Page 104 of Will Bark for Pizza

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I didn’t want to live in Omaha anymore.

I didn’t want to be cut off from the people who mattered most to me.

I didn’t want to just exist.

I didn’t want to play it small ever again.

I caught a whiff of Mom’s floral perfume and nearly started to cry. But this time, the tears were happy. This bookstore may have started out as Mom’s dream, but it was integral in shaping me into the author I’d become. Whether or not I ever wrote another book, this place was special to me. Too special to let it go if I could dosomething to stop it. And for the first time, I realized I was not alone.

“You all understand that I don’t know what I’m doing here?”

“We’re here to help you figure it out,” Dylann said.

“All of us,” Lotti promised.

“And we’re ready to put our money where our mouths are,” Thelma said, pulling out a checkbook and waving it.

“What?”

“We want to invest, dear,” Lotti said, as though this entire conversation was premeditated. Hell, maybe it was.

I glanced at Beckett. He was wearing one of those sexy half smiles that turned me into an instant puddle of goo.

“You already know you’ll have a pretty great landlord. Just saying.” He shrugged, causing a fit of giggles to erupt from Lotti and Carlos.

“But my dad?—”

Dylann refilled her plastic margarita cup, pushed back her chair, and pointed to the door. “Looks like we’re taking a field trip to the hardware store.” She looked at me. “If you’re in, that is.”

Happy tears trickled down my cheeks.

“I’m in.”

THIRTY

HUSKER

I smell bacon.

Mom, hurry up.

There’s bacon downstairs.

Mom.

Mom.

Mom.

“Okay, okay! I’m up.”

Yay!

Move faster.

You’re going too slow.

I want bacon.

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