Just One of Those Things Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  EPILOGUE

  SNEAK PEEK!

  THANK YOU!

  ALSO BY MINDY KLASKY

  ABOUT MINDY KLASKY

  ABOUT BOOK VIEW CAFÉ

  JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS

  Mindy Klasky

  Just One of Those Things

  Copyright © 2016 Mindy Klasky

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  Cover design by The Killion Group, Inc.

  Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624

  http://bookviewcafe.com

  ISBN 978-0-98545-588-5

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the author’s work. Discover other titles by Mindy Klasky at http://www.mindyklasky.com

  CHAPTER 1

  Over the hill.

  Holy crap, look who’s thirty!

  I’m not 30, I’m 29.95 plus tax.

  Thirty and aged to perfection.

  Emily Barton groaned at the signs slung across the front room of The Corner Bar. The nearby tables exploded with laughter as she called out, “Thanks, guys! Just the way a girl loves to be remembered.”

  Kevin Sinclair pulled a tulip glass from the rack over the bar and siphoned off a pull of apple cider. “I hear it’s your birthday,” he deadpanned, passing her the nectar of the gods. “On the house.”

  “Thanks.” She drank deep, because there had to be some benefit to a birthday that ended in a zero. “Looks like a full house for a Monday.”

  “I’m not complaining,” the bartender said. “But Rachel will be, if you don’t get your ass over to the front booth now. They’ve been nursing drinks for almost an hour.”

  Emily smiled her thanks at the warning and approached the Yoga Night crowd. “Ladies,” she said, toasting them with her cider.

  “You would be late to your own funeral!” came the quick retort from her so-called best friend, Rachel Lacey.

  “You’re just cranky because you can’t drink.” Emily nodded toward Rachel’s baby bump as she slid onto a chair at the end of the table. “Anyway, what would my mother have said if I’d walked out on my own birthday dinner?”

  “If you’d walked out on your mother’s hummingbird cake, more like it,” Rachel grumbled.

  Emily grinned. She’d always been a sucker for the traditional southern cake, kept moist by pineapple and bananas in the batter, smothered in brown sugar icing. These days, her mother rarely baked traditional classics, and Emily wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to indulge in childhood favorites.

  Emily studied the debris on the table. Loaded Tater Tots. Bacon-Wrapped Dates. Kevin’s secret-formula Spiced Mixed Nuts. “It looks like you ladies didn’t suffer in my absence.”

  Tammy Yeager, the usual host of Yoga Night, raised her beer mug in salute. “Namaste,” she said.

  Emily touched her glass to Tammy’s. The first rule of Yoga Night was: There was no yoga at Yoga Night. Instead, Harmony Springs’ most eligible bachelorettes (and a few married alumnae) got together in Tammy’s Main Street shop every Monday night at eight. The combination beauty salon and yoga studio was most definitely not open for business as they drank cheap white wine and snacked on whatever random treats people happened to bring. Week after week, they gossiped about men, work, men, family, men, clothes, men, men, and men. Emily was honored that the usual gathering had moved from Namastyle to The Corner Bar in recognition of her arrival on the door step of old age.

  Rachel bounced up and down on the booth’s upholstered bench. “We’ve been waiting forever!”

  “Seriously. This time it isn’t my fault,” Emily said.

  “Yeah, yeah.” That was the problem with best friends. They knew all your faults.

  “Really!” Emily fortified herself with another sip of cider. “I purposely drove to Mom’s instead of walking just so I’d get back here on time. And I left her place at five to eight.” Give or take ten minutes. Okay, take. But that was “on time” for Emily. “When I got back to the shop, though, someone was in my space. I had to park two whole blocks away.”

  “Wait a second,” Rachel said. “Let me get this down for Wednesday’s front page of The Herald.” She mimed typing. “Emily…Barton…is…late…as…usual.”

  “Smartass,” Emily said. Rachel always threatened to use her editorial powers for evil and not for good.

  “Who took your spot?” asked Megan Sartain. The lawyer’s tone was so serious that Emily thought she might run over to the courthouse and file suit against the perpetrator then and there.

  Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a black pick-up truck, big enough to tow a house. Looks brand new.” In retrospect, she was lucky to have driven to her mother’s house. Otherwise, that monster truck might have pulled into her spot and crushed her Ford Fiesta into a rusty pile of dust.

  “Probably leaf-peepers, slumming for the night.” Lexi Taylor said. Dressed in a long-sleeve blouse and a floor-length skirt, she’d obviously come straight from her year-round Christmas boutique. She tossed her mane of tawny curls over her shoulders, nodding toward the back of the restaurant. A bunch of guys filled the last booth, their group overflowing into half a dozen chairs. Their voices were loud enough to spike the energy in the rest of the room.

  Emily rolled her eyes. Cidiots. She thought the epithet but didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she said, “Tourists. Love ’em or get ready for bankruptcy court.”

  “Love them and get ready for bankruptcy court,” Lexi said, making some attempt to drown her bitter tone in rum and Coke.

  “Ouch,” Emily said. “Another bad week at The Christmas Cat?”

  Lexi shrugged. “Maybe things will pick up now that it’s fall. It’s Chris I’m really worried about. I think he’s going to pull the plug on the bookstore.”

  Emily clicked her tongue in sympathy. Summer had been a lean season for too many Main Street merchants, courtesy of unusually rainy weekends and daily high temperatures that had shattered records. Lexi’s brother’s store, three blocks off Main Street, had fared even more poorly than the average. Chris had been hanging on by his fingernails for over a year.

  Lexi shrugged. “He says he’ll stick it out. But you know he’s always toyed with becoming a chef.”

  “Maybe what Harmony Springs needs is a bookstore café.”

  “What Harmony Springs needs is a reason for people to shop downtown.” Lexi turned to Rachel. “Is there any more news about that American Discount store? It looks like they finished construction last week.”

  Rachel shrugged. “No one’s called The Herald to
take out any ads. My guess is the Grand Opening is at least a few weeks off.”

  “Just what we need,” Emily said. “Another outsider siphoning off Main Street business. It was bad enough when that Residence Suites opened, out on the highway.”

  “Residence Suites hurt the General Washington Inn and a few B&Bs,” said Tammy, with an aggressive tone that was distinctly at odds with her usual yoga-studio calm. “American Discount will hurt all of us. Goodbye sales of makeup and shampoo.”

  “At least they can’t teach yoga classes,” Emily said loyally. Inside, though, she winced. American Discount was certain to carry crafting supplies, including the yarn and needles that were the core of her sales at Harmony Skeins.

  And just like that, a familiar itch started at the back of her mind. It was just a hint, a bare suggestion of a possibility of an inkling of an idea. But once the thought formed, she had difficulty pushing it away: It was time to move on. Time to leave Harmony Skeins and find her next job.

  She didn’t need to look at a calendar to know she’d been working at the knitting boutique for a little over a year and a half. The familiar tug of wanderlust wrapped around her heart and she made a birthday promise to herself. She’d give notice to Theresa by no later than the first of January. That gave Emily three months to find a new job, and the owner of Harmony Skeins would have the slow winter period to train a new salesclerk.

  The urge to roam faded to a dull tickle.

  “Stop it!” Rachel cried, as if she knew what Emily was thinking. “This is supposed to be a birthday party, not a funeral!” As if to prove her point, she dug into a brightly colored gift bag by her side. “Come on, Birthday Girl. You need to put on your tiara.” She produced a sparkling mass of plastic.

  Emily snorted. “I am not wearing a tiara.”

  “Then you won’t get any presents,” Rachel wheedled.

  Laughing, Emily shoved the gaudy crown onto her head. “There,” she said. “Satisfied?”

  “Very.” Rachel produced a beautifully wrapped box from her bag. Silver ribbon shimmered above delicate gold paper. “We went in on these together, all of us at Yoga Night. You’d better appreciate our thoughtfulness.”

  Emily looked around the table, spying the barely suppressed grins among her sisters in arms. “I can’t wait,” she said, ostentatiously crossing her fingers to cover the lie. Then, she took the present and opened it meticulously, treating it like the treasure it might have been if she’d had different friends.

  Beneath the golden paper was a pristine pasteboard box. Pulling off the lid, Emily discovered a blanket of soft cotton. Under the cotton was an indeterminate shape, swaddled in white tissue paper.

  And inside the tissue paper was a paint brush. A three-inch, long-bristled paint brush.

  “I don’t get it,” Emily said.

  “It’s a heavy duty makeup brush!” Tammy exclaimed.

  Emily groaned and threatened to beat the hairdresser about the head and neck with the gift. But Rachel only shoved another package in front of her. That one held a dozen clothes pins—“Snore stoppers!” announced Heather March. As town librarian, she supposedly had a special claim on enforcing silence. There was a package of Ben-Gay as well, and a battery-operated plastic fan—for hot flashes, Rachel clarified. Heavy-duty sandpaper was included to remove age spots, and a truly disgusting bag of tooth-shaped gummy candies were “dentures.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Emily said, laughing. “You shouldn’t have.” She gulped the last of her cider. “You really, really shouldn’t have.”

  Rachel reached into her bag again. This time, she pulled out a heavy glass bottle, festooned with a dozen different shades of curling ribbon. “Maybe a little bubbly will help you to forgive us.”

  Emily eyed the champagne approvingly. “Okay. Maybe I don’t have to get a whole new set of friends.”

  “Especially when you open this!” Rachel rescued one more package from the bag. This one was discreet, wrapped in plain red paper, no ribbon, no bow.

  Emily eyed it warily. “I can’t imagine anything else I could possibly want.”

  “Oh, you’ll want these,” Rachel said.

  Emily could have stood her ground, refusing to be the butt of any more over-the-hill jokes. But she knew Rachel well enough to be certain her best friend would never relent. Emily might as well take her medicine and be done with it. Tugging the cuffs of her Madelinetosh sweater over her fingertips, she braced herself to play along.

  Picking up the box, she shook it beside her ear. Whatever was inside shifted back and forth, sounding a bit like a deck of cards. But the box was larger than playing cards. Heavier, too.

  Emily slipped a fingernail under the tape on the gift-wrap. Every woman at the table leaned closer. This was going to be great.

  Not.

  Emily made short work of stripping off the paper and opening the box. And she felt her cheeks grow red as she stared at the contents: a black box with lurid neon purple lettering: “Pleasure Parade Mini Vibrator,” it said. “Waterproof.” A plastic window in the packaging showed a disturbingly fluorescent toy. And it wasn’t very mini. Nestled next to it was a package of condoms—ultra thin, lubricated, and ridged for her pleasure.

  The table exploded with laughter as Emily slammed the lid down on her gift. Rachel smiled her most angelic smile and said, “Play by yourself, or with others.”

  “Thanks, ladies.” Emily frowned as she looked at each of them. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”

  Tammy had a look of tantric ecstasy on her face as she passed a serene hand over the box. “We women hold such power in our second chakras.”

  “I’m sure we do,” Emily said. But it was impossible to keep hold of her scowl as her friends hooted.

  Rachel said, “Here’s the deal, Em. You’re thirty now. And you haven’t been on a third date since high school.”

  “Hey!” Emily said. “That’s not true.”

  Her best friend cocked an eyebrow—the same expression the newspaper editor used when Mrs. Delancey called the paper to report yet another UFO hovering over her cornfield.

  Emily grudgingly clarified. “I went on two dates with Mick Callahan, just last year. Then one more, six months later.”

  “That was a booty call,” Rachel clarified, as if she were teaching a toddler a new word.

  Emily couldn’t argue. She’d had fun with Mick. But her two-date rule was a virtue, not a vice. Two dates, max, and it was time to move on. Just like she never spent more than two years in an apartment. Two years in a job. That way, she never got too attached. Never built up unreasonable expectations. Never had her dreams come crashing down around her, when someone, some guy proved he couldn’t be trusted.

  “That’s fine,” Megan said, but the lawyer’s tone made it clear Emily was committing some third-degree felony. Of course Megan would think that. She was the married mother of a nine-year-old kid. Emily felt like a child herself as Megan waved her hand over the gag gifts. “But our little girl is all grown up now. It’s time to stop playing the field. Time to settle down.”

  “Hello,” Emily said, allowing a little exasperation to color her tone. “Queen Victoria called. She wants her chastity belt back.”

  Tammy took over the assault. “We’re just saying you need to expand your awareness,” the yoga teacher said with perfect bliss. “Allow your inner self to experience freedom from prior restraints. You need to give yourself a chance, Em. And that means meeting new men.”

  “In Harmony Springs?” Emily laughed. But the rest of the table wasn’t laughing.

  “First unmarried guy who walks up to the bar tonight,” Rachel said, and Emily realized her best friend had been thinking about this for a while. “You’re asking him out. And you’ll go on three dates, no matter what.”

  “Even if he’s an axe murderer?”

  Rachel shook her head. “No trying to weasel out of this. Three dates. And a new guy every month, until you find someone who sticks.”

  “You’re
insane!”

  Rachel shook her head. “We’re just worried about you. And don’t give me that look. If you haven’t found anyone by the end of a year, then I’ll never say another word again. None of us will. That’ll be our thirty-first birthday present to you.”

  Emily looked at the Yoga Night crowd. Tammy sat upright on the edge of her bench, her spine gracefully erect. Lexi’s wild grin stood out in stark contrast to her high-necked Victorian garb. Heather leaned close to her girlfriend, Olivia Park. Megan stared at Emily with slightly narrowed eyes, as if the lawyer were appraising Emily’s willingness to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  Each of them looked expectant. Each of them was certain she’d agree. Each of them yearned to live vicariously, even if they didn’t have the collective nerve to ask out even one guy.

  But it was Rachel who knew best the way Emily’s mind worked. Rachel understood exactly how to force the issue. “Truth or dare?” her best friend asked.

  And just like that, the Purr started in the back of Emily’s mind. Low and insistent, the hum of competition jangled her nerves, pushing through a dose of adrenaline that reminded Emily she never backed down. She never passed up a chance to win. And she’d never chosen Truth in her life. “Dare,” she said, with grim determination.

  “I dare you then,” Rachel said. “First unmarried guy at the bar.”

  Emily sighed. She’d do anything once. Twice.

  Just not three times.

  “You’re on,” she said, and the Purr roared in approval. To prove she meant her vow, Emily slipped out of her chair and headed toward the bar. She might as well have a fresh glass of cider when the man of Yoga Night’s dreams made his appearance.

  ~~~

  So, it turned out, you can go back home again.

  Because Matt Dawson was home. And so far, everything was going according to plan—every single step he’d mapped out over the past eighteen months.

  Yeah, the TV was on in The Corner Bar. But this year, it didn’t hurt to watch the Rockets’ post-season play. Not the way it had last fall, when every pitch thrown by another guy had reached down Matt’s throat and ripped out his balls.