Page 15 of Leo and His Love Bunny

The elevator dings, and the doors open.

“See you guys tomorrow,” I say. We do fist bumps, and I always spend a couple of extra seconds meeting Pete’s eyes. He’s got a dangerous job, and while Whisker Hollow is not exactly ahotbed of crime, policemen do die on the job at a much higher rate than hockey players. Although, anything is possible.

Cal opens his mouth, and I put a finger out. “Don’t even say anything, or I will announce at our next press conference that you’re actually a girl,” I say, and I manage to keep my lips from twitching as he flat-out grins.

“I wantallthe details,” he says, batting his eyes at me, despite the fact that I have my finger in his face.

“Girl,” I say as I start to step back on the elevator.

“You can’t ask us for advice and then not tell us how it turns out,” Pete says, his natural tendency toward fairness coming to the forefront, and I know he’s right. I will tell my buddies everything and anything they want to know. Well... Not everything. There might be a few things I don’t say, depending on how things go.

“If she needs some character witnesses, I can vouch for you,” Pete says.

“I can’t. I’ll have to tell her all about the time he spray-painted the freezers in the school cafeteria and then blamed it on—”

“Right. So I’ll not mention that you and I know each other,” I say as the door starts to close.

“We play on the same team. We live in the same apartment building. We went to school together—”

The door snaps shut, although even through the closed metal, I can hear Cal continuing to talk.

I roll my eyes and walk toward my apartment, intending to go in and maybe take a shower and figure out exactly what I’m going to say before I head to my neighbor’s apartment.

I know she lives on the same floor as I do, because I’ve seen her a couple of times coming and going. Once or twice, I’ve said hi to her, but today is the first I actually spoke with her.

I know she has noticed me, because...that whole biceps thing. I didn’t even go into that with my friends because I know they’d have made fun of me. They don’t understand that it’s important to me to be more than my hockey career. Especially now that I’m in my twilight years of that career. I don’t want my life to end when my playing days are over. I want to look at it like it’s just beginning.

Maybe that’s sappy and stupid, but maybe that’s why I intend to be an inspirational speaker and writer. Because I feel like every day is the first day of the rest of your life, and you can make it count however you want to.

That’s probably because of the cancer I had when I was a kid.

Chapter 7

Nora

He’s not coming. I knew it. I’ve been worried all evening, and there hasn’t been a knock at the door. I should have known that he was all talk. Which I don’t begrudge, since I appreciate what he did for me. He helped me save face and probably made my cupcakes even more popular, as if there is anything that anyone could do to make human breast cupcakes more popular than what mine were. Although, I have gotten three calls from ladies from three different churches in town. Whisker Hollow is like every other small town on the east of the Mississippi and has more churches than it has anything else. Whisker Hollow actually has more churches than it has stoplights, bars, and cockroaches.

Okay, kidding about the cockroach thing.

I take a deep breath. It’s pretty sad I’m thinking about cockroaches. Although it has gotten me off breasts, which pretty much dominated my thoughts all day.

Normally I hang out in the bakery in the evening, cleaning up from the day and getting everything ready for the next day. We like to bake the cupcakes fresh first thing in the morning, and Matt is an early bird, rising at four AM. So I stay late at night, and Matt gets up and picks up where I left off.

But today, Matt and Stephanie stayed all day, which they don’t typically do, and it was a stressful day, so we were all exhausted and went home.

But now, I can’t relax. I want to get up and pace. But that’s ridiculous. It’s like I’m waiting for him to show, when I know that he’s probably not going to. So, I stand up from the couch, where I moved after I got myself off the floor, and take the empty carton of ice cream and throw it in the garbage can.

I just walked from the living room into my bedroom when I hear a knock at the door.

My heart leaps to my throat, and I freeze.

Could that be Leo?

Suddenly, I’m overcome with terror. I had announced to Whisker Hollow on the radio that I was enchanted, fascinated, and goodness only knows what else with his delicious biceps. And now, that man is standing at my door.

Then I laugh to myself. It could be anyone. It is not uncommon for one of my girlfriends in the building to stop in in the evening if they know I’m home. We’ll often chat and play a few hands of cards or something. Sometimes, especially in the summer, we go out and sit by the river. It’s really pretty.

Telling myself there’s nothing to be nervous about, I brush my hair back, and then because I’m a woman, I run to the bathroom to check it. It’s a mess.

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