The Panty Melter

by Lili Valente

“When are Emily and Beatrice getting here?” Adriana asks, falling in beside me as I trail Jacob and Bella across the grass to the bunnies.

  “Any minute now,” I say, glancing toward the entrance to the parking lot. “They said they were closing the shop at noon.” My older daughters opened a vintage dress shop in Santa Rosa last year and are making such a killing they’re already talking about a second location in Healdsburg.

  “Oh, good,” Addie says. “I can’t wait to see them. I saved them some cake. Hid it in the cooler in some Tupperware so Bella couldn’t get her hands on it.”

  “Emily will be happy to hear that. You know how she loves icing.”

  Addie snorts. “Oh, I know. I made sure to carve her off a corner piece.” She takes a drink of her beer, sighing happily as Bella rushes the bunnies with a happy squeal. “It’s just a perfect day, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I agree. But I have a lot of those lately, since my family expanded to let in even more love and light.

  “Mama look what I’ve got!” Delilah runs up to me, a baby goat under each arm, making Addie laugh so hard she spews beer onto the grass.

  “Amazing!” I kneel down to get a closer look at my daughter’s unexpectedly calm captives. “I think you picked the cutest ones in the whole herd.”

  “I did. I’m going to take them home!” Delilah beams up at me, while Addie mutters, “I told you so,” in a lilting tone.

  “What did Daddy say about that?” I ask, glancing up at Deacon, who’s standing behind her.

  He lifts his hands, palms turned to the sky. “Grandpa has been talking about getting goats. Now that Tristan moved his pet cow to his and Zoey’s new place.”

  I arch a brow. “Have you talked to your dad about this?”

  “Why would I do that?” Deacon scoffs. “When I could show up with a couple surprise goats in the back seat, turn ’em loose, and see what happens?”

  I stand, grinning. “You’re a mess, you know that?”

  “Nah, just staying open to exciting new possibilities. Just like you taught me.”

  “You may have learned that lesson a little too well,” I tease, but I don’t mean it. I love his open mind and open heart.

  And his open arms, I love those maybe most of all.

  I lean into him, kissing his cheek as he wraps me up tight. “Love you.”

  “Surprise goats and all?”

  “Surprise goats and all,” I confirm, and then I kiss him. And I keep kissing him, even when Delilah announces that we’re “silly” and Addie agrees with her baby sister, adding that, “Old people shouldn’t make out that much. It’s not good for their health.”

  But I don’t feel old. I’ve never felt better, healthier, happier, or more whole than I do right now, with my surprise baby and surprise husband and, yes, even the surprise goats that hitch a ride to the farm in our truck after the party is over.

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  * * *

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  SNEAK PEEK

  Please enjoy this sneak peek of HOSED by Lili Valente and Pippa Grant!

  * * *

  Cassie Sunderwell

  (aka an overworked computer gamer geek who needs a vacation from her vacation)

  * * *

  Everything is not under control.

  Everything is chaos and insanity and explosions and fires and intimidating sex toys—half of which I would have no idea how to use, even if I were of the mind to do that “product research” Savannah’s been encouraging since she started making fake penises for a living—and now…him.

  Him. Ryan O’Dell, Mr. Popular, star of the wrestling team, and voted Most Likely to Stay Hot For Eternity every year of high school.

  Mr. Used-to-haunt-my-dreams.

  Mr. And-he-did-again-last-night.

  Not only has he not moved out of town, the way I’d naively assumed after not seeing him around Happy Cat my first week on the job as Savannah’s temporary replacement, he’s become a big, bossy firefighter with broad shoulders and a chiseled jaw and piercing blue eyes that have somehow gotten even bluer and more knee-weakeningly intense in the nine years since he broke my stupid teenage heart.

  And the most pathetic part is that he clearly had no idea who I was…at least at first.

  I’m as invisible to him as I was in high school. But at least now I know better than to think it means something when he looks at me that way, like he’d enjoy ripping my tee shirt off with his obnoxiously shiny and perfectly shaped white teeth.

  Even if I have been accidentally thinking about him every minute since he showed up at Sunshine Toys yesterday…

  Ryan’s sex-eyes and the dreamy way he used to say my name—like he was Mozart and my name was his most triumphant creation—are nothing but his default attract mode. Like a video game screen saver set to play a tempting part of the game, designed to lure people in to spend their hard-earned money, Ryan is always on. He’s a gorgeous man who enjoys attention and has adapted his code to draw in as much of it as possible.

  If only I’d realized that sooner. But at sixteen I was so ridiculously innocent.

  Compared to the sophisticated, experienced, sex-kitten-about-town you are now, the inner voice offers snidely as I gather this morning’s empty cornflakes box and the toilet paper tube to take outside to add to the recycling bins.

  “Shut up, inner voice,” I mutter.

  You wouldn’t be so cranky if you’d gotten laid, it answers. Like…ever.

  I grimace in response. Maybe I would’ve finally lost this pesky V-card—seriously, it’s a minus five charisma penalty—if I’d gone to SuperHero*Con like I was supposed to last week. I had my Captainess America costume all ready, and I’d been chatting in an online gamer group with Flash185, a fellow coder from Detroit with a quirky sense of humor and a decently cute profile pic, about having butter beer at the hotel bar one night. I know that could’ve gone somewhere between the sheets.

  Maybe it would’ve been awkward and mortifying and I probably would have laughed at inappropriate times, but at least I would’ve finally entered the adulting levels of life.

  And then maybe I wouldn’t be having wild dreams starring Ryan O’Dell, dildos, and flaming sheets.

  I step out the front door of Savannah’s cottage, ducking under the massive Steve The Cheater Doesn’t Live Here Anymore banner that she hung from the edge of the porch roof. After a week, it’s started to blend in with the old live oaks and magnolias up and down the street, getting droopy and relaxed in the early June heat.

  I should probably take it down. Fresh starts are important, and coming home to a sign bashing her ex won’t help Savannah maintain the Zen she’s finding in Europe.

  My boots squish against the damp stone walk leading to the trash cans at the curb. This is the first time in two years that I’ve been back to Happy Cat, and I can’t say I’ve missed the humid summers. I’ll take San Francisco weather any day.

  But San Francisco doesn’t have hot firefighters, that inner voice pipes up.

  “Pretty sure it does,” I mutter back.

  None that you’ve come close enough to sniff though.

  And now I’m thinking about Ryan smelling like soap and lemon and fire hose—yes, fire hose has a smell, and it’s oddly sexy—and I’m silently persuading myse
lf that there will be no more reasons for him to come to Sunshine Toys. I’ll go to work and come straight home and our paths need never cross again. I therefore won’t have to worry about how good he smells or how fine he looks or the way my heart makes like a fainting goat every time he shoots one of his signature sex-eye stares my way.

  I reach the recycling bin, and the trash can next to it chirps at me.

  I blink at the brown canister on wheels.

  The lid thumps, and I shriek and jump back. The lid thumps again, and this time, two glittering black eyes peer out.

  “Aaaagh!” I stumble backward, trip on the curb, and land on my ass as two furry paws appear. I crab-walk back toward the house, except—thanks to my job involving sitting on my ass twelve hours a day—I can’t tie my shoes without getting winded. So basically there’s a snail beating me, and that twinge of carpal tunnel in my right wrist is protesting being asked to bear the weight of my torso.

  As I scuttle sluggishly away, a raccoon pulls himself from the trash bin, wearing Savannah’s broken string of Christmas lights and dragging a bag of leftover penis lollipops from her bachelorette party that I was helpfully trying to dispose of.

  “Drop it,” I hiss, slipping in the slick grass as I try to get back on my feet.

  Can raccoons have rabies? And if so, is this one looking rabid? Or is that gleam in his eyes normal for a masked bandit?

  He eyes my boots. I glance down, and the sparkly Thor hammer I tied to my laces for inspiration glitters up at me.

  “Back,” I say as sternly as I can, because there’s no way I’m beating a raccoon in a foot race unless he trips on that string of Christmas lights.

  He leaps to the ground and takes three steps toward me. I crab-walk two steps back. His beady eyes are trained on my shoes, and since I only play a superhero online or at gaming conventions, this isn’t looking good.

  Maybe if I pry my boot off, I can fling it at him and make a dash for the door?

  I reach for my laces and, swear on my PlayStation 4, he smirks and rubs his palms together like a super villain. As if he’s looking forward to adding my Skecher to his armful of spoils as soon as I toss it over.

  This is what I get for drinking decaf. It’s like diet coffee, and who wants to sacrifice the best part of coffee? I need my caffeine.

  And more exercise.

  And for this raccoon to act like I’m a scary human and run away.

  He tosses the penis lollipops like they’re last year’s hard drives and he has his eye on this year’s double-core processors.

  “No, you want the lollipops,” I tell him. “They taste so much better than Thor’s hammer, I promise.”

  He skitters closer.

  I shriek and kick at him. He pauses, but only for a beat before he picks up the pace. Because, dummy me, my flailing is just making the sparkly thing on my boot flash more.

  The only other weapons at hand are some pocket lint and damp grass clippings, and I somehow doubt hurling either of those will slow him down. Even if I had a rock or a garden gnome on hand, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Back in high school, I could fire a softball from third base at sixty-four miles per hour, but I’m so out of practice I almost strained my shoulder tossing a wad of paper into the recycling bin last week.

  Which means I have exactly one option left.

  “Help!” I yell. “Help! Rabid raccoon!”

  The raccoon chitters back accusingly.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I protest. “You’re the one stealing my garbage and getting aggressive about it.”

  I swear the little monster rolls his eyes before hunching down in prelude to a pounce. I’m bracing myself to have my eyes clawed out when a calm voice behind me says, “George, back off.”

  A calm, masculine, I dreamt-about-that-sexy-rumble-all-night voice…

  The raccoon pauses.

  My heart doesn’t. It slams against my ribs while I tell myself that’s not Ryan behind me. It’s his voice twin. Someone who sounds exactly like him. And who smells like soap and lemon and fire hose and can control raccoons with his varmint-whispering skills.

  “Put the anal beads back and stay out of Savannah’s trash,” he continues.

  I gape at the Christmas lights draped around the raccoon’s body.

  No wonder I couldn’t find the outlet plug.

  The raccoon—George, apparently—shuffles back around to the other side of the trash can and reclaims the penis lollipops, but makes no move to put the anal beads draped over his shoulders back in the trash.

  I turn slowly, first noting that there’s a black truck parked in the driveway next door that I haven’t seen before.

  And now there’s a big, broad, sleepy-eyed Ryan O’Dell bending over me. “You okay? George is mostly harmless. Likes shiny things, though.”

  He offers a hand, and I eyeball his long, blunt fingers.

  “You know the raccoon,” I say, easing out of my crab-crawl position. My back twinges sharply, and I wonder if I should add yoga or something to my daily hikes around the lake while I’m here on vacation.

  “George Cooney? We go way back. He adopted me when he was just a kit.” We both look back at the raccoon, who grins as he waddles around to Ryan’s side. “Did Savannah mention the rocks on the cans? That helps keep him out of the trash.”

  “Oh. The big rocks.”

  “Yeah. The big rocks. We learned that the hard way after she tossed out a bunch of half-melted dildos last year. George planted them in our vegetable garden. Was real torn up when they didn’t grow.”

  “Did you remember to fertilize them regularly?”

  He laughs, that easy rumble of his that always made me feel ten times funnier than I am.

  But I’m not funny. Ryan just likes to laugh. He has the easy-going charm thing down pat, which was part of the reason I didn’t recognize his voice right away yesterday. The Tough Firefighter tone coming from him was a surprise.

  A sexy surprise, that I do my best not to think about as Ryan says, “No, we didn’t. That must have been where we went wrong. But we ended up with a bumper crop of cucumbers. Hoping for the same this year. You’re welcome to grab a few once they get ripe.” He hooks a thumb at the cottage next door with a wink that turns my panties inside out. “Now, come on, let me help you up.”

  He holds his hand out again, fingers spread wide to reveal white scar tissue between his right thumb and forefinger. It’s something new, like that faint white line on his cheek, and it sends a jolt of worry through my chest. Fighting fires is a dangerous job and no matter how deeply this man mortified me when we were kids, I don’t like the idea of him being in danger.

  I don’t like it one little bit.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” I scramble to my feet on my own, feeling like a fool.

  Clearly, Ryan O’Dell still gets under my skin.

  And Savannah should’ve warned me about her neighbor.

  “Cool. Large rocks. Cucumbers. Got it.” I dust my butt as his gaze dips down to my chest, and I realize I’m wearing my Space Vikings Invade Butte game launch party tee.

  The one the printer screwed up that reads Space Vikings Invade Butt instead.

  I clamp my arms over my chest, trying desperately to cover the worst of it without being too obvious. I love a goofy tee as much as the next girl, but not in front of this man, who already thinks I’m the saddest nerd ever to crawl out from under an old Atari. “I’m sure Savannah will be back soon. I won’t have the chance to the mess up the trash much longer.”

  “You think she’s coming home that fast?”

  No. “Of course. She’s having a fabulous time abroad, but she misses Happy Cat and the office.”

  Even the raccoon gives me the yeah, right, crazy lady eyeball while it rubs against Ryan’s leg like a cat.

  He grunts. “Interesting. She mentioned selling it before she left.”

  Dammit. I hate hearing that—more evidence that Savannah might be ser
ious about giving up on Sunshine Toys.

  But she was born to run this company. Some people think she peaked professionally before Savannah Sunshine went off the air—Van played a child sleuth in the hit series for eight years, and yes, there are pitfalls to being the sister of a Hollywood starlet—but there’s more in her big heart and amazing brain than acting talent. She’s truly passionate about helping women lead sex- and pleasure-positive lives. She was outraged when she learned that eleven percent of women in the U.S. have never had an orgasm and vowed to right that heinous wrong or die trying.

  Van’s the Joan of Arc of sex toys. It’s a calling for her, one she’s going to come back to—I hope.

  “She also mentioned taking out billboards from Atlanta to Orlando with pictures of Steve below the headline Cheating Bastard,” I point out to Ryan. “But she didn’t. She’s coming back, and everything will be fine.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nods carefully. “Well, if it’s not, let me know if I can help out in any way. Savannah’s a good neighbor and friend. I hate that things ended so badly for her and Steve.”

  I snort. “I’m not. I got bad vibes from that man the moment I met him. I thought I had to be wrong, because she was so happy, but apparently not. I’m glad he’s out of her life for good.”

  Ryan’s shoulders slump in what looks like relief. “Right? Me too. He makes my skin crawl.”

  I nod with unconcealed enthusiasm, too thrilled to meet someone else who wasn’t blindsided by Steve’s misbehavior to play it cool. “Yes! Right off my body. It’s something in his eyes or his sneaky little mouth or—” I break off with a shudder. “I don’t know, but it’s wrong. It’s all wrong.”

  “Preaching to the choir, Sunderwell.” Ryan lifts a palm in the air in a silent amen. “But people around here think he hung the moon for keeping the biggest bank in town from closing a few years ago so I figured my gut was wrong.”

  I shake my head. “Nope. Your gut was dead on.”

  “Your gut and my gut,” he says, lips curving on one side. “Sound like they’ve got more in common than a person might think.”