by Pippa Grant
* * *
Emma_June_Jennings: I haven’t eaten meat in fifteen years, Gran, so yes, I will bring tofu loaf. And wine. Two bottles. I’m going to need them to keep from having a rage stroke every time I get on InstaChat and see how ass-backwards this town is.
* * *
AskAnOldManCarl52: I’m not ass-backwards. I’m just tired of feeling uncomfortable, that’s all.
* * *
Emma_June_Jennings: Then stop, Carl. There’s no reason to feel uncomfortable. This is just like the time Bill over at the Feed Store started wearing dresses on Fridays. Everyone was freaked out at first, but we all got used to it. You included. No, it’s not business as traditionally usual, but it’s fine. And good. And it makes people we care about happy without hurting anyone. How can we complain about that? Honestly.
* * *
AskAnOldManCarl52: All right. I’ll try. But I’m not talking to Megan about her woman time. That’s just taking things too far.
* * *
Emma_June_Jennings: Do you want me to talk to her? Since her mama isn’t around right now? I don’t mind.
* * *
AskAnOldManCarl52: Well…yes, I would. Thank you. That’s real sweet of you.
* * *
Tucker87: Isn’t Emma June the sweetest? *kiss emoji* *eggplant emoji* *kiss emoji*
* * *
Emma_June_Jennings: Tucker, stop! UGH! Seriously. I’m going to block you from the page if you don’t stop embarrassing me.
* * *
LetItBurn1234: The fire department should have let that hell hole burn. The longer we tolerate a sex toy factory in the middle of our town, the faster we become a place decent people won’t want to call home. That factory gives more jobs to people outside Happy Cat than inside, and attendance at the fish fries and bingo nights is down forty percent. People don’t want to be here anymore. How much more money and credibility do we have to lose before the citizens of Happy Cat wake up and smell the rancid lube drying on the face of this once respectable town?
* * *
Ruthie_May_Is_Me: I resent this comment. Sunshine is a gift to our community, and brought much-needed economic improvement to a town that’s been shrinking since I was a girl. Maybe attendance is down at bingo because it’s the same night as the darts tournament at the Wild Hog.
* * *
Emma_June_Jennings: And who puts LUBE on their FACE? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Not to mention gross. And the fire department is in the business of saving lives, spooge for brains. There could have been people still inside the factory for all they knew.
* * *
LetItBurn1234: There’s nothing worth saving in that place, the ‘employees’ included, and everyone knows it.
* * *
Ruthie_May_Is_Me: Oh my Goodness! How awful. Who is this? Gerald is this one of your profiles?
* * *
BakeryBoyHC: No, it’s not mine. I was trying to stay out of the comments and let everybody else weigh in. But this isn’t right. Step back, LetItBurn. I don’t like that place any more than you do, but those are good people who work there. Innocent people…even if they do make an indecent number of sex toys.
* * *
LetItBurn1234: If those people know what’s good for them, they’ll start looking for another job. Sooner or later, there’s going to be an incident the first responders of Happy Cat aren’t prepared to handle and that place is going down. Be a shame if any ‘good people’ were caught in the crossfire.
* * *
BakeryBoyHC: All right, that’s enough. This is getting ugly and there’s no call for that. We can solve this the democratic way, with a special referendum election to vote on whether or not the factory should be allowed to stay. In the meantime, let’s all keep our head on our shoulders and not go off half-cocked.
* * *
Tucker87: Heh…you said half-cocked.
* * *
Emma_June_Jennings: *heavy sigh* Oh, Tucker…
Eight
Ryan
* * *
I get off my forty-eight-hour shift at the fire station at three a.m. Saturday morning and head home to crash for a few hours. Despite the exhaustion making my bones feel hollow—we assisted on three traffic accidents and a fairly serious grease fire during my shift, in addition to fetching George from an industrial garbage bin outside the dollar store, where he was spotted devouring the day old eggs the night manager had thrown out an hour before—I can’t sleep.
I’m too keyed up. Too ready for nine o’clock to roll around.
Too excited to see Cassie again, to give her a town tour she’s never going to forget, to see her eyes light up when I introduce her to all the good stuff she’s been missing in Happy Cat, and to find out if she’s going to look at me with that “I want to lick you up and down” gleam in her eye she had Wednesday evening.
If she does, I intend to let her lick me up, down, and any other direction she would care to lick me. And I am fully prepared to return the favor. I want a taste of Cassie’s plush mouth the way I want George to start cleaning up his own popcorn mess when he’s done watching old episodes of The Cat Whisperer on Animal Planet on the couch.
I’m not sure if he’s intrigued by the cat whisperer’s soothing voice or trying to pick up a few tricks for achieving world domination over the feral cats in our neighborhood, but nothing holds his attention and keeps him out of trouble better. So when he crawls into bed with me a little after four, I turn on the little TV on my bureau and pull up an episode on Hulu.
In just a few minutes, The Cat Whisperer has worked his magic on me too, and I’m out like a light.
The next time I open my eyes, it’s to the droning of my alarm notifying me that it’s eight thirty. I stumble into the shower before I’m fully awake, still drowsy, but determined to get pretty for Cassie. I dry off, run some gel through my hair, and dress in khaki cargo shorts and a tee shirt I dug out of my drawer just for her. I bustle about the kitchen, packing snacks and lunch and putting several bottles of homemade lemonade on ice in my mini cooler, along with a couple of surprises. I load everything into the saddlebags on my bike and push Big Blue over to Cassie’s place.
Promptly at nine, I ring her bell. She opens the door so fast, she must have been waiting on the other side, making me smile even before I see her shirt.
“You always wear the most perfect shirts,” I say, nodding toward her Internet Was Down, So I Thought I’d Go Outside Today tee shirt.
“Yours isn’t bad, either,” she says, laughing as she points a finger at my chest where the Sunshine Sex Toy Mascot, Sunny, is getting a big hug from an equally blissed-out looking cat. “Happy Cats Love Sunshine. Was that a gift from Savannah?”
I shake my head. “Nope. I bought one at the gift shop yesterday while we were there on a follow-up visit for the arson investigation. As a show of solidarity. I was hoping I might see you there, but they said you were down at the sheriff’s office. Everything all right?”
Her smile droops at the edges. “Some anonymous creep was making veiled threats about doing something to the factory on the town InstaChat page.”
“I saw that,” I say grimly. “Any progress on figuring out who it was?”
“No. I went to talk to the sheriff about it, but he was at a loss about how to handle a cyber situation. I tried to explain tracking IP addresses to him, but it was like explaining hot air balloons to a fish. And I doubt InstaChat would respond to a request from a small-town sheriff for private information on a user anyway. Sheriff Briggs was sympathetic and said he would keep an eye out for suspicious activity, but…”
“But you’re not expecting much,” I say, wishing I knew something about tracking down cyber trolls. But I’m as clueless as the next guy whose Internet expertise begins and ends with turning his modem on and off in hopes it will fix itself when the signal goes out. All I can do is promise, “Jessie, my chief, and I are keeping a close eye on Sunshine, day and night. We’re doing our best to make sure no one ge
ts hurt. And who knows, the lab results might give us a clue who this spooge for brains really is.”
Cassie’s smile comes out from behind the clouds. “I liked that comment too. Emma June is funnier than I remember. And Tucker even dumber. What does she see in that man?”
I laugh. “Don’t quote me, but I’m guessing it has something to do with his face and his muscles. I hear women like those things.”
“They do, but I’d rather have a guy who makes me laugh.”
“Why not have both?” I tease in a way that makes it pretty damned clear I’m flirting with her. Or trying to anyway. But Cassie only nods calmly and says, “Yeah, that could be good too. Do I need to bring anything? Aside from my wallet and phone?”
“No wallet or phone needed if you don’t want them.” I step back, motioning toward where my bike is parked at the end of her drive. “I’ve got everything we need for a day of fun, adventure, and eating all the snacks.”
Cassie shuts the door behind her. “I already know I’ll like that part of the underbelly tour. Eating all the snacks is one of my favorite things.”
“You want to start now?” I ask. “Have you had breakfast?”
She shakes her head. “No, I haven’t, but I’m not hungry. I don’t do food until after ten o’clock and at least three cups of coffee. I’ve had two so far.”
“Perfect, because we’re bound for number three.” I head down the walk while she grabs her bike from the far side of the covered porch. “And I’ll point out that being able to leave your sweet, dildo-handlebarred bike out all night without locking it up is one of the many benefits to living in a small town.”
Cassie laughs. “You’re right. In the city, this bad boy would be gone in a heartbeat. I could probably mass produce dildo handlebars and sell thousands of them during Pride Week.”
I swing onto my bike. “You should write that down. Get Savannah on the job when she gets back.”
“Maybe I will.” Cassie mounts her bike beside me, her cheeks going adorably pink as she grips the massive purple dildo handles. “It would be good for her to have something to look forward to, and she loves designing new products. So where are we headed?”
“Somewhere cool,” I say mysteriously. “You’ll see.”
“Okay, but I can’t imagine there’s anywhere close enough to reach by bike that I haven’t seen yet. I’ve been around Happy Cat a time or two, you know. I did grow up here.”
“But you don’t know her hidden treasures, Cassie. You haven’t taken the time to coax her secrets to the surface.”
“So Happy Cat is female?”
“Of course she is. Her name is Happy Cat.” I wink before I dart to the left, heading down the trail leading around the lake. “Come on, Sunderwell, look sharp, this coffee isn’t going to hunt and kill itself.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re parked outside the Kennedy Family Day School, an abandoned schoolhouse from the late 1800s that’s now a general store and sandwich shop that serves the best damned coffee in this or any other county.
Watching Cassie bury her cute little nose in her cup and inhale like she’s just sniffed a piece of heaven, it seems she agrees. She takes a cautious sip, her eyes going wide as she swallows. “That is in-fucking-credible.” She winces, glancing over her shoulder and laughing in relief when she realizes we’re still alone on the front porch rockers. The family of four who ordered breakfast sandwiches behind us are still inside. “Pardon my French, but seriously. How is this so good? What have they done to it?”
“Magic,” I say, moaning in appreciation as the smoky, berry, nutty brew goes down as smooth as always. “It’s the only explanation.”
Cassie lifts her mug to her lips again, eyelashes fluttering with pleasure, making me wonder if that’s the face she makes when she experiences other kinds of profoundly pleasurable experiences. I try to put the wayward thought out of my mind, because I’m being a gentleman and a friend first, but then Cassie’s dark eyes slit open, meeting mine as her tongue sweeps a sensuous trail across her upper lip, and electricity leaps between us.
“Enjoying your first underbelly tour stop?” I ask, voice husky.
She nods. “I am. I can’t believe I didn’t know this was here. It’s practically in our backyard.”
“Now that you’re hooked, you’ll be making this stop every morning on your way to work.”
“I was already thinking about adding a drink holder to the handlebars,” she confesses in a whisper, gaze darting guiltily to our bikes in a way that makes me laugh.
“I can probably help you with that. I saw something at the hardware store the other day that would work. I’ll get two next time I’m in. One for your bike and one for mine.”
Cassie studies me out of the corner of her eyes for a long beat that makes me wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. Before I can ask, her lips curve up in a sweet, almost shy way I’ve never seen before and she says, “That would be very nice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The hardware store is now officially on my agenda for this weekend. That smile is too irresistible to wait a single hour longer than necessary to coax it back to her face again. “Want to look at the class photos on the back wall before we go? They’ve got every year from 1916 to when the school closed in the late seventies.”
“Yes!” Her eyes light up. “I love stuff like that. I love seeing how people change so much, but still seem to stay the same, you know?”
I cock my head. “How so?”
“Well, the fashions and the trends are different,” she says as we rise, starting back into the store. “But there’s always the class clown and the queen bee, the guy everyone falls in love with and the kids too shy to make eye contact with the camera. Still, we all grow up thinking we’re the only people who ever got a zit on picture day or were too embarrassed to tell our crush we think they’re the bee’s knees.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. “The bee’s knees.”
“Fantastic. Excellent. The very best.”
I pause with my hand on the screen door. She looks up to find me staring and I smile. “I think you’re the bee’s knees, Cassandra Sunderwell.”
She blushes and I want to kiss her so badly I’m about to go for it, screw taking things slow, when the sandwich family pushes through the door on the other side, instigating a round of apologies from both groups—Cassie and me for blocking the door, them for backing out without looking first.
By the time we get to the back of the store to check out the photos, I figure the moment has passed, but as we’re leaning in for a closer look at the class of 1934, Cassie murmurs, “You’re pretty bee’s knees yourself, O’Dell. But don’t let it go to your head.”
I grin. “Yes, ma’am.”
But it’s too late. It’s already gone to my head, and my brain is throwing a decidedly premature “Cassie digs us” party.
Nine
Cassie
* * *
This is not a friend date.
This is a real date.
I am on a real date with Ryan O’Dell, the only person who has ever made me tingle with a glance. And unless I’m absolutely out of my mind, my glances make him tingle too.
I shoot a look his way as we leave our second stop—a covered bridge so quaintly picturesque I’ve already decided to return with my camera later this week—to find him watching me with a grin on his ridiculously handsome face.
I blush for the hundredth time today as he asks, “Having fun yet?”
“So much fun,” I answer honestly, though I shouldn’t be. This is dangerous. Letting myself get swept up in the moment with a man like Ryan—a man who doles out sexy stares like candy on Halloween and who is literally ten thousand times more experienced than I am—is a mistake.
Not to mention the fact that he thinks I’m repulsively gross and that kissing me is a breed of torture on par with waterboarding or having his fingernails ripped out with pliers or only getting four chicken wings when he ordered half a dozen.
The thought slows the giddy rush of my heart and makes me wonder, yet again—why are we here? Why this date and the flirting and the sweet offer to set me up with a bike coffee-cup holder of my very own?
Could I be misreading an innocent attempt at friendship?
Or maybe he assumes you’ve gotten better at locking lips since high school. Ha! As if. He’s in for a rude awakening.
I want to tell the inner voice to shut its trap and stop spewing meanness around my brain, but how can I when it’s probably right?
I mean, I’ve had boyfriends—even a couple of serious ones—but I’ve never made it past third base. I’ve never been ready and none of my potential partners pushed the issue. And yes, they were all coding nerds, like me, but surely at least one or two should have been so hot for my bod that he was willing to make a play for more than heaving petting.
But they didn’t. Not one, not even once.
Until now, I’d assumed that was because they were respectful, sensitive guys who could tell I wasn’t ready to take that final step. But as Ryan and I head into the woods, bound for another destination on my dashing companion’s oh-so-charming tour, I wonder if maybe teen Ryan was right.
