Page 134 of Hoax and Kisses
“Go!” Charlee insists.
“Fuck it.” I get up and head straight for my truck.
“Bring her back here,” Oli shouts from the deck. “Maybe we can help.”
Ifshe wants to talk to me, then yes, I’ll bring her back here. I’ll introduce her to everybody.
She’ll be part of the family. A real one, for once.
“Oh, Matt, wait.” Charlee scrambles off Oliver’s lap and runs toward me. “I have something for you. Here.” She digs in her pocket and pulls out a keychain with a rooster dangling from it, flashing me a smile. “For the cocklection.”
I swing by the store and throw together a bouquet of her favorite flowers. The whole time, my heart doesn’t stop racing.
At the Butterfly Inn, I jog inside and head straight for the front desk.
“Hey, Ruth.” The owner of the Inn, a petite woman in her sixties, sits in a large armchair, knitting needles in her hands. “Can you tell me which room Zoey Delacroix is staying in, please?”
She peers at me over the pink glasses perched at the tip of her nose before she looks back at the cardigan she’s working on. “Guest information is confidential.”
“Ruth, please.” I bounce on my toes, literally shaking. With a frustrated groan, I pluck a pink rose from the bouquet and thrust it at her. “Please.”
She puts her needles down, sighs, and takes the offered flower. “Fine. Room 203.”
“Thank you.”
I dash down the dim hallway and fly up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When I get to her door on the second floor, I rap twice on the wood.
There’s some clattering on the other side and then the faint brush of the peephole cover against the surface. After a moment’s pause, the lock rattles, and finally, Zoé appears in front of me.
“Hi,” I croak.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice is soft, fragile. Like she might break if she speaks louder.
“I got a new cock, and I need help fitting it into your cockiness order,” I blurt out in one breath.
Her eyes widen, and then she bursts into a laugh. “What?”
“My cock!” I yank my new keychain out with a little too much force.
“Oh,” she whispers, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. She leans in, squinting. “Definitely not very cocky.”
I exhale a sharp laugh, but it dies when I take in her bloodshot eyes. Her rumpled shirt. Her oversized sweatpants.Mysweatpants.
She’s wearing them.
I swallow tightly and settle on her face again, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, the hair she’s crammed into a sad bun on top of her head.
She looks like she’s barely slept since I last saw her.
Fuck.
I scan what I can see of the room. The twin beds that have been pushed together. The piles of papers, the discarded clothes, the leftover food.
Fuck, it kills me that I let her go through all of this alone.
“Can I come in?” I ask.
With a nod, she moves out of the way.
