Hot Mess

by Emma Hart

  Also, I really needed to stop reading those stupid tween-slash-teen magazines my daughter left in the bathroom.

  What could I say? Sometimes a shit outlasted the reading material on your phone.

  I blew out a long breath and dropped onto the sofa. I hadn’t expected anyone to be living in that house this summer, and despite my fight with the plumber, I really wasn’t in any rush to get it fixed up. The other three beach houses my father left me before he died were bringing in more than enough income for me and Ari to survive on.

  I also hadn’t expected the flash of attraction I’d felt when I’d laid eyes on her. She was beautiful—there was no denying it, and she was even prettier in real life than in her videos. With her long dark hair and her big blue eyes, full lips and perfectly shaped curves, it was easy to see why kids like my daughter wanted to be her when they grew up.

  And why she got the creepy comments on her videos.

  Another reason why Ari couldn’t tell everyone she was here.

  I didn’t need weirdos showing up in the night and stalking her. Not that I gave a damn about her—beautiful or not, my daughter’s favorite or not, the ideological world she put out was dangerous and fanciful.

  I didn’t like Elle Evans, and I doubted I ever would.

  ***

  I ran the hell out of the little dance studio before I could get roped into another fundraising activity and into my car.

  The next two hours while Ari had her ballet and tap classes were all mine, and I happily drove out of the parking lot and made the turn to the grocery store. Sure, I had to see Elle, but I was delaying that for as long as I possibly could.

  I skipped across town and pulled into the small lot outside the local store. After parking up, I grabbed a trolley—what these heathens called carts or buggys or some other illogical term—and went inside.

  It was quiet for a Saturday morning, and I took advantage of that. There were no beatdowns in the bread aisle or fracas over the fruit.

  Shopping could be surprisingly spicy in this town.

  After getting everything I needed, I headed for the register and paid. I was almost done unloading what I’d bought when the sound of a familiar and unwelcome voice calling my name made me pause.

  Plastering the nicest smile I could on my face, I turned. “Agnes, it’s lovely to see you.”

  She shuffled over, using the trolley as a walking aid, and flipped her head so her bright purple hair didn’t get in her eyes. The woman was seventy if she was a day, but she acted as if she were a third of her age.

  “Gosh darn tourists everywhere,” she muttered, drawing level with my truck. She was wearing a fancy purple t-shirt that matched her hair and had the words ‘Aliens R Real’ scrawled on the front, complete with a cartoon alien with black eyes and gray skin.

  Yep. She was a real treat.

  I raised my eyebrows. “You live in a tourist spot and have for ten years. Are you still surprised?”

  “I will tell your aunt and bend you over her knee.”

  “Aunt Elsie doesn’t have the strength to hit a fly, never mind me,” I replied, referring to my seventy-five-year-old great aunt on my dad’s side who was a current resident of Creek Keys. “I assume she sent you to find me?”

  Agnes nodded with such vigor I was afraid she’d crack her neck. “Yes. Maude wants to use the beach and—”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Absolutely not. The last time I let you lot use the stretch I own, you drank too much wine and tried to strip naked.”

  “We were controlling the tourists.”

  “You were terrifying the tourists.”

  “Controlling. Terrifying. The government believes they’re one and the same.”

  “I’m not getting into your conspiracy theories on a Saturday morning,” I told her. “Besides, I have things to do today. Tell Aunt Elsie to stop by and we’ll talk.”

  “You could tell me yes.”

  “I’d rather bleach my own eyeballs.” I loaded the last bag into my truck and shut the door. “No offense.”

  “Offense taken,” Agnes said with a sniff. “You don’t like us because we’re different.”

  “I love you all,” I replied, pushing my cart into the drop-off shelter. “I just don’t trust you won’t open a portal or summon aliens or the devil on my property unless you’re appropriately supervised.”

  She sighed, tugging at the collar of her sleeveless turtleneck. “I’d love to say you’re misguided, but it’s hard to argue with the truth. I should know. I fight for it.”

  “And you do so valiantly. I’ll wait for Aunt Elsie’s call.” I saluted her as I bid her goodbye and darted into my truck before she could waylay me any further.

  The last thing I needed was the Creek Keys’ Conspiracy Krew on my case today. I’d love to say that name was a loving nickname, but it was their actual weekly meeting name. There were only the three of them, but they were passionate in their pursuit of what they thought was the truth.

  They had a questionable website run by Maude who didn’t really know her way around the internet, so it was more a glorified PDF on a website that was set up by a broke yet enterprising college student.

  Thank God none of them could really use the internet.

  I hoped to keep it that way.

  Questionable websites and all.

  With Agnes safely out of the way, I backed out of the parking spot and left the store.

  Thank God. Or whatever entity she believed was in control of us today. It could have been God, the President, the Queen, or the reptilian people who apparently controlled our underworld.

  I know. I didn’t get it.

  I made it across town and back to the beach before I was stopped by either my aunt or Maude. If Agnes was out and about, there was every chance they were on patrol for me, too.

  I parked outside of my house, and after taking everything inside, I unloaded all the groceries. I still had a little time before I had to go and see Elle, so I boiled my electric kettle for a cup of tea.

  I didn’t know how Americans coped without an electric kettle. Absolutely nobody I knew in town had one, and even my family still side-eyed me when I flicked the switch to turn it on.

  I put one spoonful of sugar plus an imported PG tips teabag into a faded Union Jack mug and waited for the kettle to boil. Yes—I made my family in the UK send me teabags.

  They just weren’t the same here.

  When the kettle boiled, I finished making my tea, drained the teabag, and tossed it into the small bin we kept inside for the compost bin Ari insisted we get for the vegetables we have yet to grow.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell the kid I killed a cactus last year. The chance of us growing any vegetables was next to none, but here we were.

  With two terracotta pots, a five-liter bag of compost, and no seeds to speak of.

  Her plan had some holes.

  I sipped my tea and stared out of the window at the beach. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, nor could I imagine this slice of peace being disrupted by my new, temporary tenant.

  Before I knew it, it was ten-thirty.

  I finished my tea, left the mug in the sink, and paused only to get the internet router for her house. I would have to set it up for her so she could get online—I’d removed most of the electrics when I’d had the upstairs rewired and put new plug sockets everywhere, and this was one of the few things I’d forgotten to take back.

  I tucked it under my arm and headed over to the house next door. I raised my hand to knock, but a loud clatter and a scream of “Oh, fuck it!” from inside had me trying the door instead. It was unlocked and swung open at my push, and I was greeted by the sight of one very disheveled-looking Elle jumping back and forth while holding her right foot.

  “Are you okay?”

  She jolted at the sound of my voice, screamed, and almost fell backward. “How did you get in here?”

  “You left the door unlocked and I heard you scream.” I cocked my thumb over my
shoulder back toward the door. “Should I not have tried to rescue you?”

  “No, I just forgot I unlocked it. That was all.” She rubbed her foot and set it down gingerly, wincing a little when she put her full weight on it.

  “What happened?” I closed the door behind me.

  “I was a little too vigorous with the frying pan and the big pot decided to attack my foot,” she replied, bending down to pick up the big pot so she could brandish it like a weapon. “Not my finest hour.”

  She hadn’t had many of those recently.

  “I brought your internet.”

  CHAPTER FOUR – ELLE

  My eyes bugged at the internet router he brandished. If I was completely honest with myself, I didn’t really want it. I had little desire to connect to the internet, to my real life, and see what was being said about me just about everywhere I turned.

  If it weren’t for the fact I needed it to stay in contact with my lawyer, I would have refused it all together.

  “Thanks,” I squeaked out.

  He stared at me for a moment. “I’ll just connect it by the TV.”

  I nodded. “Do you want eggs and bacon?”

  “What?”

  “I’m making eggs. Do you want eggs and bacon?”

  He eyed the frying pan in my hand as if I had a bottle of arsenic hidden somewhere to poison him. “I already ate. Besides, you don’t cook real bacon anyway.”

  “Real bacon? Of course it’s real bacon. It’s not that turkey shit.”

  “No, real bacon is back bacon. Canadian bacon.”

  I frowned. “Why would you call it back bacon?”

  “Because it comes off the back of the pig, not off the Canadian region,” he drawled, pulling out the TV unit to reach the power outlet.

  Wow. This was annoying. I couldn’t argue with his logic.

  “Fair enough.” Accepting he wasn’t interested in my food, I turned to retrieve the ingredients from the fridge so I could make my breakfast.

  I’d slept in until twenty minutes ago. I’d mildly panicked before I realized I couldn’t shower or I’d run the risk of having to answer the door in my towel, so I’d given up, let myself wake up slowly, and come down here just minutes before Theo burst into the house.

  I supposed him walking in on me in shortie pajamas, sporting rat’s nest hair, and a metal pot on my foot was marginally better than him seeing my in a towel.

  Especially since he really seemed to dislike me.

  I cracked some eggs into a glass jug and grabbed some milk so I could beat them together. A small curse came from Theo’s direction, but I didn’t dare look over at him in case I was stupid enough to look into his eyes.

  Lord, I needed a new place to stay before I really started crushing on him.

  That was the last thing I needed right now.

  Ovaries, take note.

  “All done,” he said seconds before I was going to start cooking.

  I turned, dropping the lump of butter on the floor off my knife instead of in the pan.

  Damn it.

  He glanced at the butter but didn’t address it. “It’s all connected and working. This is the code.” He slipped a bit of paper onto the island. “Can you connect it now so I know it works for you, too?”

  “Sure.” I put the knife down on the cutting board and retrieved my shitty phone from the other side of the kitchen, then connected it up to the WiFi. It worked instantly, and I showed him the screen so he could see for himself. “All done.”

  Theo nodded.

  “So. What do I owe you?”

  “It depends how long you’re planning on staying.”

  I bit into my lower lip, dragging it between my teeth. “I know I said two or three days, but, I’d like a week to get myself sorted out and find a longer-term place to stay. If that’s okay.”

  He shrugged noncommittally. “It’s not like I have anyone else renting it right now. A week works, I suppose.”

  “So… Money?”

  He blew out a long breath and reached up, running his fingers through his hair. “Four hundred? That’s a little over the usual nightly rate for this place, but I can’t charge you that, because it’s a mess.”

  “I don’t mind paying you more.”

  “No. Four hundred is fine, but just for one week.” He met my eyes with a look that said not to push it. “I can give you my bank details later and you can transfer it over.”

  “Thank you. That’s really kind.”

  He grunted, pushing away from the island. “Like I said, it’s not like I was renting this place anyway.”

  I swallowed when he turned and headed for the front door. A few feet away from it, he stopped, pausing for a moment.

  He spun back to look at me. “Arielle loves you, by the way. It’s an obsession I don’t understand, but if I hear one more thing about how great you apparently are, I’m going to stick two forks in my ears and gauge out my brain.”

  I had no idea what to say to that.

  “She’s also nine. She’s young, she’s impressionable, and I’m not sure her living next to her idol is a good thing.”

  That I understood.

  “You want me to stay away from your daughter,” I said quietly. “I understand. It’s not like you don’t know why I’m here, right?”

  He stared at me for a moment. “How do you know I know?”

  Looking down, I fiddled with the bit of paper holding the WiFi code. “You seem like the kind of dad who knows everything about his young daughter’s online activity. That’s a good thing, by the way, not a criticism.” I peered back up, looking at him through eyelashes that still had hints of yesterday’s mascara.

  “Thank you.” Theo turned to the door once more and opened it.

  “I didn’t know, you know,” I said, turning my attention to the large doors that overlooked the beach. “About the tape. I had no idea it existed until the world found out. But don’t worry. I’ll only be here a week, less if I can help it, and I’ll do everything I can to avoid your daughter.”

  I had no idea if he looked back at me, but the longest moment passed until the sound of the front door opening and closing echoed through the empty house.

  He knew.

  Which meant so many other people in this town probably knew, too.

  There was no escaping the hell my ex was putting me through, no matter how hard I tried or how far I ran.

  Maybe a remote Amazonian tribe was willing to take me in. I probably wouldn’t last long in the jungle, but at least they could eat me when I died.

  I sighed, looked at the eggs in the jug, and headed to take a shower.

  I wasn’t so hungry anymore.

  ***

  By the time I was done with my shower, my need for food eclipsed my desire to cook. I abandoned my egg mix down the sink, put the bacon back in the fridge, and pulled my wet hair into a braid that hung over one shoulder before I grabbed all my things and headed for my car.

  Even though going out was the last thing I really wanted to do right now, I got into my car and used a passing space in the dirt road outside the beach house to turn around. The diner was only mere minutes from here, and I felt like a familiar face was what I needed right now.

  I drove past Theo’s house and turned onto the road that was even worse than the one I’d just been on. If I made it out of Creek Keys without getting new tires on my car, it would be a damn miracle.

  Finally, after far too long, I made it off the rocky, stony road and onto the regular road that would lead me straight to the diner.

  Thank God.

  I was ten seconds away from a puncture.

  Minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot outside the diner and parked up. It was busier than yesterday, but not overtly so. I guess I was too early for the lunch rush and too late for the breakfast one.

  Charity beamed the second she saw me. “Well, look who it is! Back for more food?”

  My stomach rumbled, answering for me. I guess I was hungry after all. “So
unds like it.” I laughed quietly. “I just needed to get out of the house and didn’t know where else to go.”

  Her mouth formed a little ‘oh’ of understanding. “Come take a seat up at the bar. Most of these people are just here havin’ themselves a coffee before they go to the beach, so don’t you worry.”

  I followed her through the lively diner to the bar. She was right—almost nobody had food in front of them, except for a few little kids still making their way through pancakes.

  I slid onto the stool at the corner of the bar and set my purse at my feet, accepting the menu Charity slid my way.

  “Coffee, darlin’?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She turned to make it, and as it spluttered to life, she said over her shoulder, “So. What did Theo do now?”

  I blinked at her. “Why would what he does bother me?”

  “Well, you’re rentin’ his house, his daughter loves you, and he can be a bit of a prickly little shit if you ask me.”

  I didn’t ask, but I did appreciate it all the same. It was nice to know it wasn’t just me.

  I shrugged one shoulder, trying to brush it off. “It’s nothing, really. I’m having a rough time and I guess it just got to me a little more.”

  “Right. On account of the issues you’re dealin’ with.”

  “You know?”

  She pulled the coffee mug from beneath the machine and put it down in front of me. Slowly, she raised one thickly drawn brown eyebrow at me. “Of course I know. You think I don’t have grandkids?”

  “Actually, I thought you were in your forties.”

  “Well ain’t you sweet.” She patted my arm. “My granddaughter is about the same age as Arielle and loves your videos. When she came to stay here two months ago, she wanted me to curl her hair exactly like you did in some tutorial. Her mama couldn’t get it right, bless her soul, but neither could I. Hooooey, let me tell you, those preteen tantrums are no joke.”

  My lips twitched. “I’ll teach you.”

  “And I sure appreciate that.” She winked. “So yes, darlin’, I know who you are and why you’re hidin’ here. Not that I think you need to hide. If you released it, good on you. If you didn’t, tell me where the jerk who did lives and I’ll sort him out for you.”