When I emerge from the en suite showered and dressed, Hollis is scribbling away in his notebook. Seeing him totally absorbed is fascinating; the way his eyes look at the page with single-minded focus and his pen moves with the speed and precision of an Olympic ice skater. As I break apart the muffin over the trash can and pop pieces into my mouth—Connie is a truly gifted baker—I wonder if that’s what Hollis would be like in bed. Focused and precise, I mean. Not gifted. Except that too. Might explain why he’s getting nudes on the reg, and from multiple lady friends. Not that he’s not attractive enough for women to want him. Like, clearlyIwant him plenty and— Damn, I really need to cut this out. I clear my throat, and croak out, “What’re you working on?”
“Something new,” he says without looking up. “I think it has more promise than what I was stuck on.”
“Oh, that’s good. What’s it about?”
“A small redhead who asks too many questions and gets deserted at an extremely religious bed-and-breakfast.”
“Sounds boring,” I say. “I’m going to see if there’s a coffee shop or something nearby. Put out some feelers in case anyone in town can help us somehow. Wanna come?”
“No. Going to stay here and write. I need to get this on paper before I forget it.”
“Writer’s block gone, I take it?”
“It wasn’t a block. It was a—”
“Minor clog. Yes, I remember. Guess you unclogged yourself then, huh? Didn’t need Yeva to...” I make a fist and gesture how I imagine one would clear a pipe. But by the way Hollis’s eyebrowsraise, I’m pretty sure it looks like I’m miming something quite different.
He clears his throat. “Yeva’s pretty open-minded, but I don’t think she’d be up for that.”
“I’ll leave you to it. The writing, not the...” I repeat the gesture.Why.
But he’s not looking at me now anyway, his pen busy skating over the page again.
I slide my backpack’s straps over my shoulders and leave the room. Hollis is completely absorbed in what he’s writing, so I don’t want to interrupt by saying goodbye. Besides, I’m fairly certain that if he even notices my lack of farewell he’s not going to dwell on it.
At the bottom of the stairs, I cross paths with a deeply tanned bald man with a pink, triangular scar on his forehead. “Oh, hello. You must be Millicent,” he says.
“My friends call me Millie,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’m Bud, Connie’s other half. So sorry to hear what happened to y’all last night. Those deer have been a real menace lately. And I know your husband ran into—oh, pardon the expression—some disappointment with the rental car company this mornin’.”
It’s so difficult not to correct him. Every part of me wants to blurt out, “He’s not my husband. He’s just a friend. I think. It’s all very new.” But Hollis is clearly more familiar with the type of people who have a room filled with Jesus paint-by-numbers than I am, and now that we might be here awhile, I really don’t want to risk getting kicked out of Gadsley Manor and having to stay at the horrible motel. Except a lie by omission is still a lie, and Hollis was right before: I am a terrible liar.
Thankfully, Bud saves me by marching the conversationforward. “Though all said, suppose it worked out all right. Least now you’ll be in town for the festivities.”
“Festivities?”
“Oh, guess it was too dark when you arrived to see the banners. This weekend is our Broccoli Festival.”
“Broccoli... Festival?”
“The Alston farm just outside of town is the largest broccoli producer in the state. Been around for near a hundred years. They had a bad crop a few years back, so we did some events to raise money for them. Keep them from havin’ to sell. People came from all ’round the area, and it was such a good time that we decided to make it an annual celebration. Each year it gets bigger and bigger. The parade is tomorrow at noon, and then later in the day we have the pie-eatin’ contest, live music, vendors of all sorts, fireworks. It’s a great time.”
“Wait,” I say. “Broccolipie?”
Bud sticks out his tongue. “Blech. No. Normal pie, normal. Apple usually, I think. Gosh.” He shivers dramatically. “Boy, I don’t think most people could stomach a bite of a broccoli pie, much less eat a contest’s worth of ’em. Guess it would be okay if it were quiche, though. I could probably eat my weight in that.” His laugh is deep and boisterous, which I was not expecting from such a short, slender man.
I clear my mind of the broccoli pie image and replace it with apple. Based on what I’ve seen of his food preferences so far, I would bet a lot of money that Hollis is a fan of apple pie. My brain can picture the scene as vividly as if I were watching it unfold in front of me: him sitting at a long table on a stage in front of an eager crowd, a starting pistol cracking into the air. (Do they use those for pie-eating contests? Doesn’t matter, they will at thisone.) I’m sitting in the front row to cheer him on, and he gives me a look that saysimagine if this pie were you. Then he takes it in his hands, and licks over the lattice crust without breaking eye contact, and he’s already lagging extremely behind the other contestants, but he doesn’t care, because he knows just how easy it is for me to imagine his tongue is caressingmylattice crust and—
“Millicent?”
I jump—literally jump!—at the sound of Hollis’s voice behind me. “Holy sh—” My mind has just enough time to recall that, given what I know about his wife and their B&B’s decor, Bud may not be cool with swearing. I manage to course correct enough that it comes out as “Holy shooooooes,” which the two men thankfully ignore.
“Mornin’ again, sir.” Hollis gives Bud a polite nod, which Bud returns. “Everything okay? I thought you were going out,” he says to me.
“I was. I am.”
“Oh gosh,” Bud says. “I’m sorry. You were on your way somewhere and here I am waylayin’ ya.”
