“C’mon, Annette.”
“You c’mon, Oz. Coming here was my idea. You should be following in my wake.”
Bemused, Lila called after them, “Siblings?”
And, even funnier, Annette replied, “No!” even as Ox answered “Yes!”
Weirdos.
Lunch? But not a date. Who brings their sister to ask someone out?
So: ulterior motive lunch. But why? Nothing to do with Lila’s personality, which sparkled like flat, warm Coke. Or Lila’s own smashing good looks (she knew she looked like a vaguely dangerous Orphan Annie). Or her riches (after the move, she had $496 in checking and $2,623 in savings). So…
Sally.
Chapter 12
The Hamm Building in downtown Saint Paul was positively stuffed with history, among other things, so it was the perfect place to store eyes, mail, and lunch (the latter went into the mini-fridge). Her suite was small, which suited her. The open area in front, a small private restroom on the left, a back room for storage. A desk and worktables, bookshelves and file cabinets, and room to take care of all the shipping, incoming as well as outgoing.
She turned and surveyed the boxes.
Man oh man, she loved unpacking, she really did.
In an hour, she had the parts sorted, installed two smoke detectors with fresh batteries, had made a dent in the mail-ins, confirmed her Wi-Fi hookup, and wasn’t sweating like a basted turkey, thanks to the building being made of terra-cotta and brick. Old brick, to be sure, and old terra-cotta, but who cared? The place was cool as a tomb and almost as quiet. Late morning on a weekday in downtown Saint Paul, and she couldn’t hear a thing from outside. Excellent.
She’d loved the building the moment she checked it out online and discovered its secret and was pleasantly surprised to find the lease wasn’t horrifying. She crunched numbers and, after a few weeks of research, decided to make the move. Buh-bye, Minot of the tundra; hello, balmy Saint Paul.
And it wasn’t like she’d had to move. She didn’t need a fresh start. She wasn’t running from a bad breakup (ha) or in hopes of meeting someone new (double ha). She wasn’t fleeing from an insurmountable problem or bad career choices. She’d broken no laws (none in the great state of North Dakota, at least). This wasn’t that trope; none of that applied. She just liked moving, liked putting down roots (however temporarily) and prowling a new city and figuring out where to eat and scoping the theaters and plotting the best shortcuts and checking out the homeless situation.
Is that what it is? Or do you just miss the excitement of the bad old days?
Irrelevant. The things to focus on were the oddities all over her new neighborhood as well as promoting her business so that when people thought of beloved-yet-destroyed childhood icons, they thought: Lila Kai!
(but in a good way)
And maybe Ox’s abs.
(uh…no)
And the thing she’d barely stopped herself from buying on the way to work. Which she had put down to sunstroke. Or hypothermia. Something.
Lila nearly swept the boxes off her work table in frustration. It would have been satisfyingly dramatic but also messy, so: pass. Why the hell couldn’t she get that guy out of her head? She’d never had a reaction like this to anyone. It made her tween crush on 1980s Al Gore seem like a passing fancy.
“Oh…wow.”
And here he was. (Oz. Not ’80s Al.) Her lunch appointment, because it definitely wasn’t a date, as he’d gone to some trouble to assure her.
“You’re early.”
Ox was still goggling around her office. “Uh…only by about twenty min—this was a brewery. Like, way back in the day.”
“Yep.”
“But what is it now?”
“Can’t you tell?” she replied, indicating the boxes, the sewing machine, the thread, the stuffing, the balls, the peanuts, the legs, the work table, the standing desk, the laptop. “It’s a hospital, complete with triage, operating, and recovery rooms.”
Now he was staring at her like she was made of pudding and his sweet tooth was yelling. “We’ve never had a normal conversation,” he said, and it was kind of cool how he made that sound like a desirable outcome. “Not once.”
“Give it time,” she suggested. “How’d you know which suite was mine? The restaurant’s downstairs, and I’ve been up here a couple hours already. You wouldn’t have seen me going back and forth.”
“Followed my nose,” he replied absently.
Har-har, stalker. Wait. Does that mean I need a shower? Dammit, brick and terra-cotta, you were supposed to keep me cool!
“Plus your name’s on the directory on the main level where the security guard is,” he added, sidling toward the desk where her mail was stacked while pretending he wasn’t.
No, it isn’t. Just the name of my company: Bear Down.
“I just need to catalogue this last box and then we can…” She hefted the large Priority Mail box. “Oboy. I recognize that return address.” She reached for her drywall knife and slit the package open, wrinkling her nose when she got a whiff of the contents. “Shit.”
“What? What?” Oz was looking around and flaring his nostrils. “Are you in trouble?”
“I’m not.” She withdrew body parts: legs, arm, torso. “Same family! We might have a serial killer on our hands.”
“Those are bear parts,” he said, staring down at her work table.
“Teddy bear parts,” she corrected, logging the package into her system. “But it’s all fine. The doctor is in.” She looked up at him. “At least his dad didn’t run the thing over with the lawn mower this time. That took forever to fix.”
“Oh, Christ. You scared the hell out of me.” Oz poked gingerly at one of the pieces. “This is what you do?”
“This is what I do.”
“Not gonna lie, I’m relieved.”
“Setting your mind at ease is what I live for.”
“This is so cool.”
She had to laugh. “You’re pretty
