An Accidental Love Story: A sweet, heartwarming & uplifting romantic comedy (Falling into Happily Ever After Rom Com)

by Ellie Hall

  17

  Burgers and Burglars

  Lottie

  Leave it to me to fall flat on my face and need stitches.

  Leave it to me to fall in love with my doctor.

  Leave it to me to get the money back.

  Before I leave the rink, I find Skinny flirting with a girl wearing thick black eyeliner. “Hey, quick question. Where does Jared live?”

  Skinny’s expression filters from interest to suspicion to distraction because the girl glances at the door as if annoyed by the interruption.

  “I just wanted to give him a cupcake for his troubles.” I tip my head toward the locker room door, indicating Rusty and the fight.

  The girl huffs, not amused.

  Skinny says. “In the first duplex on Woodard Ave. Left side.”

  “Thanks.” I glance at the girl. “As you were.”

  “What happened to your chin?” Skinny asks as I exit.

  I holler, “I fell in love.”

  Literally. It feels crazy and slightly dangerous and completely uncharted, but I’ve fallen hard for a tight-lipped doctor who turns out to be a tough hockey player with a lot to say, at least when he opens up.

  With Magnolia’s leash in hand, we jog away from the Ice Palace, rolling out my mental map of the town to pinpoint the exact location of the duplex.

  Wearing Rusty’s sweatshirt is like armor, protection. Before going to Woodard Avenue, I swing by the house on Starboard to drop off Magnolia and pick up a cupcake. It will be my calling card.

  The sun glinting gold off the water as I make my way to our stolen cash treasure hurries me along.

  Oma’s house is quiet. She’s been scarce lately. Sleeping a lot. I’m guessing our presence tires her out. Either that or we’re annoying and she’s in her room counting down the days until we depart.

  For Rusty, that’s next week.

  For me, I’m not sure. I’m talking to my parents on Sunday to let them know about my lack of progress with bonding.

  I leave Magnolia loose in the house with the reassurance that I’ll be back. Yep, breaking more rules. She should be in her kennel, but maybe she’ll wander over to Oma and they’ll make friends.

  With a forlorn expression, she whines once and then watches me leave.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

  I slow to walking when I reach Woodard. Empty cans and bottles, overturned chairs, and a pool float shaped like a doughnut litter the yard of the duplex. The residents appear to have gone to wherever they go when they’re not here. Unless, like Oma and me, they don’t drive.

  My feet are silent when I tiptoe up the cement steps. A torn blind hangs halfway down the window in the door. I should nominate them for a home makeover show.

  I don’t knock, but turn the handle and perspiration beads my upper lip. This is insane, but there’s no going back. The door pushes open.

  The kitchen is a disaster. Something like green gelatin smears on one of the cabinets. The residents gave up on the trashcan, and if I weren’t already determined to get the money back, I’d suggest Zoe pop by to redeem all the empty cans and bottles. She could make a small fortune.

  Upstairs is no better, but I try the door with a child-like sign that says Jared’s room. Go away, reminding me of the sign on the locker room door. I sort-of successfully snuck in there. I can do this.

  I turn the knob, but it doesn’t budge. I try again. I pull out one of the pins holding my milkmaid braids in place and shove it in the lock, having no idea what I’m doing other than having read in a book about teenage spies at a boarding school using this method as an alternative to a key. I start to doubt my burgling skills.

  I wiggle the pin again when footsteps cross the floor downstairs. My heart thuds in my chest. My hands and feet tingle. I try the pin one more time and feel a click beneath my hand. I open the door slowly and slip inside at the sound of someone approaching on the stairs. In the dim light of the bedroom, Jared is splayed face down in his bed. Slats of daylight paint lines across his body.

  He snorts. Snores?

  My stomach does flips. I freeze. My breath catches.

  What if whoever just came home wakes him up? What if? What if?

  I listen to the house, trying to figure out where the person went. Maybe they’re in the shower and I can escape. Maybe it’s an angry parent, ready to rouse this household out of its stupor. Or since the door was unlocked, maybe I can parade out as if I’m just another unlucky gal who dates one of the losers who lives here. Sarcasm tastes metallic. And so does disdain. I came here to reclaim what belongs to Zoe, me, and the rink. At least what’s left of it.

  I scan the room, my eyes landing on a rumpled pair of jeans. Without shifting my weight, I crouch, stretch my arm slowly so the belt buckle doesn’t rattle, and drag the pants closer. I dip forward, dizzy from holding my breath. I rock back on my heels and slip my hand in the back pocket and produce a wallet. I part the fold and pull out a wad of cash. If he took everything Zoe had, at least seven hundred dollars, this won’t cover it, but it will buy us supplies to bake enough cookies and cupcakes to get back on track.

  I pocket it and step back the way I came, careful not to stumble over the junk on the floor. As I set the cupcake on the dresser by the door, Jared sits up, his eyes coming into focus. “What are you doing?”

  I straighten. “Taking what’s mine.”

  His expression sharpens. “The money? That’s Zoe’s. What’s Zoe’s is mine.”

  “So you admit you took it?”

  “Yeah. What business is it of yours?”

  “Thanks for the confession. I’m simply taking what’s mine. If you spent her half, the rest belongs to me.”

  He reaches for his pants. I place my foot on top of them—fueled by indignation and a sense of power I never knew I possessed.

  He lunges for me.

  “Back off.” A full-bodied roar-growl like one of my parent’s protection dogs escapes, revealing a fearless version of myself.

  Confusion disorganizes Jared’s face as if he’s not quite sure what kind of person he’s dealing with. Lottie the Lioness. Watch out, buster!

  Then I toss the cupcake at him. “Here. Consider this breakfast in bed.” With a laugh, I run downstairs.

  The throaty rumble of a sports car nears. A black Maserati pulls up and a very angry and very handsome man steps out, looking ready to crush something with his fists.

  With a triumphant yell, I call, “Perfect timing. A getaway car. Go! Go!”

  He squints one eye toward the house and must quickly fit the pieces together and we hop back in the car.

  Securely belted into Rusty’s very zippy sports car, I exhale and close my eyes, letting the exhilaration of what I just did wash over me.

  The car stops and I open my eyes. We’re back at the rink.

  “What did you do?” Rusty asks.

  “Have you ever seen the movie Ocean’s Eleven?”

  “Of course.” His tone suggests the lack of amusement.

  “That minus ten practiced criminals.”

  “You got the money back?”

  I fan it out like a Las Vegas high roller. “How’d you know where I went?”

  “Skinny mentioned you’d asked where Jared lives. You know that was crazy and dangerous and...brave.”

  “As it happens, that’s my middle name,” I say mysteriously as if I’m a spy or superhero.

  “I thought it was Emilia.”

  “That too. But better than Pork-lip or Swine or Unlucky Lottie.” I rest my elbow on the window and gaze at the Ice Palace, in desperate need of a new roof. “For a long time, I’ve struggled to find my footing. But more than ever, I feel like I’m on solid ground. My scrape earlier, notwithstanding. Thank you for fixing me up and coming to my aid.”

  “Of course, but you said it feels like you’ve found your footing. Do you mean as a burglar?” Rusty’s lips quirk. “Because if so, that means I’m your getaway driver and I should probably get a less conspicuous car.�
�

  We both laugh.

  “Cupcakes prove to be a sticky calling card. However, it’s not stealing if it’s yours, to begin with.”

  “You have a good point. How’s the chin?”

  “I’m guessing it’ll hurt later when the adrenaline wears off. How’s the arm?”

  “As good as new.” He flexes and the muscles straining against the cotton of his T-shirt remind me of the abs underneath, causing my face to warm.

  He forces away a smile. Presumably at the sudden rush of color to my cheeks. “You seem to have recovered from your hemophobia.”

  “What?” I squawk.

  “Your fear of blood.”

  “Oh. I thought you said something else. I didn’t pass out this time. There’s a difference.” I came very close to having a full blown panic attack, but realized I do trust Rusty. He’s my ride or die and what happened with the punching and the game-playing is a nothing burger. Forget it. Speaking of burgers, I could go for one with cheese. And Cheetos. Heisting is hard.

  Rusty kisses me on the lips. Much better than anything with cheese. My belly is one big swoop inside and I add two more entries to my list of the kinds of kisses we’ve shared after my first kiss.

  They are (in no particular order):

  Sweet kisses

  We won kisses

  Warm kisses

  Chilly kisses

  Sunset kisses

  Lazy kisses

  Hello kisses

  We’ll kiss again later kisses

  Sneaky kisses

  Soft kisses

  I need to kiss you NOW kisses

  Kisses to heal

  And you have wicked heist skills and I should call you Lottie Bond, James’s long-lost sister or the fourteenth member of the Ocean’s Eleven crew kisses (that’s the number since there were two movies after the first one)

  I have the overwhelming desire to kiss, kiss, and kiss this man some more. With his lips on mine, I melt inside. Yet shiver at the same time. I’m frozen and molten. I turn to goo, to some kind of as-yet-to-be-discovered space substance that’s as big as the universe itself, as sparkly as the stars and as cool as the moon.

  When we part, he stretches his arms overhead, folding them into a hammock, cradling the nape of his neck and gazing at the top of the car for a moment in one long, lusty stretch. “I’d better get back to practice.”

  I nod. “I should get back to the cupcakes. I’m down one after throwing it at Jared.”

  “Did he catch it?”

  I shake my head, thinking of Hazel’s awesome showdown with the judge on my favorite baking show. “No, but it landed on his foot.”

  Rusty laughs. “Forget practice. I have to do this again.” He leans in for another kiss.

  No sooner do our lips meet, the door to the Ice Palace opens and someone shrieks.

  Zoe rushes toward us. “You amazing, brave, wonderful, best friend.” She pulls me out of the car, practically choking me. “You went to Jared’s and took back the money?”

  “Well, um, I—”

  “This is no time to be at a loss for words. You’re nuts. Awesomely, courageously, crazy.” She flits around like a hummingbird, as though she’s not sure where to have me start only she wants to savor every drop of the story.

  “How’d you find out?”

  “He texted. Not too happy.” She squishes up her face. “Whatever. It wasn’t his.”

  We all head inside while I relay sneaking into the duplex and conclude with the cupcake toss.

  “Cookie & Cupcake is back in business. We better get baking.”

  Rusty kisses me on the cheek and vanishes behind the No Girls Allowed sign on the locker room where the Storm has a meeting.

  After I return the money to Zoe, she gets a ride to the store.

  The arena is unusually quiet, perhaps the women’s team that practices at this time had an away game or had a cancelation.

  Instead of going back to Oma’s to bake, I step toward the rink. I glide onto the ice in my shoes, solo this time, and skate gingerly toward the center. The Ice Wizard groomed it recently and the ice is a buttery sheet beneath my feet. I close my eyes, letting my body remember the movements, letting muscle and memory take over.

  I inhale and then exhale, worry and calamity and guilt and sorrow melt away. Molecules and atoms continue to shift, to reconstitute, to freeze and melt, transforming my composition, changing me in place. I’m not sure where I belong in the world, or to whom, but skating is one of the places I call home. I linger, taking a lap or two, silly in shoes, but satisfying nonetheless.

  When I reach the penalty box, Rusty waits there with his eyebrows lifted. “I thought I recognized that sweatshirt.”

  But I’m not sure I recognize the woman I’m becoming.

  18

  Show and Tell

  Rusty

  Lottie startles when I spot her on the ice and I rush forward, prepared to catch her if she falls.

  “I didn’t see you there,” she says, slightly breathless.

  “I don’t want to sound like a creeper or anything, but I saw you spin around a few times. Impressive.”

  “I’m well out of practice and in shoes.”

  “This year they’re putting the proceeds from the annual showcase toward repairing the arena—Zoe’s organizing the thing. Usually, they donate to some charitable cause or other. I can’t help but think it’s interesting that she wants to leave but also wants to save this place.”

  Lottie looks up at the ceiling that’s always reminded me of the inside of Moby Dick, like a whale skeleton.

  “I suppose it’s kind of like a second home.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.”

  “Too bad you have to leave soon.”

  I scrub the back of my neck. “Will you miss me?” I ask, lacing my arms around her waist.

  “Oma will.”

  “That’ll be a first.” The comment slips automatically off my tongue, but then I think about our recent conversation when she was looking at old photos. An unusual feeling pings in my chest as I realize that I’ll miss Lottie...and my grandmother.

  “Hey, love birds,” Zoe calls.

  We both turn.

  “Lottie, do you mind helping me unload the supplies at the Roasted Rudder? I could use some muscle.”

  “I’m the one who punched Jared,” I say, joking.

  “Yeah, but she’s the one who got the money back. You hockey players, think everything needs to be solved with violence.”

  “Not so. Sometimes cupcakes work.” I wink.

  Lottie kisses me and glides off the ice.

  After they leave, I remain in the center until I can’t bear the ache in my heart. This time it’s not because of the ice surrounding it, but because it’s melting, leaving me exposed, vulnerable.

  I’ve fallen behind on my blog posts, neglected the whole point of coming out here with the companion and protection dog, along with Oma.

  Bad, bad, mazdēls.

  I haven’t been reading like I usually do either. Without the stress of work at the hospital and with the wonderful, if not accident prone, presence of a certain woman, I don’t need to escape into fiction.

  When I get back to the house on Starboard, I find Oma still at the table, looking at the photo album. “Oma?”

  Her greeting sounds less like hello and more like goodnight, but perhaps that’s exhaustion tricking me.

  “Your grandfather loved the sunrise. Your father, the sunset.”

  “What about you?” I ask, not sure why she’s being so reflective.

  “I like the sunrise and the quietness of the world still sleeping.”

  An owl hoots nearby and I’m sure it’s goodnight.

  “I’m afraid this is the end,” she says.

  “Huh?” I ask, my stomach dropping like I skipped a step.

  “This one of you is the last of my photos.”

  I shift closer to see thirteen-year-old me, in the center of the ice, my grin
irrepressible, one arm lifted in victory and my stick in hand.

  “The ice always loved you.”

  No, I always loved the ice. The smooth gliding feeling floods the hollows of my bones. I’ve always felt like if I pumped my legs hard enough and long enough I could lift off and take flight from the rush of it. Seeing Lottie out there makes me wonder if she felt the same. If she longs to lace up and skate again or if that’s something buried in the past along with the source of her scar.

  The wrinkles around Oma’s eyes form reservoirs and they glisten when I sit down. “I always hoped your father would return. That he’d be able to see you.”

  “You hardly did.”

  “Russell, I didn’t miss a single game.”

  My eyebrows crowd together. “I never saw you there.”

  “On purpose. If you saw me watching, I may have distracted you from your potential and how skating was your ticket to greater things. I believed you could be a champion and I suppose, foolishly, I hoped that kind of achievement and gratification could replace the other things missing in your life.”

  The words sink deep and my lips draw down. “I didn’t know you thought that about me.”

  Oma places a shaky hand over mine. I look at the photo in the album as if the answers to this change in her is there, captured in color on that day so long ago.

  All the years of rough spots in our relationship come at me in three quick sentences. “The desire to flee became too heavy. Even on skates, I could no longer carry it. I had to go. Iet.” Go, in Latvian.

  “But you came back.” She flips backward from that last photo of me in the album, as though sifting through time.

  For a long moment, it’s as if her gaze fixes on some distant shore. Then she gets up. “I’m tired, mazdēls.” She pats my hand, leaving me with the photos.

  I remain glued to my seat, flipping through the albums, admiring Oma’s traditional costumes, the simplicity of her gown on her wedding day, the warm adoration in my grandfather’s eyes. There are some photos of my father in gray scale as if he were never really there, to begin with. Not a single picture exists of my parents.