Chapter 11 #4
“Awwwwwww,” she said in that tone women get when they see baby goats wearing sweaters.
Dennis just shrugged.
“Blake is so happy you’re home. He always says you’re his favorite cousin. Come to the restaurant!”
“I will. Promise. This time of year, though…” He nodded toward Main Street. “Getting crowded.”
“People are coming earlier and earlier,” she agreed. “We used to start filling up on February first. Now we’re booked solid starting in January.”
“A full month before Valentine’s Day?”
“Yep.” She grinned, clearly thrilled by their success.
Blake was two years older than Dennis, someone who helped him navigate the strangeness of high school when Dennis appeared on the hockey team as a competent, but not particularly skilled, defenseman.
By the end of his freshman year, he was a three-sport athlete, playing football in the fall, hockey in the winter, and competing in shot put in the spring.
All that activity bulked him up, fast.
“You coming to Bilbee’s tonight?” she asked. “We’re closed on Mondays, so we decided to go hang out with everyone.”
Luke and Colleen had cornered him this morning and made it clear he was expected to attend, so he just nodded.
She beamed. “Great!” Her phone buzzed, face falling as she read the text. “I’m late! See you tonight.”
As she walked away, he reoriented himself, his own phone buzzing.
Fresh is wonderful, was all his mother said.
I thought you had an herb garden in the greenhouse, he replied.
Jester ate the whole thing last week. Remember? When Darren swung by because we were worried he also ate some vermiculite?
Golden retrievers were great, and Jester was a wonderful companion, but he certainly added some excitement to their sleepy little compound.
Right. Want me to get you a rosemary tree? he responded, his finger hitting Send as a wave of perfume assaulted him.
Then a hand appeared on his forearm.
“Dennis.”
He looked up.
The woman before him was dressed to the nines, with perfectly coiffed hair and makeup that looked like someone had used 3D modeling software to get every pixel perfect. But when she smiled and her ruby-red lips parted, her top front tooth was the tiniest bit crooked.
The look in her eye was unmistakable: She was on the prowl.
“Annabeth,” he said simply, looking back at the meat counter, wondering if Ed had texted her.
“You look ah-maze-ing,” she gushed as she came in for a hug, her height close to his in high-heeled boots that were about as practical in the Maine winter as a mesh mask in a flu ward.
Considering he’d spent the morning chopping wood, followed by mucking the stalls at Mel’s animal sanctuary, Dennis did not, in fact, feel like he was ah-maze-ing.
He was likely quite ripe.
“Thank you. You, too.” He pulled back, careful to protect Magic. Her eyes dropped to his pocket, then widened.
“Is your jacket… moving?”
Stifling a sigh, he reached for the critter and showed it to her.
“You’re carrying a flying squirrel in your pocket?” Her tone was decidedly less gushy and cute.
“He’s hurt.” Dennis rotated Magic to show the bandage. “Helping Mel out.”
Annabeth’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“How sweet.” She leaned in. “How are you adjusting to life back home, where you belong?”
One part of coming back to Luview that he’d forgotten: the sheer level of judgment some people had baked into their personalities.
“Just fine.”
“Grocery shopping?”
“No. Looking for bomb supplies,” he said, deadpan.
She faltered, then laughed.
“You always were a joker.”
They’d grown up together, but he’d never dated her. Never been close. Why the sudden pretense of familiarity?
He looked over her shoulder, spotted the herb section, and walked over to the rosemary. Tiny trees, three in total, were wrapped in cellophane. He put one in his basket.
“Deanna’s making chicken for dinner?”
“I… guess?”
“She makes such a good smoked chicken. That rosemary and olive oil infusion she does is–” Annabeth used her fingers to do a chef’s kiss, drawing his attention to her lips, eyes on him the entire time.
“Mom’s a great cook.” Being boring was his best option here. If he said even the tiniest thing that gave her a hook, it would only make this worse.
“Oh! Dennis!” Sheila suddenly appeared. “I forgot to ask. Dean has a blowtorch Deanna’s lending us. Ours died, and you can’t make crème br?lée without one. Can you bring it tonight?”
Annabeth’s eyes narrowed like a lion spotting an injured gazelle.
“Sure,” he said as Sheila waved thanks and disappeared.
“Tonight?” Annabeth asked, eyes pinging from the door Sheila departed through to Dennis.
Just then, Magic began writhing in his pocket, claws scraping hard against him. Dropping his basket, he fumbled to get the poor thing out, horrifying Annabeth in the process.
Which was an unintended bonus.
“What’s up, bud?” he asked the little guy, who chose that moment to rise up, looking at Annabeth.
And then Magic did what sugar gliders do.
He leaped.
Legs splaying in midair, Magic looked like a rectangle of stretchy fur, but the injured leg pulled in, changing his shape into a lopsided quadrilateral. As he flew toward Annabeth, she screamed and backed up, her ass hitting the edge of an enormous avocado pyramid.
The rumble of hundreds of ovoid objects registered in Dennis’s brain, but his full attention was on Annabeth, who was dodging poor Magic. Suddenly, the poor creature had nowhere to land.
Avocados spilled down like a landslide. Dennis jumped in front of Annabeth, his arm grazing her breasts as he struggled to give Magic a hand.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she shrieked, but he ignored the words, focused wholly on his mission: to catch the confused creature before it nosedived onto the hard linoleum.
Dodging Annabeth to his left, he felt her weight shift, those heels too high for stability. Her hip checked a sweet onion display and an avalanche of Vidalias joined the avocados.
Less than two seconds passed before his fingers connected with Magic’s paws and he hit the ground hard, his hip and shoulder absorbing the majority of the impact.
But the produce landslide continued, an onion bouncing right between his eyes.
Turning away, he saw Annabeth pirouette, striking a basket of tomatoes on the vine, three or four bunches going airborne as a wave of avocados rolled off his back.
Staying put seemed advisable until the fray had settled. Annabeth righted herself, clinging to the edge of the wooden vegetable receptacle, one ankle shaky.
Laughter, muttering, and confused movement around him turned into a din as he looked at Magic, who was safely in his hands.
All he got was a wide-eyed, confused look right back.
“Me, too, buddy. Me, too.”
In reply, Magic peed all over the palm of his hand.
“SO GROSS!” Annabeth screeched as her father appeared, shaking his head as he surveyed the mess on the floor between the two of them.
“You okay?” Dennis called out to her, but she was beyond polite talk.
“Dad! Do something!” she demanded of Ed, who took in the mess, then shuffled over to one of the displays.
“DAD?”
He returned holding a lime and a garlic bulb. Looking Dennis dead in the eye, he tossed both on the floor next to him.
“There,” Ed said calmly. “Now you can make guacamole.”