by Ellie Hall
An Accidental Love Story
Ellie Hall
Copyright © 2021 by Ellie Hall
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Contents
1. Missteps and Misfortune
2. Lights Out and Longing
3. Cupcakes and Catastrophes
4. Travel and Temptation
5. Meet and not-Greet
6. Panky and Hanky
7. Seas the Day
8. Hide and Squeak
9. Live Free and Bake
10. Fun and Done
11. A Crush by Any Other Name
12. Playing for Keeps
13. Discomfort Zone
14. A Whole Lottie Love
15. Dog House
16. The Doctor is In
17. Burgers and Burglars
18. Show and Tell
19. Sweet and Sour
20. Downturn of Events
21. Lutzing Around
22. On the Rocks
23. Pairs Skating
Epilogue
An Impossible Love Story Excerpt
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Also by Ellie Hall
About the Author
Let’s Connect
Acknowledgements
P.S.
Missteps and Misfortune
Lottie
Confession: I don’t love dogs. I don’t even like them. They’re drooly and smelly and dangerous, for starters. Also, they lead handsome men around by their leashes, and into picnic areas where innocent women like me sun themselves on the first real day of spring.
A grassy patch of real estate in Central Park on this fine April day was hard to come by, but I managed to secure one with an old sheet folded in half, anchored by a picnic basket, my bag, and shoes on each corner, and enough room for Minnie and a bowl of cherries between us. Cherries and Cheetos. Priorities, people.
A dog, leading a hipster wearing a pair of cut-off shorts and a Fedora, approaches, sniffling, snuffling, and nosing its way toward my snacks...and my business. You know, how dogs do.
Before I can get a good look at the guy, I leap back, scattering the Cheetos. “Oh no, you don’t!”
Minnie yelps. “What is it?”
I point to the Australian Shepard with light brown patches as it hoovers our snacks.
Then, all of a sudden, my vision narrows. I squeeze my eyes shut. Please, not now.
I enter what feels like a tunnel that gets smaller and smaller no matter how much breathing I do.
No.
The dewy grass itches my ankles and sweat dots my hairline. My mind races with anxious thoughts: dog, teeth, the attack.
No, no, no.
The world tilts and gravity gives way. I reach out for something to hold onto, peering out from under my sunhat at a pair of dark brown eyes gazing at me with concern. I wouldn’t say no to a cute guy gallantly stepping in to break my fall into a panic attack. But no. He shuffles backward.
Actually, the look I get is more like pity as an unpleasant odor wafts under my nose.
Hold on. Is he eyeing me with disgust?
Then I realize what happened. Not only was the dog nosing its way toward my no-no square, the dog-nose no-fly zone, the animal relieved itself in the middle of the picnic area, and in my moment of anxiety, I stepped in it.
Can I disappear now? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? At least time freezes for a second. Well, not really, but it sure feels that way as people slowly turn to watch, in their aloof New Yorker way, what transpired.
Phones come out. I’ll be a meme in less than sixty seconds.
My real confession is that dogs terrify me and instead of behaving like a normal human, I lurched away, froze—in true panic attack fashion—, and then stepped in a turd.
However, it should come as no surprise. Not to me. Not to Minnie. Maybe to Mr. Fedora.
“Oh, um.” I give my foot a shake, trying to discretely wipe the poo off my strappy sandal and praying it doesn’t come into contact with my skin.
The guy tucks his hand into a bag and picks up what remains of the dog droppings from the ground. With a tip of his cap, he saunters off.
“A tip of his cap? He fancies himself a gentleman after that complete disregard for my—?” I shake my head slowly.
Minnie’s mouth opens and closes like she wants to say something.
“And that mongrel ate our Cheetos,” I mutter, leaving out the obvious. Namely that Mr. Fedora let his dog use our picnic area as its toilet, had no discretion when it snuffled me while I was lying on the ground reading, allowed it to eat our snacks, and then didn’t offer to help me clean his dog’s poo off my sandal. I mean, seriously?
“And you have chicken legs,” I shout to the guy—not the dog—even though he can’t hear me.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Minnie says, passing me a wet wipe and hand sanitizer.
“Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Were you alright back there? You looked a little—” Her brow furrows.
I do my best to clean my sandal and the mess from our snacks. “Yeah. Oh. That. Um. Yeah. You know. I’m not a huge fan of four-legged fellows.”
“Or the two-legged kind. That guy was a turd. Cute, but a turd nonetheless.” Minnie suppresses a smile.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” I echo.
Please don’t hate me about the not-liking dogs thing. My other best friend, Catherine, is a dog freak, and she still invites me out to meet for coffee and over for girls’ nights in despite our differences. I have no doubt she and her husband will have, like, ten kids, but in the meantime, she’s rescued at least a dozen dogs and counting.
See? She and I still get along. We can too.
The general wariness of dogs goes back to my childhood and a time I’d rather not think about.
Minnie puts on her shoes. “I hate to break up the party, but my lunch break is over. Tess will string me up if I’m not back to string up the Easter garlands.”
“I’ll have to stop by McKinney’s and have my photo taken with the Easter bunny.”
Minnie’s nostrils flare and her arms fold in front of her chest. “Actually, it’s the Easter Hen this year.”
“Don’t tell me Briony had something to do with that.”
“She’s firm on the fact that rabbits don’t lay Easter eggs. Obviously, but when has that ever mattered before?”
“At least you don’t have to deal with the soft boiled egg and his spider knuckled sidekick.”
“Are they still giving you a hard time?”
“In their subtle, backhanded, evil way? Yes. Well, probably. I wasn’t sure if the department-wide email from my account asking for donations to a Go-Fund-Me for a new gaming console was their doing or a genuine mistake.”
“You have to find a new job.”
“Tell me about it. Is McKinney’s hiring?” I ask.
“That would be out of the frying pan and into the f
ire. A lateral move. Trust me, you don’t want to deal with Tess and her sidekick.”
We both laugh nervously, but secure employment in Manhattan isn’t something to meddle with. At the moment, we both have jobs. At least for me, upsetting my boss and coworkers would be like playing with fire. The kind of fire that gets a person fired and could land me back in Wisconsin, or worse, homeless.
In ten minutes, I’m back in my cubicle at Mount Sinai. My thankless job is in the medical billing department. For such a prestigious hospital, concerned with health, you’d think there’d at least be a window. Instead, I get to stare at a cement wall.
Or, in this instance, because I was fifty-four seconds late, I come up against the brick wall that is my boss, Jim Gorham, aka the soft boiled egg.
“Miss Sch—” He stops short of bothering to pronounce my last name.
“Schweinswald. Lottie Schweinswald.”
He taps the fake Rolex he bought on Canal Street. “You know the deal. We went over this last month. Timeliness must be your top priority. Get the data from Brooks and process it before the end of the day. And your assessment is due.” Gorham sweeps away but not before picking up a stack of files and unloading them into my arms, which already contain a picnic basket, my purse, and a lemonade.
I struggle to balance it all while Brooks adds to my heap. “The data.”
You’d also think in a modern facility like this, there would be less paper. Alas, I’m the sorry sucker who has to transcribe medical data from the doctors and departments that do things old school and then apply billing codes. What is my life?
“What’s that smell?” Brooks sniffs the air and frowns.
That would be my dignity in the dumpster, sir. Also, I stepped in a dog pile.
Instead, I say, “It’s a beautiful spring day. If there were a window, I’d open it and let in the fresh air.” And throw you out of it. I offer a broad smile.
Before you think I’m a violent jerk, at least let me approach the bench and defend myself.
Between Gorham and Brooks, they’ve nicknamed me:
Pork-lip (because I have a large upper lip, I guess)
Batwoman (I had a bat in the cave, aka a booger in my nose during a meeting. Someone could’ve told me)
Starbucks (hey, caffeine is a necessary vitamin, mineral, and vegetable)
Montana (which I figured out was a reference to the movie Scarface. That’s just cruel)
Unlucky Lottie (because it’s a fact)
Then with the click, click, click of high heels, Monica Wanamaker struts in.
Of all the days.
I’m seated in the back corner, tucked into my cubicle, when the woman with impossibly silky hair and the top two buttons of her shirt open smiles smugly at all us sorry suckers in billing. She smooths the piece of paper on her clipboard and poises the pen smartly. The staff and half the doctors adore her, along with her legion of minions. If Mount Sinai were a high school, she’d be the queen bee of the popular crowd. In fiction, her group would be called the Pretty Committee, the Chic Clique, or something equally inane. It isn’t that I’m jealous or angry, but more like I sometimes wish I were in a book. At least then, I could count on a happily ever after.
That crew has never invited me for lunch or their weekly after-work happy hours—even though they did invite Marcella, who was hired at the same time as me but in medical records. Granted, I have my group of friends from college, but it would be nice to fit in for once.
See, when all the girls were getting curves, I was getting taller, bonier—all edges and elbows. When they were wearing shorter skirts and glossier lips, I was trying to shrink myself into t-shirts with cupcakes and jeans that didn’t quite reach my ankles. It wasn’t that my parents couldn’t afford different clothes, they just didn’t notice. When I look in the mirror now,—fifteen years later—I’m finally catching up, barely. And the scar on my left cheekbone that melts into the hollow of my smile doesn’t do me any favors either.
“I am here to schedule your assessments,” Monica calls.
The line forms to sign up and I reluctantly budge my way into it, shuffled and jostled as everyone hurries, for no reason I can discern, to get to the front. Oh yeah, an audience with her royal majesty, Monica.
The back of my sandal peels from my heel. I mutter an, “Ow,” and slowly turn around. Emery Rogers shrugs. “Sorry, Swine.”
My cheeks tinge the color of his insult. In fact, I don’t have to wear rouge now because of the way everyone erupted into laughter when Gorham slaughtered my last name, Schweinswald, on that first day, earning me the nickname, Swine—among others.
Brooks snickers. Someone makes piggy noises.
Yes, I’ve gone to HR. No, it hasn’t helped. See, the thing is, these guys are like a fraternity and all go by their last names, meet up at sports bars after work, and regale each other with stories of their exploits. Gag. They’ve worked here much longer than me, earning them a superficial sense of superiority and actual seniority.
When I was hired, they realized they could slough off their work to me and get away with checking on their fantasy football stats all day. Also, Tim Gorham is the head of HR. Yes, he and Jim are related.
“So are you Swedish or something? I once dated a Swedish girl.” Rogers waggles his eyebrows.
My cheeks grow warmer as I pat the milkmaid-style braids I’ve been wearing since forever. It’s just an easy way to style my long hair and keep it out of my face. It’s kind of my thing.
Rogers says, “Are you an idiot? Did you pay attention to geography at all? Are you even alive?”
Then, like three sixth-graders, they playfully bat back and forth at each other until Monica says, “Boys.”
The “boys” giggle. Seriously.
They’re more like man-children.
I schedule my meeting with Monica for the next day and return to my desk. The lines on the files blur for a moment before I wipe my eyes and get to work.
It’s stupid to care. I’ve tried to include myself, but it’s like I’m invisible. Despite my ready smile, my almost-straight teeth, and improved clothes—since middle school—they don’t see me. Neither did Mr. Fedora. Nor do any guys anywhere.
Am I too different? Too quiet? Too foreign?
Oh, right, the long crescent-shaped scar. That usually turns men away.
Catherine, Hazel, Minnie, and Colette have tried setting me up on dates, but inevitably my bad luck runs amok and we end up stuck in an elevator (it’s not as romantic as you’d think), covered in seagull poo (some say it’s good luck, I vehemently disagree), or he spots someone without a scar on her face across the room and they end up getting married (true story).
However, if I really think about what I want out of my happily ever after, I’d rather not make friends with people who’re rude and who miss the little details in life because they’re too loud, too afraid of humility and their own inner quiet to actually look and listen. I’m fine being me, most of the time.
A few hours later, when chairs roll across the floor, bags zip, and computers power down, signaling the end of the day, I prepare to wander, alone, back into the beginning of spring.
Instead, Gorham strides by, “Don’t forget to donate blood—you signed up.”
Oh, right. That.
The charitable and arguably civic quarterly task I intentionally try not to think about. Maybe you let me off the hook about the not-liking-dogs thing. If so, thank you. But this, I know. I know. I should already be in line. It’s very important. But it’s also related to the dog thing.
Let’s just say I’m squeamish around blood and leave it at that. No sense in digging up the past.
Drawing a deep breath, I venture out of my department, down the hall that smells increasingly like hospital the closer I get to the ER, and then down several more maze-like halls to the blood draw donation station.
My stomach instantly clenches at the sight of a woman leaving with a piece of cotton and tape affixed to her arm. What feels like me
lting ice drops through my limbs.
No, please. Not again.
I’m hardly even in the room. I haven’t given my name. As of now, there’s no sign of a needle or blood. I can do this.
But here it is. There’s no stopping it. The anxiety comes at me hard and fast, making everything inside weak and wobbly. The cherries and Cheetos were a bad combination. My throat tightens. I clench my jaw as my breath becomes shallow.
Panic attack, incoming.
I reach for the doorframe at the same time as someone steps behind me. I crane my head, my vision blurring at parallel lines of concern running across a man’s forehead.
His eyes are icy blue and beautiful.
Then everything goes black.
Lights Out and Longing
Rusty
Anticlimactic isn’t written on my cast, but that’s how today felt. At least until now as a gorgeous woman swoons like in old movies, dropping into my arms. Well, my one arm. A plaster cast covers the other caused by a stupid moment that felt like high school all over again.
“Miss, are you—?”
But she passes out and the momentary glimpse I get of her light blue eyes disappears behind lids fringed with dark lashes.
The same activity that caused the broken arm came in handy, or rather, arm-y because even with the use of just one, I’m able to catch her. It’s a short arm cast, so I still have use of my elbow. Then a nurse hurries over and helps me lower her onto a gurney.
I’m not bulky like the guys down in Jersey, but I’m fit. I’ve heard the nurses call me He-Man, Dr. Delts because of my strong shoulders, and the Hot Doc.
