Chapter 17
Routine butthole maintenance
Zoey
So there goes Cam, out the front door in his underwear, chasing a raccoon.
Felicity next door almost threw up from laughing so hard.
Thankfully she managed to get a picture of him for Neighborly before she dry heaved in her azaleas,” Hazel said, turning her screen so I could see it.
“It might have been the best morning of my life.”
I shook my head while admiring her fiancé’s near nakedness. The Bishop men were certainly well-built.
We were at a table in the window of Perked Up with a mountain of baked goods between us. The coffee shop’s owners, the Jangs, had gone with a puzzle cat theme. Not puzzles of cats but puzzles and cats.
The puzzles were donated, and the cats were rescues up for adoption.
I was sure that on paper, the combination of the two would have been appealing to some, but the reality was more chaos than cute.
I’d managed to click two pieces of the Eiffel Tower into place before a leggy gray kitten had hopped up on the table and rolled over on his back, blocking out the entire night sky.
It had eventually left, but now a hefty calico named Brenda—who didn’t take no for an answer—was snoring in my lap.
“Your life is a romance novel. Everything is inspiration,” I said, eyeing my empty mug.
I’d already pounded a double espresso and was wishing for a second.
I hadn’t slept well last night. Probably because I’d stayed up too late trying to formulate a schedule of events for Reader Weekend, which was proving to be tricky since I couldn’t seem to interest any businesses in discussing how they could participate.
Or maybe it was the constant fantasies of Gage’s capable hands on my boobs.
The sports bra incident had definitely messed with my resolve to avoid the man at all costs.
I decided to go for sugar instead of more caffeine and snatched an apple fritter out from under Hazel’s hand.
“Speaking of inspiration,” she said pointedly.
I shoved a hefty portion of fritter into my face. “Wha?”
“How are things with Gage? I heard that your farm tour ran a little long while you two were alone.”
“We weren’t alone. We were chaperoned by Nana, who needs to go to doggy obedience boot camp. Ow! Stop stabbing me,” I said to the cat in my lap.
Hazel slumped in her chair. “Come on, Zoey. Give me something.”
“You know what I miss? The days when you’d make things up and put them in books.”
“Yeah, but it’s so much easier when I can just steal from real life.”
“Ugh. Fine. But only to keep you from accosting poor innocent townsfolk and trying to matchmake them.”
Hazel clapped. “Yay. Okay, spill it. Pep said you had crazy hair when you came back from your ‘tour.’ Was it from hot tub sex?”
“Gage doesn’t have a hot tub,” I said dryly.
“Uh-huh. That’s fine. Fictional Gage does. So where exactly did the sex having take place?”
A long, lean black-and-white cat jumped up on our table, swatted two puzzle pieces onto the floor, and then sat down on the windowsill to perform some routine butthole maintenance.
“There was no sex having. He showed me the pond, and his problem-child golden retriever went for a swim. He had to wade in after her and drag her back out. It was kind of funny. At least until Nana decided to add mud wrestling to the itinerary. She got us both. Gage looked like he’d been birthed by swamp people. ”
“Please tell me you have pictures.”
“I have better than that,” I said, proudly producing the video that I’d watched a few dozen times since the weekend.
Hazel’s snort drew the eyes of nearby patrons. “Yeah, that’s definitely going in a book,” she announced. “So what happened after the mud wrestling?”
“Gage took me back to his place, we showered separately, and then I went home.” Brenda clawed me in the legs as if she knew I was withholding information.
“What did his soap smell like? Did you find anything kinky in his nightstand? What’s his closet space situation?”
“His soap smelled like whatever manly soap smells like. Maybe like wood chips and chainsaws? I didn’t go through his nightstand.
And his closet situation is pathetic. He’s got a whole room off the bathroom with one measly clothing rod.
No drawers, no hooks, no velvet jewelry trays, no full-length mirror.
Just a sad, droopy rod of T-shirts and button-downs. ”
“Uh-huh.” She made several notes. “And why does that annoy you?”
“I’m not annoyed,” I argued.
Hazel lifted an eyebrow.
Brenda reached out to swat the windowsill cat’s tail, which apparently was not enough for it to stop lavishing its butthole with attention.
I sighed. “I really don’t like that we know each other so well.”
“Yeah you do,” she insisted cheerfully. “Back to you being annoyed. Is it because he lives in a converted barn? It’s not like he shares a bathroom with actual farm animals.”
“No. The house was kind of…nice,” I admitted.
“Then what? Did he use too much legal jargon? Sometimes he does that to piss off his brothers.”
“It’s not that. I’m just…confused.”
“How did the hot guy with a barn house confuse you?” Hazel asked.
I threw my hands up in frustration, and my lap cat started purring.
“I don’t know. I have all these conflicting feelings.
I’m attracted to him even though I know without a shred of doubt that he’s a terrible fit for me.
And while I’m perfectly willing to have some nice, healthy sex, he’s shopping for Ms. Right.
And he knows I don’t do relationships, but we had this intense eye-contact-y moment, and he asked me if I was sure I wasn’t ‘the one,’ and obviously I’m not the one because he wears cardigans but somehow makes it hot, and I know the right thing to do is avoid him, which I was trying to do, but then I got stuck in a sports bra, and he saved me and touched my boobs.
And now I can’t stop thinking about him. ”
Hazel was staring at me open-mouthed, pen hovering over the notebook.
The cat on the windowsill looked up at me with what I considered to be an unfairly judgmental expression for something that had just spent five minutes licking its own butt. While still maintaining eye contact, it slapped a paw over a corner puzzle piece and dragged it off the table.
“No wonder you’re freaked out,” Hazel said finally.
“I’m not freaked out. Men don’t freak me out. I must have just inhaled some toxic mud from the pond or something.”
“Clearly that’s the only explanation. So did you jump up and wrap your legs around his waist, or did you pull his hair to get him down to kissing level?”
“Neither. I shouted something about laundry and ruined the moment.”
“Okay, the old Zoey would have scaled Gage like an aggressive mountain goat. What’s going on with you?”
“You can’t seriously think it’s a good idea for me to have a fling with your soon-to-be brother-in-law,” I pointed out.
“Why not? You’re both adults. Hot, sexy, consenting adults.”
“Trust me. He’s way more adult than me. He’s ready to wife someone up and start making babies in a minivan.”
She reached out and gave my hand a squeeze. “Is that why you don’t want to get involved?” All teasing was gone. Her voice was gentle now.
I shook my head. “I came to peace with it a long time ago. I’m fine with it. I promise.”
“I just don’t think you should expect all relationships to end the way you and Sam did.”
“I don’t,” I insisted without knowing if it was true. Sam had loved me the way I’d always needed someone to…right up until he found out just how lacking I was.
“Good, because that was college. No one is a fully realized adult in college. Besides, families happen in a lot of different ways,” Hazel said.
I held up a hand. “I’m going to stop you right there. You’ve met my family, Haze. Why would I ever want to give it a try?”
“You would make different choices than your parents,” she insisted.
I wasn’t so sure those different choices would be any better. “I lose my grocery list between home and the store. How would I even begin to keep another human alive? Sometimes nature is all like ‘There can be only one’ for legitimate reasons,” I joked.
“I know you’re deflecting with humor,” she began.
“And I know you mean well, but the point is Gage and I are very different people who want very different things. I also can’t give him what he wants, so I need you to put this muffin in your face before you bring me down.”
“Fine. But only because I want to, not because you managed to distract me. Let’s go back to Gage and your boobs.”
Relieved, I acquiesced. “I’d been walking around town trying to talk to businesses about participating in Reader Weekend and got all sweaty. When I got back to my apartment, I couldn’t get out of my sports bra.”
“Ugh! I hate when that happens. The panic sets in, and you feel like you’re suffocating.”
“Exactly! Anyway, he knocked on my door to yell at me about shoes, and instead I yelled at him and made him feel me up.”
Hazel’s pretty brown eyes fluttered behind her glasses in some inspiration-induced fugue state. “Walk me through the choreography.”
“No.”
“It’s for the book, Zoey. Also my own personal entertainment.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
I made a move to stand up, but Jennifer Jang appeared at the table and plopped down a table tent in front of me. It said, If a cat sits on you, you are legally obligated to stay put for at least ten minutes. “Sorry, Zoey. House rules,” she said.
Like me, Jennifer and her family were new in town.
An avid reader and fan of Hazel, she’d talked her husband into a weekend getaway to Story Lake last summer.
Apparently quirky was their vibe, because they packed up their house and their boys and moved here to open a much-needed café.
I liked to say—loudly to journalists—that Hazel Hart inspired real-life happily ever afters every day.