Chapter 47
Emergency poop would not be my legacy
Zoey
Dear Zoey,
Congratulations on Hazel’s blockbuster hit.
We’d love to have a conversation with you about both of you coming back home to Beau Monde.
As you probably heard, Jim Whitehead is no longer with the agency, and we’d like to discuss you taking over his client roster.
We’re also extremely interested in your new client’s romantasy series.
Sincerely,
Lawrence Rawley, CEO
Great. Thank you. I’ll be in touch as soon as Opal makes her decision,” I said before disconnecting the call.
Buttercup was snuggled up against my side.
Her little tail hadn’t stopped tapping since Cam had picked Hazel and me up at the airport.
I was exhausted and hungry, and all my clothes smelled like airplanes.
Hazel had killed it at five sold-out tour stops.
I was so proud of her my face was frozen in a creepy, permanent smile.
I just wanted a shower and to crawl under the covers with my dog for forty-eight hours without talking to another person.
Which was what I would do as soon as I delivered the news to Opal that she was about to close one of the most lucrative deals for a debut author in the last decade.
“Good news?” Hazel asked from the front seat, where she and Cam were holding hands like it had been weeks instead of days since they’d last seen each other. Meetcute was perched on her lap, paws on the door as she stared out the window.
“I can’t discuss another client’s deals with you,” I said in my most professional tone.
“Of course,” Hazel said. “But…”
“But I will say I’m the greatest agent in the history of literary agents!”
Cam hunched his shoulders against our in-the-car victory dance and squealing. “You two just spent eight days on the road together. Aren’t you sick of each other yet?”
“Never!” we said in unison.
Story Lake’s welcome sign came into view, and my heart skipped a beat. Gage had kept up a steady stream of apology communications since I’d left town with Hazel. I’d nearly responded to him a thousand times. But I’d resisted.
He’d hurt me. Deeply. But during one of our calls while I was gone, Opal had given me a grumpy, no-nonsense explanation of why people like me were sometimes naturally more sensitive to rejection than others.
It had given me a lot to think about while I had too much quiet time in anonymous hotel rooms. I was still mad and hurt.
And I sure as hell wasn’t going to make a life-changing decision based on a week of nice emails and texts.
But I missed him. And once I was back to my gorgeous, well-rested self, I would at least hear Gage Bishop out.
See? Growth…and meds…and a mean retired therapist.
Cam steered us through the town square. The storefront next to the future cheese shop no longer wore its For Sale sign. In its place was a placard announcing a dog groomer coming soon.
I’d text Gage tomorrow and schedule our dinner for later this week when I was showered and less emotionally vulnerable. In the meantime, I’d schedule a few dog-friendly apartment viewings back in New York. Because I had options.
Cam pulled into the small parking lot behind Gage’s office building. My car and my trash bins were in their rightful places.
“Home sweet home,” Hazel said cheerily.
Or something like that, I added internally. I really, really hoped Gage wasn’t in his office. I wasn’t ready to see him yet.
“I’ll get your bags,” Cam volunteered, practically vaulting out of the SUV.
“Thanks.”
I got out with Buttercup. Hazel and Meetcute joined me. “Well, I guess this is it,” I joked, going in for a hug.
“Actually, do you mind if I come up? I really have to pee…and I need a glass of water. That plane air makes my throat so dry.” She demonstrated with a weak cough.
Cam appeared with my carry-on and overnight bag. “I’ll carry these up,” he said with a weirdly suspicious smile on his handsome face. But the guy had gone the last four days without seeing his fiancée, and love made people act like weirdos, so I went with it.
“Okay, I guess we’ll all go up,” I said.
Buttercup sprang up the stairs ahead of me with Hazel and Cam bringing up the rear.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Hang on. Let me find my keys.”
“Why don’t I just kick it in?” Cam suggested five minutes later as Hazel and I pawed through my tote and suitcase.
“Aha!” I triumphantly held up the key ring I found inside one of my favorite stilettos.
Cam snatched the keys from me and opened the lock with barely restrained violence.
“Calm down, man. Do you have an emergency poop brewing or something?” I asked as he all but ripped the door off its hinges.
“Yes. Yes, he does,” Hazel said quickly. “I told you not to eat that…wheel of cheese.”
Cam gave Hazel a baleful look before ushering us across the threshold.
“Fine. Whatever. Just don’t clog the toilet, because I’m not calling my landlord,” I told him.
I left Hazel and Cam whispering suspiciously in the kitchen and headed into my bedroom.
I dumped my bags on the floor and was just getting ready to face-plant on the bed when I noticed that something was different.
Several somethings. Both my clean and dirty laundry piles were missing.
And my sock drawer had somehow miraculously closed itself completely despite the fact that it had been overflowing before I left.
I opened the drawer and gasped. It was empty.
I yanked open the next drawer and the next and discovered they were empty as well. Tripping over my suitcase, I threw open my closet door and screamed.
“I’ve been robbed!”
“She found out fast,” Cam said from my doorway.
“I told you she’d notice,” Hazel said. “Zoey, honey. I know this looks weird—”
“Someone broke in here and stole all my clothes! Even my dirty laundry. What kind of a pervert steals dirty laundry?” I pushed past them and stormed into the living room. “Where are my throw pillows? And my disco ball candle holder? Someone call Levi. There’s been a robbery.”
Hazel approached me with her hands up and an expression usually reserved for skittish animals. “You haven’t been robbed. There’s a simple explanation for this.”
“Okay. Explain,” I said, crossing my arms.
She shot a guilty look at Cam. “Well, we can’t. But we can take you to someone who can.”
“You want to take me to the person who robbed me? Fine. Let’s go. I just need to find my pepper spray.”
“Told you she wasn’t going to take it well,” Cam said out of the side of his mouth.
Still grinning, Hazel patted his arm. “I’ll tell you you were right later.”
“What the hell’s going on?” I demanded.
She beamed at me. “We can’t actually tell you, but I do need you to put this on, because we have someplace important to be.”
“Put what on? Handcuffs? A bag over my head?”
She nudged Cam.
“Oh right.” He pulled a T-shirt from behind his back and threw it at me. It hit me in the head and draped over my face.
“I’m tired. I’m grungy. I still have recycled airplane air in my lungs. I want a shower, and I want my damn clothes!” I was embarrassingly close to stomping my foot but was saved from the indignity by sheer exhaustion.
Hazel walked over and put her hands on my shoulders. “I know you’re tired. I know you’ve got a lot going on. But something wonderful is happening, and it’s all for you. I’m not letting you miss out on it.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled noisily through my nose. “Will there at least be food?”
“No,” Cam said.
“There can be if you want there to be,” Hazel insisted.
“There was no emergency poop, was there?” I asked Cam.
“Not today.”
“So you’re escorting me. Okay. Fine. This isn’t weird at all,” I complained, adjusting the hem of my Story Lake Ultimate Bingo T-shirt as Hazel and Cam marched hand in hand down the sidewalk in front of me.
We were drawing quite the parade. Every person we passed smiled the same cheesy, secret smile at me and then fell into step behind us.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” I asked the crowd as we marched in the general direction of the lake.
“Oh, look. There’s Goose,” someone announced. The bald eagle soared in a slow circle overhead above the gigantic banner. Ultimate Bingo Kickoff Today.
“No. No. No! Nope. I haven’t had time to read the manual! I don’t know the rules or the chants. I am in no condition to lead a team!” I turned around, trying to flee, but found my way blocked by a line of maniacally grinning townsfolk. “You can’t kidnap someone and force them to play bingo!”
Buttercup pulled anxiously at her leash as she trotted by my side.
“You’d never kidnap me and make me participate in some weird town ritual when all I want to do is shower and sleep, would you, sweetie?” I asked my dog.
She looked up at me with utter adoration. Her cute, perky ears bounced as she trotted along next to me. The jagged pieces of my heart came together for a painful “aww.” This was why people had dogs. Unconditional love and ear bouncies.
Hazel fell in step with me and took my hand as we crossed Lake Drive.
“What is happening?” I couldn’t see past the wall of people in front of us.
“You’ll see.”
“Hazel Pain in My Ass Hart, if this is one of those over-the-top public grand gestures, I will never forgive you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said haughtily.
“Oh really? You didn’t once write a hero who dressed up as Santa Claus, got stuck in the heroine’s chimney, and then had to propose from a stretcher in front of the whole town after he was extracted by professionals?”
“I tell you what. If you see a Santa suit today, I give you permission to run.”
“Look, I said I’d have dinner with the man so he could grovel. I didn’t agree to some new public humiliation fiasco.”
“Oh, this isn’t Gage,” Hazel said with the smugness of someone who knew what was going on. “This is Story Lake.”