Page 37 of Story of My Life
“Whatever it was, it was telling me to leave before it ate my face,” Zoey insisted.
I leaned my head against the back of the settee. This room was something special.
Built-in shelves took up two entire walls, framing in the curved-glass bay window that overlooked the junglelike side yard. A pair of skinny antique glass doors opened into the hallway. The light fixture that hung from the center of the ceiling medallion was stained glass with more hearts.
I knew the second I stepped over the threshold that this was my space. My office. I could actually see myself writing away, a gorgeous desk in the alcove. My own books on the shelves. A fire in the fireplace. A pudgy cat snoozing in the window. A team of grumpy, gorgeous contractors kicking up sawdust and slinging tool belts…
How would I…I mean, how would my heroine get any work done with Book Cam and his presumably gorgeous blue-collar brothers working just one wall away?
“You don’t have to do this with me, you know,” I said.
“Now you tell me after you show up at my apartment and kidnap me,” she joked.
“I was sleep deprived and excited.”
Zoey tilted her head to look at me from her slouch. “Look, I’m your friend and your agent. If this is what you need, I’m in.”
“I appreciate that. But you can be here for me without being physically here in a town with two restaurants and a room with a face-eating wild animal.”
She shook her head, making her curls bounce. “I’m not leaving your side…for at least a week or two. Without me here, you’ll end up getting pecked to death by a bald eagle or hibernating in your own filth again.”
“Did I really get five hundred comments on that live?”
She turned her phone screen my way. “Six hundred and seven.”
“Wow. That’s good, right?” When it came to social media, my presence had been mostly invisible.
“You’re ‘blowing up,’ as the kids say. I think the whole hitting rock bottom and then running away from it all is striking a chord.”
“Really? I thought I might be the only person out there with fantasies of a fresh start.”
“From the comments, I’d guess that it’s one of those universal themes. Hell, even I’ve dreamed of walking out on everything that annoyed me and starting over. Usually around my period or performance reviews at work.”
We sat in silence for a moment, appreciating the softening light outside and the slightly cooler evening breeze from the open windows.
“I’m proud of you,” Zoey said suddenly.
“What? Why?”
“You’ve lost a lot the past year or so, but here you are making the best of it. I really admire you for it.”
“Are we sure this is just a hangover? You’re starting to worry me.”
Zoey dropped her head to my shoulder. “I have to be mean enough for the both of us. Someone’s gotta protect you.”
“Maybe it’s time I start protecting myself,” I said.
My best friend sighed. “We can protect each other. Starting with you unearthing some ibuprofen and electrolytes.”
Before I could get up, a loud, meaty pounding from the front of the house startled us both.
Zoey snatched up the fourth, broken piano bench leg and hefted it like a baseball bat. “Who the hell is that?”
“How should I know? Maybe Cam came back to yell at me some more?” I speculated and picked up my purse. It was heavy enough I could at least swing it in a bad guy’s face if necessary.
“Maybe it’s a mob here for justice for that gaslighting Goose,” she guessed as we tiptoed into the hallway.
The pounding started again, making us jump. Unanticipated angry knocking usually meant one of two things in the city: one, the cops, or two, you were about to get robbed.
