Page 9 of Love Notes
It wasn’t the cat.
“Oh my god,” said Adam Nelson.He was standing in the open doorway, holding a plate of cookies.And I was waving my dick in the breeze.“Oh mygod.”
I wrenched my wet tangle of underwear and jeans back up.“What are youdoinghere?”
He held up a hand to shield his eyes, even though it was way too late for that.“I brought cookies to say thank you for rescuing me!Why are you naked?And why do you live in a shed?”
“I’m not naked now.”I was burning with embarrassment though.
Adam cautiously lowered his hand and then moved forward to set the plate of cookies on the chair in the doorway.“Oh.”He picked up my half-made alien.“This is just like the ones—” His gaze fell on the camp bed and the mini fridge.He narrowed his eyes at me.“Ryan, am I staying in your house?”
“Uh, yeah.”I thought about putting my wet shirt on again but couldn’t bring myself to do it.I folded my arms over my chest instead.
“You’re washing in asink,” he said, eyes widening.
“Yeah,” I said, deciding not to tell him that I actually washed using the hose outside.
“Oh my god,” he said again.He pinched the bridge of his nose.“Why are you living in this shed?”
“It’s my workshop,” I corrected him.“And Rebecca asked me to, because the cottage you originally booked got flooded, and she didn’t want to mess up your stay, so she asked if you could use my cabin instead.”
“You’re sleeping on acamp bed.”He jabbed a finger toward it, as if I didn’t already know.
He sounded so horrified that I looked at the camp bed to make sure it hadn’t suddenly grown spikes.It hadn’t.“It’s fine.”
“Oh my god,” he said, which seemed to have made up most of our conversation so far.“Okay, well, enjoy the cookies.”He waved at them and then hustled out of view.
I watched the doorway for a while, unsure what to make of both Adam’s sudden, humiliating arrival and his equally sudden, awkward departure.Then, just when I was certain I wasn’t going to be interrupted again and I could take my wet jeans off at last, he reappeared, one hand in front of his eyes, and one waving my alien around.
“I forgot—” He lowered his hand.“Okay, good.I forgot to put your alien back.”He set it on the chair with the cookies.“Thank you for rescuing me, and sorry I saw your dick.Not that it’s a bad dick, it’s very nice, I just—” He made a choking sound.“Okay, sorry.Bye.”
And he vanished again.
I stood watching for a long time and then, because I might have been a slow learner but I at least got there in the end, I went and closed the roller door.And vowed to never, ever tell anyone what had happened.
I WOKE UPhaving spent a restless night dreaming of Ryan Devlin’s big hands.And it was his hands I’d dreamed about, despite having gotten an eyeful of another impressively large part of him.I’d always had a thing for guys who worked with their hands—part hero worship and part competency kink, because I was the kind of guy who had to call a plumber to change a washer in a leaky faucet.Ryan’s hands carried strength in them but also incredible gentleness.
I made myself breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs and ate in the living room where I could look at the bookshelf full of carved wooden animals and aliens.Ryan’s work was so fine and intricate, and something about the idea of such powerful hands doing such delicate work fascinated me.
When I finished breakfast, I rinsed my plate and stacked it in the dishwasher.
The plan for today was to drive around the local area and get a feel for it, as well as taking note of a lot of little details I could sprinkle into my next book so that reviewers like the one who’d said I’d obviously never been to Harmony Lake wouldn’t have any ammunition next time.Okay, so that wasn’t all BenDover123 had said about the book on WordBook—and no, I didn’t know why I was obsessing so much over a single review from a reviewer whose name just screamed teenage edgelord—but that was the part I could refute, okay?Because I had been to Harmony Lake, and I was here again now.All the other stuff about “glaring inaccuracies” and “outright garbage” when it came to the whole computer hacking part of the plot?Well, I hated that I couldn’t deny he was probably right about that.Technological literacy wasn’t my strong point.I’d killed two robot vacuums because I’d put the virtual walls in the wrong place and sent them plummeting down the stairs to their doom.So maybe I shouldn’t have decided to make my victim in the last book a hacker embroiled in a web of financial crimes, but hey, lesson learned or something.I was going back to my roots for the next book: small town folk with secrets.
So, ready to be all inspired by Caldwell Crossing, I got in my rental car and drove into town.
It was smaller than I remembered.Okay, so I’d been a kid the last time I visited, and memory had a way of painting things larger than they were, but there were more than a few empty storefronts on Main Street that said Caldwell Crossing was in an economic downturn.I was glad to see Harmony Chocolates was still open; as a kid, it had drawn me like a magnet.Turned out it did now as well.
I was served by a cute guy with curls and brilliant blue eyes, and ten minutes later, loaded down with a tote bag full of more chocolate than I needed for my entire stay, I went to the grocery store and stocked up there as well.I found myself mulling over the steaks, wondering if I ought to buy one or two.Should I offer to cook Ryan an apology dinner?Was there such a thing as an “I’m sorry I thought you were mugging me and then I saw your dick” steak?Wagyu, probably.With truffle sauce.Well, the grocery store’s ribeye would have to do, with a peppercorn sauce if they had a bottle.
Was it weird to invite Ryan to dinner at his own house?What if he thought it was a date?Did I want it to be a date?Maybe I did.I was out of practice when it came to relationships, and it wasn’t as though I had a string of successful ones behind me anyway.I didn’t even have any interesting or exciting failures.All my relationships had just run their course, I supposed, and we’d looked at each other, shrugged, and gone our separate ways.That was probably a sad indictment on what a boring person I was.but I didn’t want an exciting relationship.Drama was great in books but not so much in real life.In real life, I wanted something warm and comfortable.I wanted an old-knitted sweater of a relationship, cozy and soft and worn in so it fit just right.
I took a longer route back to the cabin, soaking up the atmosphere and making mental notes of what to add to the page: the way the light filtered through the trees, the fresh, clean scent of the air, and how a time-critical race to catch a killer might get totally screwed up when your main characters had to wait for a tourist in an RV to do a nine-point turn when they realized they wouldn’t fit through the covered bridge.In my book, I’d definitely wedge that RV in there good and proper.
When I finally got back to the cabin, an orange cat was sunning itself on the porch swing.It bolted as soon as I pulled up, which was great, because the swing looked like a fantastic spot to sit with my laptop and get some notes down.First I unpacked my groceries, and then, my heart beating faster in anticipation—either of rejection or acceptance, it wasn’t picky—I made my way along the shore of the lake and through the trees to Ryan’s workshop.
I couldn’t hear any power tools, but the roller door was up, so I presumed he was in.
“Hello?”I called from a safe distance, not wanting a repeat of yesterday’s incident.I slowed down my pace.
