Page 69 of What's in a Kiss?

“T. Lennox is Ms. Teri Lennox. A dental hygienist.”

“Right,” I say. “Eugene, hygiene, we all Gene for ice cream. Teri must have a husband or a brother—”

“Olivia, the car was reported stolen five days ago. I’m sorry. The plates are a dead end.”

Chapter Seventeen

“The Hippocratic oath applies to zombies, too,” I growl at a freckle-faced eight-year-old the following morning.

The kid stares at me for a moment, then his lip trembles and he erupts into sobs. “But he ate my mommy!”

“Cut,” the director calls from behind her chair. “That was... convincing. Did I say that? I’m stunned. You’re both free till after lunch.”

Blushing with a bit of pride, I put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “You okay? Did I push too hard?”

“Lois!” the kid yells. “She’s touching me again—”

“Olivia, please,” the director says. “Buster’s asked you several times.”

I don’t know why I’m relieved by this continuity with my High Life self, or why I was relieved yesterday when Ivy called to give me her bad news. Or why I felt relieved for the rest of the afternoon, laughing and dancing with Jake while finishing Deck Day, until we collapsed into bed, too physically exhausted to do anything but sleep.

I’m still going to find Yogi Rabbi Dan. I’m still going to make him take me home. This is just a temporary setback. But if I must endure more time in the High Life, so be it. Now that I have a vision for getting Jake’s career on track, I’d like to see thatplan get started. Then I’ll feel right about going back, happy that in every version of the multiverse I know, Jake enjoys his just desserts. I can leave feeling like our two souls are karmically cool because of the kindness we shared here.

I head toward my trailer. I should go over my new lines for the afternoon. But the only lines I want to run are the ones I have for Jake. The story he told about us yesterday on the deck answered one question about the state of our careers but raised so many others about our life these last ten years.

What other curveballs did life throw at us? Why did we have our biggest fight, and how did we get past it? What was the best weekend getaway we ever took, and what was the worst? What do we write in our anniversary cards to each other? Where do we dream of retiring?

When Jake looks at me, I see the stored treasure of all the life we’ve shared together. It’s in his eyes and in the words he whispers to me half asleep, and I can’t help feeling jealous that I don’t have some of that treasure myself.

Even if it isn’t real.

“Bad boy! Bad!” a voice scolds inside my trailer. With trepidation, I open the door and see Aurora’s back. She’s crouched down near the floor and wagging a reprimanding finger at—

My legs go weak as I take in a tiny white terrier mutt with an underbite. “Gram Parsons?!”

Aurora whirls around and stands, scooping up the dog—mydog—in one hand. With the other she pats her newly short hair self-consciously.

“Okay, you hate the cut,” she says, looking hurt. “I was going for Florence Pugh, not Gram Parsons—”

“No, the dog—” I hold my hands out. It’s all I can do not to snatch him from her arms.

“Ugh, meet Tito,” she says. “My awful sister randomly moved to Sun Valley this weekend and dumped this gremlin on me.”

“I can’t believe it,” I breathe.

“I know, right? She doesn’t understand”—Aurora gestures between us—“wecan’t be beholden to a dog. Our work is our life. And when we leave here at the end of each day, there’s nothing left in the tank for some micro turd factory—”

“May I hold him? Please?”

“Be my guest.” Aurora plants Gram Parsons in my arms. “Watch out, he pees.”

I turn to mush feeling his warm weight. I dissolve in a storm of his kisses. It feels so good to hold my dog I begin to cry—silently, blinking madly because I don’t want to explain it to Aurora. Not that she’d notice, anyway.

I scratch Gram Parsons under his chin, and he locks my hand there. I soften into his brown gaze, feeling a peace I haven’t known for days, a peace that used to be available any time I wanted. But instead of making me homesick, a strange instinct finds my heart: I want to introduce Gram Parsons to Jake Glasswell.

“I’ll take him off your hands,” I tell Aurora.

“What?” she says. “Why?”

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