Chapter 4
Hazel
Ilooked down at my phone. Again.
It had been two days since Nora messaged Elijah. That goddamn text. It was ruining my brain. When I woke up, behind my closed eyes were those stupid words. When I drove to work, the only traffic light in town blinked a chorus of, He hasn’t texted back. I’d eat my lunch and reason that he probably doesn’t have my number, anyway. I probably wouldn’t reply to someone I knew asking if I’d auction off my body, let alone a strange number. He’d never have to find out it was me. If, for any reason, he actually asked for my number, I’d lie through my teeth and get a new one.
But regardless, I couldn’t stop checking my phone. Mostly because now, I didn’t have a way to reach him. Now I just had to hope to run into him.
I shook my head, disgusted with myself. It’s not like I was using his number, anyway.
The familiar sinking feeling pressed into my chest. I should have texted him a long time ago. Building up the courage to ask Ransom Strauss for Elijah’s contact was stressful, and it shouldn’t have been hard to actually send out a little, Hi, this is Hazel.
I flipped my phone screen-side down on my desk. The clinic was empty, and I just needed to get these last few tasks done. Remi had offered to stay and clean the examination rooms, but I’d turned him down. It wasn’t in his job description, and I didn’t want to take advantage of his friendship. I’d packed away the cleaning supplies a little over an hour ago and responded to a post on the town’s social media community page from Deb Creger, our town hall clerk. She’d shared a photo of her ancient Yorkie with the caption, Sweet Hazel took such great care of Mrs. Merryweather today! Thank you, Sweet Hazel!
I considered for a moment adding a post of my own, but then I glanced at the stack of paperwork that needed accomplishing before I could go home to obsess over the text to Elijah, instead of obsessing here.
It was long workdays on top of long workdays that kept me from being able to justify getting a pet. I hated not having a dog or a cat. It felt unnatural to love animals like I did and not have one of my own to dote on.
Every other man Nora had asked had messaged back. Almost all of them variations of What the fuck?
When I explained further, the response was more varied. I was surprised to discover how many men were willing to consider the auction if it was clear what they’d be doing after the purchase.
To which Nora groaned. “It’s a date. What do you like to do for a date? Take them to that. Tell that man-boy it’s a date.”
“That’s too broad; it needs to be more specific,” Brooks had replied as he scrawled a quick note on a chart.
“What do you mean?”
He closed the file and slid it into place on the cabinet. “How would the women know the kind of date they’re purchasing?”
“It would be included in your description. Here’s Jack Brooks. He’s thirty years old, enjoys hiking and mountain biking, and for the lucky winner, he’ll prepare a lakeside picnic, or whatever.”
A crease formed between his eyebrows. “How do you know so much about this?”
“Romance novels.” She shrugged.
He shot a questioning gaze my way. “Are they all bachelor auctions?”
I snorted. “Guess you’ll have to read to find out.”
He rolled his eyes and exited to the hallway lined with exam rooms.
Nora’s face was overtaken by her smile. “I’ve been getting some good responses, though.”
Her face lit up even more at my sigh.
“You have too, haven’t you?” she squealed. “That’s why you’re disappointed.”
“It’s not there yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too broad.” I used Brooks’ phrasing.
She considered me. “So, if we told them what the date would be…?”
A feeling a lot like seasickness swished in my stomach. “No. I don’t know… There has to be something else.”
“It’s sexual in nature, and that’s why you don’t like it, right?”
“Yeah, it feels exploitative. If this was a bachelorette auction, even you would feel uncomfortable with it.”
She threw her hands up, and they slapped on her thighs when they came down. “Because of the patriarchal power dynamic. We can’t compare our experiences as women with the experiences of men, because they are different.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s not exploitative.”
“I’m gonna figure this out.”
No one could deter Nora once she got a plan in her head. I usually loved it—her tenacity was invaluable most of the time—but in this exact situation, I wished she would shift her focus.
In my office, I rubbed my shoulders and rolled my head from side to side, trying to work the tension that was always there. There was more to do, but I wasn’t going to finish it tonight. I made a few notes on a sticky note to remind me of what needed priority tomorrow, then stuck it on my desk next to my keyboard. Standing, I stretched my arms over my head, and my spine popped a few times.
“I need to set timers to remind me to move around,” I mumbled to my empty office, flicking off the lights. After putting my phone in my pocket and zipping up my jacket, I pulled my office door closed, exiting into the hallway, but it bounced off the doorjamb instead of latching. It’d been doing that. The only way to close it was to grab the handle in both hands and pull with all my weight. My step faltered as I added it to the mental list of things I needed to fix.
I strode to the exit. The only illumination was through the windows from the floodlights on the building’s exterior, but I was so familiar with the space that I could have made this walk without any light at all. They strobed slightly. I chewed on my lower lip, wondering if I should hire an electrician, but then wondering where that money would come from. And then I’d need to find an exterior siding person. And then an HVAC technician. The list went on and on.
Maybe I could find someone willing to trade their services with mine.
The list was growing long. It wrapped around me and squeezed. Suffocating.
I wasn’t lying to Remi; we were fine financially in the sense that I was clearing expenses with just enough to live on, but absolutely nothing else. If I didn’t have my personal cost of living—pesky things like mortgage, car insurance, and food—then I could put more into the building’s needs.
Maybe I could move into the basement of the building. I shuddered at the thought, considering all the dusty boxes packed down there, some of them probably older than me.
“Nope,” I whispered to the empty clinic. “There’s got to be a better way.”
The night sky was dark blue with bright stars as the storm door slammed shut behind me, and I absentmindedly tugged on the handle to be sure it was locked up. A cold gust of wind carrying the smell of dry leaves and wet soil caught my hair and blew it across my face. I gathered the strands over one shoulder.
That’s when I saw the man leaning against the hood of his car, directly under one of the lampposts.
Gasping, I stopped halfway down the paved walk to the parking lot. My keys were in my hand. I was about to whip around and run back into the building when he raised his hand in a tentative wave.
“I texted, but I’m guessing you didn’t see it.” His voice carried across the distance between us, gentle and deep.
I took a couple of deep breaths as the instinct to flee deflated from my muscles. All the tension gushed out of me.
“Yeah, I didn’t see that.” Pulling my phone from my pocket, I read Elijah’s message, I’m outside the clinic, just under the only other correspondence between our phones. I almost laughed. How had he sent it in the only thirty-second window I hadn’t been fixated on whether he’d text?
“I know it’s late, if your…” He stood and pulled the opening of his jacket more tightly closed. “We can schedule another time to talk.”
I chewed my lower lip at the formality of his words. They sounded nothing like the lover I’d experienced, with his sweet whispers and dirty groaned appreciation. I swallowed, but the pressure on my sternum didn’t lighten.
With a few strides, I stood under the same halo of light as he did. The rest of the world was swallowed in darkness, and all I could see was him. His chestnut-colored curls peeked out of a black stocking cap. As I neared, he leaned away.
I didn’t want to see the ways he pulled back from me, so I stared at the parking lot’s cracked asphalt. “No, we can talk now.” Apparently, formality was catching because I said, “What can I help you with?”
“First, my dad doesn’t have any more leverage on you, does he?”
“No, he tried, but no,” I answered. “Thank you for the warning, by the way. You really helped me out.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry he put you through whatever he did.”
I looked up to find him watching me with careful eyes.
He sighed and shrugged deeper into his jacket. “Can you explain that text message?”
I puffed out a breath. “How did you know it was me?”
“Obviously the area code was from here, so I asked Ransom and Sterling if they knew whose number it was.”
I was grateful for the cold already turning my cheeks pink, because I was definitely blushing. “Sterling, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Solid detective work.”
“Thank you.” His mouth tugged up on one side, scrambling the few brain cells I had strung together. “So, Hazel, why is some other guy’s nice girlfriend asking me to auction off my body?”
“I’m not a nice girlfriend.”
He squinted, casting sharp swooping shadows from his eyelashes across his cheekbones. “Are you trying to set me up as your side piece?”
“No!” My eyes grew so wide, they nearly fell out of my head. I didn’t know what was more shocking, the idea of him being my side piece, or the fact that he thought I could finesse something like that. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
He straightened, his broad shoulders squaring in his dark denim coat. “Then what’s up with the ranger guy I saw you with?”
“Dennis and I had a casual thing, but it just ended, actually.”
Elijah took a tentative step closer to me. “People around town don’t seem to think it was casual.”
I chewed my bottom lip. “Well, most of the people around here have a very traditional sense of what spending time with someone means.”
He exhaled, and his breath glinted silver in the white light for the briefest moment. His green eyes locked onto mine. The force of them sent electricity along every inch of my skin. A smile grew on his lips, and I remembered the feel of those lips on mine, my neck, my chest. All of me. My heart skipped and raced against my ribcage.
He leaned close enough for his shadow to drape across my chest and the lower half of my face. I shifted closer, as if there was a string tied between us, and he was drawing me to him inch by inch.
I knew that it was just as cold as it had been when I stepped out of the building, but the energy around us had shifted. If I wasn’t a woman of science, I would have sworn that the air was warmer. Maybe the sun had even come out, defying all the laws of physics.
His lowered voice whispered through me, suggestive and playful. “So, what do you wanna do with my body?”