Page 39 of Serving Bunt

“I don’t have to take this,” I grumbled, fighting the urge to smile.

His shoulder shook. “You do if you want to take advantage of my air conditioning. All I’m saying is they’re a bit . . .”

“Luxurious? Sexy? Dickmatizing?”

“Impractical.”

I gasped audibly, feigning horror.

Then, as if on cue, Mo farted in her sleep.

Not a cute little pfft, either. No, this thing went on, echoing through the room. Like somebody had stepped on a haunted accordion.

In a cave.

Matty slowly turned his head toward the tiny dog loafed between us. Mo didn’t even twitch. Just kept snoring away, completely unbothered by the biological warfare she’d unleashed.

And then, the smell hit.

“Diablo!”

My entire body recoiled.

Matty made a strangled noise beside me. “Lord have mercy.”

“Is she dying?”

“Bite your tongue,” he whisper-shouted. “She had eggs earlier—”

“WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU FEED HER EGGS?”

At that point, Matty completely lost it.

The laugh burst out of him so suddenly, he folded in half, burying his face in the pillow while the mattress shook beneath us. I lasted maybe three more seconds before I cracked too.

And then we were both gone.

Absolutely losing our shit in the middle of the night over the farting wiener dog sandwiched between us.

Every time we started to get it together, one of us would look at Mo, still fast asleep, and launch into another laughing fit.

By the time it finally died down, my stomach hurt. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed that hard. Or fallen asleep with a shit-eating grin on my face.

I had a feeling Matty was smiling too.

Matty

If possible, the barn looked even more magical than yesterday. Sunlight streamed through the high windows, catching on the twinkling fairy lights strung across the rafters and turning the massive wreaths on the walls into living things.

Outside the open barn doors, the Wallowa Mountains rose sharp and snow-dusted—even in the dead of summer—against a brilliant blue sky, the valley below a patchwork of green meadows and golden fields. It was the kind of view that belonged on a postcard, the perfect backdrop for a holiday baking show.

Too bad we were on the ho-ho-highway to hell.

We were in the same outfits as yesterday, though apparently, that had less to do with psychological warfare and everything to do with filming continuity. Whichever poor production assistant had laundered and pressed my sweat-soaked button-down deserved a massive bonus.

Hollywood magic, ladies and gentlemen.

As it turned out, the “magic” in question was just industrial-strength detergent that sort of smelled like . . . lilac?