Chapter 9
Monogamous biceps
Zoey
Haze? Hello?”
Story Lake Haven’s Grandma Moses Community Room, which thanks to the informational card posted outside I learned was named for the successful and prolific American folk artist who hadn’t picked up a paintbrush until her late seventies, appeared to be empty.
I checked my watch. Yep. I was five minutes late. So either Hazel had scared off all her creative writing students already, or I’d gotten the time wrong in my calendar.
“Damn it, me,” I muttered. I was just about to dedicate the next ten minutes of my life to figuring out exactly how I’d screwed up when I heard a faint groan coming from inside.
I spotted a pair of feet poking out from behind the desk at the front of the room and headed in that direction. Hazel was lying on her back staring up at the ceiling. Her laptop was open to a blank page on the desk above her.
“Sooo, how’s the writing going?” I joked.
“What if I forgot how to write a book? What if I used up all the magic in the last one?”
“Do you want Active Listener Zoey or Ass-kicker Agent Zoey?”
“Active Listener. I don’t think I’m emotionally stable enough for one of your ass kickings.”
“Okey dokey.” I sprawled out on the floor next to her and admired the ceiling tiles. “What makes you feel like you forgot how to write a book and used up all the magic?”
Writing was hard, and authors were delicate people who often experienced episodes of paralyzing, whiny self-doubt. I’d learned it was important to acknowledge their feelings even when they were completely ridiculous.
“That last one came so easily. Like it flowed out of me almost like it was writing itself.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said, biting my tongue to prevent myself from reminding her of the dozen creative crises she was choosing not to recall.
“And this book. Ugh.” She shoved her fingers under her glasses to rub her eyes. “I don’t know the characters. I don’t know what the hell their problems are, what’s keeping them apart, what’s going to blow them up, or how they’re going to solve it all so they can find their way back to each other.”
“Mm-hmm. All those do sound like important story elements. What do you have so far?” I asked.
“He’s hot and she’s quirky.”
“I’d read that.”
Hazel karate chopped me with a lazy backhand that missed my shoulder and hit my boob.
“Ow.”
“Sorry. I was aiming for your face.”
I rolled to my side. “Apology not accepted. What was different about this last book?”
She shrugged morosely as well as one could shrug while lying on an industrial tile floor. “I don’t know. It was kind of the story of my life. But I can’t just keep writing about me and Cam.”
I drilled my index finger into her ribs and teased a weak laugh out of her. “You had real-life inspiration with the last book. Maybe that’s your thing? Maybe you just need some new inspiration?”
Her head lolled in my direction, and she frowned. “That’s not a terrible idea.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She sat up. “Maybe all I need is to find a new couple to follow around.”
I rolled into a seated position. “I was thinking less stalking and more rewatching and rereading all your favorite rom-coms. Less effort, lower odds of being arrested.”
“No, this is good.” She gripped my arm. “Please tell me you’re secretly lusting after someone.”
Gage’s face immediately popped into my head. Okay, fine. It was his face and his butt. Both had been making regular unscheduled appearances in my mind since Saturday night. “Nope. Sorry. My sex life here is as nonexistent as the narwhal.”
“Narwhals are real.”
“You’re not serious. It’s a freaking aquatic unicorn. That’s not a real thing.”
Hazel’s laugh ended abruptly in a loud snort. “They’re one thousand percent real. I’ll show you on this thing called the internet after you admit there’s someone around here who you’ve at least had naughty thoughts about.”
I thought of Gage’s quick grin. The weight and heat of his hand on my back when he steered me into Angelo’s. “Well, I wouldn’t say lusting.”
Hazel jumped to her feet, a notebook magically appearing in one hand, a pen in the other.
“Where did those come from?” I demanded.
“Tell me everything.”
“I was joking,” I insisted, working my way back to my feet.
“No, you weren’t.”
Another problem with being friends with someone for so long. Lying wasn’t really an option.
I blew out a sigh. “You’re just going to get weird about it, and there’s nothing to get weird about because nothing is going to happen. I literally just thought, That dude is reasonably attractive.”
“Which dude? Where? What was it about him that made you fall instantly in love? And don’t say his eyes or his cute butt. Give me some kind of interesting personality trait that I can exploit.”
“You are literally the worst.”
Hazel put her notebook and pen down and took me by the shoulders.
“Zoey, my friend, my agent, my sister from another mister. We both know that when I get like this, I won’t stop.
I’m more tenacious than a house raccoon that’s been locked out.
I’ll do anything to get back in. So you might as well tell me now, or I’ll just have to break into your hotel room and get it out of you while you talk in your sleep. ”
“Fine. It’s Gage.”
Her hands flew to her face, and it took me a beat to realize the high-pitched squealing noise was coming from her.
“Stop squealing! I’m not interested in him. He’s not interested in me. In fact, he’s kind of been a jerk to me ever since that whole thing last summer when we got your book rights back from your stupid ex-husband, drank our faces off to celebrate, and then held hands on the way home.”
I might have been intoxicated, but I’d been sure Gage was going to ask me out after that. Instead, he’d grown increasingly annoyed every time I entered a room.
“You did what? That was months ago, and you’re just now telling me?” Hazel’s voice was two octaves higher than usual.
I scoffed. “It was drunken hand-holding. I’ve gotten further with strangers on the subway during rush hour.”
“But obviously something happened between now and then.”
“We just had a…moment.”
“How do you know he’s not interested?” Hazel demanded.
“Because we already had the ‘you’re not my type’ talk. We couldn’t be more wrong for each other.”
Hazel’s brown eyes sparkled behind her glasses. “You beautiful, oblivious fool. Normal people don’t have the ‘you’re not my type’ conversation with people they’re not interested in.”
“Oh my God. What are you saying, crazy pants?”
“You’ve been here how long?”
“It feels like a lifetime,” I complained.
She brushed away my dig at her adopted hometown. “When did you tell Darius he’s not your type?”
“Darius is eighteen years old, you disgusting weirdo.”
“How about Dr. Ace? Or Chevy? Or Cam?”
“They were all cc’d on the ‘you’re not my type’ email I sent out the week we moved here,” I quipped.
Hazel snatched up her notebook again. “This is good. I can work with this.”
“No, no, no!” I took the notebook from her and tossed it over my shoulder. “There is no inspiration here, unless you find a sex drought inspiring.”
“You don’t have to take your sexual frustration out on a poor, innocent notebook.”
“I’m not sexually frustrated. I don’t want to date or bang Gage Bishop! Just because we have the tiniest unexplained attraction between us—”
Hazel bodychecked me out of the way and pounced on her notebook. “Tell me everything. Leave no detail undetailed.”
“Thank God for editors. By the way, aren’t you supposed to have a class right now? I thought I was late, but there’s no one here. Did you scare off your students by trying to connect with them through a rap you wrote?”
“No rapping. I just told you class started earlier than it did so you’d be on time. Now back to Gage’s overwhelming sex appeal. What is it in particular that you noticed first about him?”
“Please tell me you’re not talking about my brother.”
We whirled around to find Levi standing in the classroom doorway. He looked like he was considering throwing up.
“Now look what you did,” I complained to Hazel.
“Hey, he’s the Bishop least likely to repeat any of this. Levi, when did Zoey tell you you’re not her type?” Hazel asked, evading my renewed attempts to grab her notebook by holding it over her head.
“Uh. She hasn’t. Yet.”
“And have you told her she’s not your type yet?” Hazel asked triumphantly.
“Can I come back when things are less…weird?”
I covered my face with my hands and wished to be teleported anywhere but here. “I’m going to tell Cam you’re the one who ran over his palm sander thing in the yard because you still can’t park,” I threatened Hazel.
“I already confessed, because that’s what people who love each other do. They talk about things like palm sanders and sexual chemistry.”
“I’m gonna go anywhere but here,” Levi announced, but his exit was blocked by the rest of the students, who began to file noisily into the room. His broad shoulders slumped in defeat.
“This isn’t over. You and I are going to have a long, detailed chat about you-know-who if you ever want to see another manuscript from me,” Hazel said with a maniacal gleam in her brown eyes.
I waved to Scooter Vakapuna and Hana from the lodge as they took their seats. “Ugh. Fine. But you are sworn to the Sisterhood of the Noninterference rules. Okay?”
“Deal.”
“Now why am I here?”
She beamed at me. “Oh right. The other thing. Okay. You know how grateful I am to you for moving here and holding my hand and being my biggest cheerleader, right?”
“This sounds rehearsed. Are you breaking up with me?”
“Stop being dramatic. I’m telling you I know you put all your eggs in the Hazel Hart basket. And while your loyalty and confidence mean everything to me, I know you can’t survive on just one client,” she said.
“I’m also Story Lake’s publicist. So technically I have two clients.”