your class schedule, things like that. There’s a map of the property on the back. It’s all online too, but some people like a physical copy.”
April tucked the key in her pocket, then thanked Mia before heading for the door and her contraband cats, scanning the paper as she went.
Her eyes snagged on a set of letters.
A name.
She froze, slowly turning back toward the desk.
“Hey, Mia?”
“Yeah, hon?” Mia asked, now shuffling through a stack of papers.
“Is this right?” April’s heart had sped up—sped up and left its designated place in her body, catapulting around like a pinball.
“Is what right?”
“This name.” April blinked at the two words. “My…”
Her cabinmate.
Her co-teacher.
“It’s all correct, whatever it is,” Mia said, who understandably didn’t have time for whatever meltdown April was currently experiencing. “Checked it myself this morning. Excuse me.” She frowned down at her phone, then hurried off toward the kitchen.
April barely noticed any of that though. Barely heard Mia’s answer. She stood in the middle of the room, fingers damp on the paper, her vision blurring as she stared down at the name of the very person who had ruined her entire life three years ago.