Page 151 of Story of My Life
I opened one eye and found Rump Roast, the roaming pig, staring judgmentally at me. He had coarse wiry hair over spotted skin. His cornucopia-shaped ears twitched above tiny piggy eyes.
“Don’t judge me, Snorty MacGee. Like you don’t ever roll around in the dirt?” I grumbled.
Rump Roast snorted and then left a schnozz-shaped mud print on my shin before stomping over two azaleas on his way to the driveway.
My phone pinged again. On a grumble, I rolled onto my side and dug it out of my pocket. I opened one eye and squinted at the screen. I had two texts. One from Cam and one from Fucker McFuckerson.
My stomach dropped.
“Be brave,” I muttered to myself. I stabbed the screen and opened the message.
Jim:I heard you were writing something new. Do you really think it’s a good idea to break away from Spring Gate?
It took a considerable amount of restraint not to hurl the phone into the newly liberated azaleas.
“You narcissistic ass clown!” I bellowed.
A shadow fell over me, and I braced for a fish to the face. But instead of a badly behaved bald eagle, it was Levi.
Wordlessly, he offered me a hand, and I took it. He hauled me to my feet with ease.
“Want to get a drink?” he asked.
I couldn’t thinkof an unsuspicious way to decline without saying, “I’m sleeping with your brother.” Plus, I was curious. Levi Bishop was a vault, and if he was offering a peek inside that vault, I was absolutely going to take it. For research.
Also, I was still seething with rage over the nonconsensual contact with the man who had the gall to pretend he hadn’tscrewed me over eight ways to Sunday. So alcohol sounded pretty damn good to me.
And that’s how I found my hastily showered self biking to Rusty’s Fish Hook thirty minutes later. I’d gone for “casual and breezy” in denim shorts and a blousy tank top. Of course, the six-minute ride in one thousand percent Pennsylvania humidity took casual and breezy and turned it into slovenly and drenched.
I locked my bike to a lamppost and took a second to sniff an armpit. “Well, that was a waste of a shower,” I grumbled.
Levi was waiting at the door, sunglasses on, arms crossed, looking more like a bouncer than my drinking companion when I took the ramp to the entrance. Judging from the manly soap scent wafting off him, he’d showered too. Did he think this was a date? Did an offer to go for drinks now constitute a date? Had I been off the dating market so long I no longer knew what was a date and what wasn’t?
What I had going with Cam was good. Really good. And I wasn’t interested in rocking that boat if it meant I’d have to return to self-administered orgasms.
“Hi,” I croaked.
He took off his sunglasses and looped them over his T-shirt. Those green eyes slid over me, and then he was wordlessly holding open the door for me. I swallowed audibly and stepped inside. The bar was decorated in what I’d call rustic lake life. The interior walls were done in stacked logs and stone. A gigantic canoe hung from the rafters, dividing the bar from the indoor dining room. The back wall of the place was all windows overlooking the deck and the lake beyond.
But the place, like the rest of Story Lake, was way emptier than it should have been on a sunny August afternoon.
“’Sup, Levi,” the middle-aged bartender with curly hair and a questionable mustache called.
“Hey, Rusty,” Levi responded and pointed in the direction of the deck.
“Grab a seat. Francie will find you.”
I followed Levi’s broad back through the door and out onto the covered deck. It had a similar setup to the bar in Dominion I’d visited with Laura. Shade and sun, an outdoor bar, and a killer water view. Though Story Lake wasn’t overflowing with Jet Skis and motorboats and the music was quieter. It felt more intimate, which was bad news for me.
Levi chose a table in the corner along the railing.
There were more people out here. They were all looking at us, including the wannabe journalist Garland, who was occupying a table with his laptop, cell phone, and voice recorder. I debated excusing myself to the restroom to text Cam and give him a heads-up that I might be on an accidental date with his brother.
“Something wrong?” Levi asked.
“Uh. No. Aren’t you worried people will see us here and think we’re on a date?” Cam had made it sound like being seen together would have earned us automatic entry into the ninth gate of hell.
“Nope.”
