Chapter 6
Zoey
Misdelivered refrigerators. There was another thing Zoey could add to the list of things she hated.
She’d spent all day waiting for her new produce chiller to show up at The Smoothie Maven, but the company had sent it to her home address instead of the shop.
Now said fridge was sitting on the porch, which was sagging alarmingly under its weight.
Not to mention that her roommate Peta had got all huffy about her prime storage/crafting space being taken up by a Westinghouse.
‘Think of the storage unit finds I could have put there instead!’ Peta muttered as she manoeuvred around the various bits and bobs on the porch: a velvet ottoman with a hand-crafted ransom note stitched to it, a birdcage filled with LEGO, a half-finished Little Free Library.
‘A fridge can be art,’ Ainsley pointed out as she came up the front steps. She’d been checking in with the neighbours to see whether Romero had come by demanding his regular snacks – no luck yet. ‘All you need is magnets and an imagination.’
She wasn’t wrong. The fridge stood proudly, looking – if you squinted – like one of those desert metal ziggurat sculptures that appeared out of nowhere.
Unfortunately, as is often the case with fridges, the goal was function, not form.
Zoey had tried calling the delivery company, but the guy was out in Hillsboro and was driving down to Eugene after that. Or so he said. He probably just didn’t want to come back across the bridge during peak hour.
Zoey aimed a kick at the refrigerator box, fighting a wince as she pretended doing so hadn’t hurt.
‘Just have Nick come here first,’ said Ainsley, as Zoey tried to shove the fridge across the creaking wooden porch. This achieved nothing more than a splinter. ‘He has a truck, doesn’t he?’
Absolutely not. Zoey was not calling in favours with her mushroom man this early on.
Early on in … what? whispered a little voice in her head.
In the vendor/vendee relationship, clearly, little voice.
Because Zoey absolutely hadn’t spent half the day dreaming about seeing those dark-lashed eyes again.
Hearing that dreamy voice again, especially when said voice had apologised for missing her call yesterday.
And had given an extremely elaborate reason for it that surely could not have been fabrication.
No one could extemporise a story involving cows and geese, could they?
‘We can handle it.’ Zoey set her fists akimbo as she thought.
She’d played (extensively) the reboot of The Incredible Machine.
She could figure out something involving fitness bands and some sort of wheel base.
‘I’ll just load the fridge up on a … skateboard or something. Push it down the street. It’s not far.’
‘Zoey.’ Like a found-family mother figure in a film, Ainsley put her hands on Zoey’s shoulders. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this. You have a man with a truck. A hot man with a truck. It’s a couple of blocks. He’ll be happy to do it.’
Zoey shook her head. She could almost visualise a solution. The steps were the only issue. Could she just pop a rug under the box and slide it down that way?
‘Can I borrow your phone for a sec?’ asked Ainsley, absently. ‘I’m trying to sign our missing kitty cat up for the Cat Mayor of Laurelhurst, but I’m out of battery.’
Ainsley suffered from chronic Flat Phone Syndrome: somehow she was always on single-digit percentages and never had access to a compatible charger. Zoey had no idea how she could live like that. The stress of the battery symbol turning to yellow, then red, would haunt her dreams.
Zoey unlocked her phone and passed it to Ainsley, who swung it out of sight as she tapped away. Hold on. This was suspicious behaviour. Phone-hiding was never above board.
‘Wait, what are you doing? That’s not cat-mayor business.’
‘That’s the second order of business,’ said Ainsley sweetly. ‘The first is …’
She trailed off as a rumble shook the street – a truck engine.
Perhaps the delivery guy had returned after all.
But no, the vehicle that pulled up was a green vintage truck. It parallel-parked with astonishing aplomb, especially since there was no way the vehicle had power steering.
‘You didn’t.’ Zoey folded her arms as she took in the Down-to-Earth decal on the side and the happily panting cattle dog whose nose poked out the passenger window.
‘He was running early,’ said Ainsley with a shrug. ‘Hey, mushroom guy! Welcome to the nest!’
Reaching over to open Alice’s door, Nick waved at them. He hopped down from his own seat, coming up the walkway with a relaxed stride. And a dolly.
‘I hear we have a fridge interloper,’ he said, pushing the dolly along.
‘Ainsley got into my phone,’ called Zoey, apologetically. ‘I’d never—’
She grunted as Ainsley whacked her with the porch chair’s decorative cushion, which read Higher than Thou in a delicately embroidered script.
‘I’ll leave you two lovecats to it,’ she whispered, disappearing back inside the house.
Zoey forced herself not to swoon as Nick approached: he was just as handsome as she remembered.
He was dressed casually but neatly in dark jeans and a plaid button-down with the sleeves rolled up.
A vintage-looking watch with a worn leather band caught the late-afternoon sunlight as he produced a small bouquet of wildflowers wrapped in paper and tied with twine.
Hold on, flowers? That was a bit much, wasn’t it? This was just a mushroom–money exchange meeting, and nothing more. Even if she was wearing the dangly peacock earrings so heavy they stretched her lobes and her favourite thrifted boots from Buffalo Exchange.
‘Do you bring flowers for all your buyers?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Just the ones I like.’ He passed her the bouquet, which smelled warmly of summer.
Just the ones he liked. Zoey’s cheeks were as red as the time she’d had an allergic reaction to some artisanal chocolates at the waterfront holiday market. (The allergen info on the back had simply said ‘all’.)
‘They’re from the farm,’ he explained, with a gentle tap against a bright daisy. ‘Well, except for the gerberas. I took those from the clump growing by the side of the road back there.’
He gestured down the street.
‘Our neighbour Priya is doing this whole rewilding thing, which basically involves throwing seeds over her shoulder everywhere she goes,’ explained Zoey. ‘The sunflowers by the interstate are all her.’
Nick chuckled. ‘I can think of worse hobbies than stealth sunflowering.’
‘Spoken like a mushroom guy. Give me a sec to put these in water and we’ll … do the mushroom thing.’
‘And the fridge.’ Nick gave the box a pat.
‘You really don’t have to. I’ve got it all sorted.’
Nick raised an eyebrow. ‘How exactly do you have it sorted?’
‘I was going to use … a skateboard,’ she admitted. ‘And many, many rolls of duct tape.’
‘I see.’ He leaned back on a heel, trying to see her vision. ‘You’re right. We should definitely do it your way. It’s far more efficient than a dolly and a truck.’
Ugh, she hated it when people were logical.
‘Fine. We’ll use the truck. Just let me put these away.’
Nick peered curiously around the doorframe as Zoey hurried back inside, dumping the flowers in a novelty teapot shaped like a haunted house.
‘Trust me, you don’t want to cross the threshold,’ she warned.
The walls shook as someone was brutally murdered in Winslow’s game. Meanwhile, from beneath Peta’s door came the sharp sounds of a staple gun. These were interspersed with shouts of joy or frustration depending on how her eBay bids were going.
Ainsley waggled her fingers at him from where she was working on sketches for Romero’s mayoral campaign. ‘Welcome to where the dark magic happens.’
‘Temporary tattoo?’ asked Joaquin, who’d emerged from their room and was preparing to head back to their shop. ‘All the cool kids are getting them.’
‘Sure,’ said Nick with a shrug. ‘I’m definitely one of those.’
Joaquin grabbed the kitchen sponge and pressed it to Nick’s arm. ‘You have good skin for tattooing. And good taste in tattoos. Is that one from Remy Maurice in San Diego?’
‘Good eye.’ Nick rolled up his sleeve further to reveal a geometric woodpecker on a muscular forearm. Joaquin nodded appreciatively.
‘You should stop by my studio,’ they said. ‘We’ve just opened on Hawthorne. Hence all the matching temporary tattoos.’
Ainsley showed off hers, and Zoey grudgingly did the same.
‘If we put our wrists together, do we summon Captain Planet?’ asked Nick.
Of course he was into Nineties environmental cartoons. What next? Frog and Toad?
‘Frog and Toad on your door, huh?’ he said, pointing to the framed print over the door marked Zoey. (Courtesy of Ainsley’s sign-painting skills.)
Dammit. No, this was ridiculous. He was not about to go wandering about the house pointing out all of their shared interests.
Zoey was hanging on by a thread here. If he suddenly mentioned a passion for the Criterion Collection or Seventies British pop punk, she’d be unable to keep from dragging him to her bedroom.
‘Okay, we’re out.’ Zoey shoved Nick back out on the porch, trying not to notice that he was quite receptive to being physically manhandled. But still. Meeting the roommates was not something one should do on a first … whatever this was. First fridge-moving favour? First mushroom delivery?
First … date? He had brought flowers, after all. Even if they’d been partially stolen.
‘Quite the assortment of roommates you have there.’ Nick squinted as he counted the pairs of shoes by the front door.
‘Those are mostly Peta’s,’ she promised. ‘There’s Ainsley the painter, Joaquin the tattoo artist, Winslow the gamer, Peta the petty criminal and me, the smoothie lady.’
‘Perfect fodder for a sitcom.’
‘You got it. We just hang out on the couch all day and wait for someone to make a dramatic entrance. There’s a laugh track cued up on the Bluetooth speaker.’
‘And this is why I live alone,’ said Nick. ‘No laugh tracks. Just Alice’s snores.’