Chapter 5 Casting Call
CASTING CALL
Jack
I’m walking the dog.
And as much as I wish that were a euphemism, it’s not.
There’s no leash. No ownership. No signed agreement. Just me, trailing behind a slobbering Saint Bernard with a bad sense of direction and apparently zero shame.
I have shame. So much that I spent the last three days post tree-lighting drama in my hotel room, only emerging when Amanda played to my overdeveloped sense of responsibility by mentioning she had seen Skippy limping.
Cut to me—once more freezing my man-bits off—Pied-Pipering Skippy to the local vet in the early hours of the morning via a trail of bacon bits left over from my bougie hotel omelet.
Thankfully, the vet declared Skippy the picture of tramp health.
Which is more than I can say for me as my neck, stiff from the cold, also aches from being hunched over my phone and laptop with poor Wi-Fi connection and no hope of expedited shipping on the one Ethernet cord that might’ve saved my sanity over the past seventy-two hours.
I tried to make the most of it by deciding to knock “learn to meditate” off my self-improvement checklist every time the spinning wheel of death hijacked my screen.
But while I may now qualify as a Buddhist monk by default, I don’t feel the least bit enlightened. Or peaceful. Mostly, I feel cold. Unproductive.
And deeply ashamed of how many hours I’ve spent scrolling through the Instagram account of a local bakery named Making Whoopie for glimpses of the type-A baker whose thighs feel as if they left permanent scorch marks on my obliques ever since I landed between them under a rainfall of pine needles.
My cyberstalking started innocently enough.
Felix and Amanda had tagged Making Whoopie in one of their many tree lighting selfies, and—seeing as I wouldn’t be much of an agent if I didn’t ensure my clients weren’t accidentally endorsing something off-brand—I felt it was my professional duty to investigate.
Hours later, I was one of the many new followers of the Making Whoopie account and deep into the void of whoopie pie reels. I’ve seen every post. Twice.
I know which hairstyles the attractive patron favors—bun or braid—and how many seasonal Croc charms she owns—infinite. Hell, I could probably recognize her piping technique in a frosting lineup.
My mind connects frosting and Audrey in multiple naughty ways, making me glad of the gust of wind that whips around the corner of Lobstah Lane and slices through my coat with enough power to one, cool me off and two, remind me why people wear hats.
Skippy trots on ahead, tail swinging, drool flinging, no limp in sight.
“Hey, are you the lawyer guy?”
I pause behind my Skippy pilgrimage just outside of a bookshop—the only shop that’s apparently forgotten it’s Christmas. Not a decoration in sight.
A bespeckled teenager steps outside looking warmer in her wool-knit sweater and jeans than I feel in my GQ-worthy cashmere crew neck and trench.
Before I can form a response to ‘lawyer guy’ that won’t have me more hated than I already am, the teenager presses a tin of shortbread cookies into my hands. “That was super nice of you to take Skippy to the vet.”
If I ever needed a weight to replace my kettle bells, this tin would be it. “How do you know about that?”
She scoffs, sounding very much like the teenager she is. “Welcome to small-town America.”
“Ah.” My mind tracks back to the vet’s office, where the secretary behind the desk seemed unusually interested in my impromptu walk-in appointment with the town stray.
“Yep.” She pushes her glasses up her nose. “I even know you paid for his visit—even though the town has a Skippy-fund.”
Not wanting to dim her friendly attitude toward me, I decide not to mention I had fully intended to bill Felix for Skippy’s medical expense, plus my hourly rate.
“Hello!”
In unison, the teen and I turn toward the greeting to find a petite woman in a Nordic beanie and a puffer jacket two sizes too cheerful waving.
My cookie dealer waves back. “Hi.”
“I’m Ida,” the woman, now huffing and puffing in front of me announces. “Just wanted to say that it’s such a pleasure for Hideaway to welcome such a lovely and caring man such as yourself, Mr. Lourd.”
I glance behind me, sure she’s addressing someone else. No one’s there.
The teenager laughs.
“To check up on our poor Skippy like that.” Another gust of wind whips around the corner, causing Ida to reach for her hat, securing it in place.
A hat I would pay serious money for right about now—despite how badly it would clash with my coat. Though it couldn’t be any worse than the turbulent shade of red I’m sure my frozen ears are turning.
Ida leans in conspiratorially. “Never would’ve guessed a lawyer would do something like that.”
Not wanting to speak on common decency for the entire population of people with law degrees, I make a noncommittal sound.
She pats my arm. “The town appreciates it.”
Her sincerity hits in a strange, not-altogether-unpleasant way. “Well, if he was hurt”—I turn, directing the woman’s attention down the road to where Skippy is making yellow snow a few shops down—“which he isn’t, it would’ve been my fault. Only right I made sure he was okay.”
Ida shimmies her shoulders and titters, looking pleased at my words.
The teen next to me excuses herself and heads back inside the bookstore. I have a feeling she was fighting a laugh.
“Yes, well…” The older woman clears her throat, once more leaning in. “Now that it’s just the two of us, I was wondering…”
I brace, weirdly worried I’m about to be propositioned.
“Do you know anything about property lines?”
I blink, my mind obviously not quite as nimble in frigid temperatures to shift from canine health hero to land dispute consultant. “Uh, a bit.”
Cut to me, ten minutes later, with a hand-knitted scarf wrapped around my neck given as legal tender for having listened to an epic tale of garden gnome warfare over a very disputed hedge.
And that’s just the beginning.
By the time I catch up to Skippy—now dramatically flopped outside The Sweetest Thing candy shop—I’ve answered five legal questions, been greeted and thanked by a dozen people, given a sex shop gift certificate, an invitation to dinner from a peppy older couple on a late-morning walk, and am now the proud owner of a lobster Christmas ornament that was pressed into my hands by a woman who wanted to trademark her residential holiday décor “to keep looky-loos from copying my unique style.”
Hideaway may lack cell signal or boundaries, but damn if it doesn’t have heart.
Heart…
For some reason, my eyes trail down Main Street, stopping on a chalkboard sign stationed outside a sky-blue door.
Skippy whines.
“She wouldn’t want to see me.” Great, now I’m talking to a dog.
He huffs.
I look at my watch. “She’s probably busy.”
As if annoyed I’m making him move from his cozy snow drift bed, he gets up, nose pointed in Making Whoopie’s direction like the hunting dog he isn’t.
“Skippy.” Now I’m pleading with a dog. “I fell into her crotch while holding a hairless pussy.”
My crudeness falls on deaf ears as Skippy starts swaggering down Main Street.
And like the vet said I should—just to be safe—I follow.
Audrey
I’m high. I can’t tell if it’s from my seemingly overnight success thanks to two celebrity social media endorsements, an above-average sugar intake, or the sleep deprivation caused by said overnight success and sugar intake.
Making Whoopie gained a few thousand new followers after the tree-lighting heard 'round Hideaway—and apparently, the country.
I’ve spent the last three days—including my one sacred day off, usually reserved for sleep—fulfilling an avalanche of large-order requests, dealing with pre-Christmas pie panic, and managing counter lines that could rival Disneyland on opening day.
A toddler in a puffy snowsuit screeches as he smashes his hands against the bakery display glass, leaving behind a constellation of sugar-frosted fingerprints.
I slide a napkin across the counter with a tight smile at his mom, who’s too focused on getting a TikTok of the cookie selection to notice that her child is trying to eat through the glass.
“Three Jingle My Berries and two Santa’s Cream-Filled Secrets,” I repeat back to the older man in the shearling-lined coat who ordered with the intensity of someone defusing a bomb.
He gives me a thumbs-up and adds a sixth whoopie to the order for his wife, “the one with eggnog cream and the dirty name.”
I box them up, slap a label on top, and pivot just in time to catch a gingerbread pie as it slides toward the edge of the cooling rack like it’s attempting a baked goods escape.
I know how it feels.
Not that I’m not grateful to Felix and Amanda. I am. Exceedingly so.
Especially when I saw that my mother had liked that one post of Felix Jones biting into a whoopie pie.
I mean, does it also mean she probably saw the video of me being sacked like a quarterback by a man holding a naked cat and frosted redemption? Probably.
But I’m going to ignore that.
Just like I’m ignoring the customers waxing poetic about Hideaway’s newest golden boy—the lawyer with a heart of gold who rescued our precious town dog from paw-tricide.
A woman in a glittering “Eat, Sleigh, Love” sweatshirt leans across the counter and whispers, “Isn’t it so sweet what that man did for Skippy this morning? Honestly, I didn’t even think those lawyer types had hearts.”
I hum noncommittally and use tongs to thrust a Sleigh Me Softly into her bag. Not passive-aggressive. Just… precision serving.
Never mind that I’m the one who got body-slammed into a thirty-foot pine tree. The one with a baseball-sized bruise on her ass cheek. The one squashed under a dog, a cat, and a lawyer in a pear tree.
But sure. Let’s canonize Jack Lourd for being a decent human to a dog with a town trust fund.