Chapter 23
The Fighting Vampires
Zoey
Istared at the prescription bottle on my nightstand with one bleary eye as my alarm chirped cheerfully from across the room. Opal’s first manuscript was next to me in bed.
Monday. The beginning of the week. A new start. Despite my stupid broken wrist and an entire night of naughty dreams about a certain attorney-slash-contractor who shall remain nameless, I was going to have a productive day adulting.
I sat up, wincing when I put too much weight on my bad wrist.
“Here goes nothing,” I announced to the empty room. I popped open the bottle and washed a pill down with a swig of water. I thought about lying back down and grabbing another thirty minutes of sleep, but it was my new start, damn it.
I got out of bed and turned off my alarm while wondering what a productive person would do to start their day. Probably a workout. But then I would need a shower, and it was hair wash day, which meant there went half my morning.
The curse of curly hair. It was cute as hell, but the maintenance was next-level. I should have gotten up earlier if I was going to turn over a new leaf and have clean hair.
“Great. A new start and I’m already behind,” I muttered, shuffling naked over to my dresser.
An hour later, I had showered and was applying my makeup while my curl activator worked on my hair. I’d also only thought of Gage six or seven times so far.
I ran through the events in my calendar while I finished off a second coat of mascara, no easy feat using my nondominant, nonbroken hand.
I was sitting in on Hazel’s big interview with an online magazine later this morning.
Then I had a call with an acquisitions editor about Opal.
Then there was a meeting with some of Story Lake’s talented young minds to see if they were opposed to a little child labor.
Oh! I could take my laundry to Hazel’s this morning, start it before the interview, and finish it this evening, possibly getting dinner out of the deal.
I had to remember to bring the packages I’d picked up from Hazel’s post office box along.
I’d left them on the side table in my office next to the insurance card for my car—
I slapped my good hand to my forehead. “What’s happening to me? Why am I remembering stuff?” I asked my reflection. I blinked in recognition. “Holy shit. Is it working?”
I burst into Hazel’s house lugging a laundry basket and a whole lot of feelings.
The foyer was a homey spot with a table that held a vase of flowers from the front yard and the framed newspaper clipping about the Bishop brothers that had brought Hazel to Story Lake.
The napkin she and Cam had signed their no-strings sex contract on was in a frame on her office wall.
Meetcute rocketed down the hall toward me, his human mom on his heels.
“You’re early! And…you’re crying.” Hazel’s smile immediately shifted to concern.
“Is this how it feels to be a normal person?” I demanded.
She took the laundry basket from me. “I don’t know if I’m the person to answer that. What’s ‘this’ and what’s ‘normal’?”
“I’m on drugs, and I think they made me normal,” I wailed.
“I’m gonna need more context. Do you want some oatmeal?”
I nodded and sniffled pathetically. “Chocolate chip?”
“Of course. Come on, my little curly-haired weirdo. Did you shower? Your hair smells good. What the hell happened to your arm?”
I held up my brace so she could examine it. “Opal diagnosed me with a brain thing. I had sex with Gage. Then I broke my wrist because of a donkey. And now I’m normal.”
“I talked to you Saturday morning. When did all this happen?”
“I lived a lifetime this weekend.”
“So mimosas then?” Hazel suggested as she led the way to the kitchen.
“I’m not sure where to start,” she admitted ten minutes later when I’d finished verbally vomiting about my weekend.
Hazel’s kitchen was a nice place to have a crisis with its stylish navy-blue cabinets and acres of counter space.
We were sitting at the table in the breakfast nook with spring sunshine slanting aggressively through the windows.
“I mean, obviously I wanna start with you and Gage having sex. But I think that’s the romance novelist in me.
So let’s start with how did you do your mascara with a broken wrist? ”
“I held the wand still and blinked fast.”
Hazel nodded her approval. “That’s smart. How do you feel?”
“Sore. Happy. Hopeful. Confused. Sad. Sexually sated.”
“One of my many stepsiblings had ADHD. It makes a lot of sense,” she said, hooking her feet on the rungs of her chair.
“It does. And I think the reason I’m sad is that things could have been so much better for so much longer if I’d just known.”
“That’s awful, Zoey. I’m so sorry,” Hazel said.
I scraped the last bite of oatmeal out of my bowl awkwardly with my left hand.
Hazel polished off her mimosa. I’d decided to stick with just the oatmeal since I was barely hours into my new start.
Also, I didn’t want to challenge that big, yellow alcohol warning on the prescription bottle on day one.
“Speaking of Gage,” she continued, cupping her face in her hands and batting her eyelashes at me.
“We weren’t,” I pointed out.
“But we are now,” she said cheerfully.
“Unfortunately, we need to table this part of the discussion until later, because you have an interview,” I said, holding up my phone to show her the time.
“Crap! But I didn’t even get to interrogate you about the sexy times yet! How was it? Where did it happen? How many orgasms were had? What kind of endearing sexual maneuvers that readers would enjoy did he employ?”
“It was a one-time thing, and I promise I’ll catch you up later. But first you have to go tell the readership of Thrive all about your amazing guaranteed-to-be-a-bestseller,” I said, pulling her out of her chair.
“But I don’t wanna talk to real people. I wanna hang out with the fictional ones in my head.”
“Tough shit.” I guided her into her office, a sunny room on the side of the house dominated by gorgeous bookcases.
Sprawled across her desk was DeWalt, her tubby orange beefcake of a cat.
I ruffled his ears and earned a disdainful meh from him.
“No meowing on camera, buddy,” I warned, then turned to the dog.
“And you, Meetcute. If you even think about barking at a squirrel outside, you’ll be living in Bertha’s raccoon house. ”
“Well, that was just delightful,” the editor announced cheerfully an hour later, after Hazel had finished dazzling her with the story of her real-life happily ever after. “Thank your agent for the advance copy, because I loved it, and so has everyone else who got their hands on it.”
I jumped out of my off-camera seat and danced a boogie in front of Hazel’s desk.
“Thank you so much, Shiloh,” Hazel said, ignoring my celebratory shenanigans. “I feel like I put pieces of my heart and soul into the story.”
“The women’s entertainment division has been talking about organizing a trip for ages, and your book was the inspiration for actually making it happen. We’ve decided to come to Story Lake!”
Hazel kept her excitement professional, and Meetcute eyed me with suspicion while I performed a vulgarly comedic series of hip thrusts.
“That’s amazing. I’ll cook dinner for everyone,” Hazel announced.
I stopped thrusting and started making a slashing motion over my throat. Hazel was great at a lot of things. Brilliant even. Cooking wasn’t even close to one of them.
“A little curly-haired bird told me that you’re hosting a local reader event for your launch,” Shiloh continued. “We were wondering if you’d mind if we attended.”
My thumbs-ups were so aggressive, the shock of pain that shot up my arm convinced me I might have broken another bone.
I doubled over, hugging my wounded wrist to my chest and mouthing several colorful vocabulary words while Hazel beamed at her camera.
“I think that would be perfect timing,” she said.
“Great! I’ll be in touch with Zoey, and we can coordinate,” Shiloh said. “We’re all looking forward to it. Not gonna lie, the idea that you escaped to this quirky little haven and your HEA is giving us single ladies hope.”
“That’s exactly what Story Lake gave me. Hope,” Hazel said, ending on the perfect sound bite.
The second Hazel disconnected the call, she jumped out of her seat. Meetcute yipped and danced at her feet. DeWalt gave one of those weird cat scream yawns and readjusted his considerable bulk to take advantage of a sunbeam.
“Thrive, the wildly popular online magazine, is coming to your reader event!” I shouted.
“Give me all the sexy details about Gage!” Hazel demanded.
“Oh my God, you’re tenacious.”
“I’m stuck on chapter ten. There’s only so much not-sex my characters can have before I get bored.”
“Ugh. Fine. But I’m not giving you all the details, because that’s weird. And also you’re responsible for how much face breaking Cam performs on Gage if you tell him anything.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she said with confidence.
Me: Good luck today.
Gage: Thanks. Are you just using a preliminary hearing as an excuse to text me and tell me how you’d like to get me naked again?
Me: You wish. I’ve already forgotten what your penis looks like.
Gage: Are you asking for a dick pic?
Me: I wasn’t. But I guess if you really want to send me one, I’d have to give it at least a cursory glance.
Gage: How’s the wrist?
Me: Still attached. And I haven’t broken any new bones yet today.
Gage: Success.
Story Lake High was a dated brick building that looked like the quintessential nineties-movie high school with a flagpole out front and a sign proclaiming it was the proud home of the Fighting Vampires.
“Interesting choice for a mascot,” I noted.