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“A bunny.”
Seb’s jaw dropped open slightly and she could see that her response shocked him.
“Not like for Playboy or anything. It’s just, that’s what my nana has always called me since I was a little girl. I always wore my hair in pigtails, but I called them bunny ears because I thought they looked more like that than a pig’s tail.”
“Oh.” Seb blinked twice before stepping back away from the door. “That’s…sweet.”
Kennedy felt odd about his response. She’d said something that clearly affected him, but she wasn’t sure what it could be. She wanted to ask, but she’d been grilling him the past three hours and figured she should probably let this one go. So instead of pushing further, she lifted her arm and gave him a little wave before pulling out onto the main road.
When she looked in the rearview mirror, she saw that he was still standing on the curb watching her drive away. It felt like a very cinematic, romcom type of a scene where the main character realizes that he’s in love.
But this isn’t a movie. This is real life, she reminded herself even as she checked again to see if he was still there. He was.
9
Seb slowed downto jog and then to a walk as his three-mile run around the lake came to an end. Part of his recovery was building his stamina back up. His PT that morning had been particularly grueling. So grueling, in fact, he’d almost skipped his run. But that was the only thing that had kept him sane these past few months.
He’d always loved running. He hadn’t excelled at football, or basketball, or baseball, or martial arts like his brothers and cousin, but he’d always been a fast runner. His doctors had recommended he run to strengthen his lungs. His mom had been worried about him at first, but then it had actually helped his breathing.
In middle and high school, he would have been on the track team if he’d made the grades. Besides making his lungs stronger, it had also helped with his anxiety. As a kid, when he was frustrated because he felt dumb, or upset because Knox and Keaton who were only two years older than him, were leaving him out, or he was mad that his dad died, he would run. It had always been an escape for him, and it had helped him get through the past few months.
The view in Whisper Lake wasn’t bad either. The shimmering blue-green waters of the lake reminded him of Kennedy’s eyes. Although, he’d argue that Kennedy’s shade was even more clear and prettier than the lake. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw them. Those eyes. And he heard her say, “A bunny.”
She had a tattoo of a fucking bunny. Seb still couldn’t quite believe that. What were the chances?
Ezra had always been a little woo-woo in his beliefs. Seb respected him as a mentor and just sort of took the rest of his spirituality with a grain of salt. But he honestly could not explain why those had been the last words Ezra had said to him, why he’d forgotten about it for years and only remembered after he met her, and why her only tattoo was a bunny.
Maybe he was making too much of it. Maybe those were just all coincidences. Or maybe he was actually losing his mind a little.
“Hello, there Mr. Savage.”
Seb looked up and saw one of the women that struck abject terror in the majority of the male population in town, or at least those who were in their thirties, Mrs. Doris Weathersby. She and her two cohorts Mrs. Dobrinski and Mrs. Chen liked to play cupid and from what he’d heard, once they aimed their arrows in your direction, they were relentless.
He’d met all three of the women officially at Ford’s wedding, although he remembered seeing them around town when his grandpa used to bring him to Whisper Lake for fishing trips. Mrs. Dobrinski had always reminded him of Mrs. Santa Claus. Mrs. Chen stood out because she walked with a cane, was rail thin, and always wore large sweaters that looked like they would swallow her up. And Mrs. Weathersby always had baked goods with her, so she’d reminded him of Betty Crocker.
Even as a kid, they’d made an impression on him. Not so much for what they had done, at the time he was none the wiser about their matchmaking shenanigans. No, what he remembered, what had stuck with him, was how he’d seen people around them behave whenever they showed up.
One time, when he was probably ten, he was at the diner with his grandpa having lunch. The place had been pretty full and there was a long wait. He’d never forget the way the atmosphere shifted when the three women walked in. It was almost as if celebrities had arrived. The trio were seated right away, skipping the one-hour wait time. He remembered thinking at the time that the way people acted around them was like they were Tony Soprano, which was probably a show he shouldn’t have been watching when he was ten. But years later when Keaton moved to town and Seb found out their knitting club was called, The Needlepoint Mafia he thought it was perfectly named since the threesome were treated with the respect and fear that the traditional mafia inspired.
Ford, Keaton, and Knox had all warned Seb that he was fresh meat and there was a better than even chance their bows would be aimed at him as their next target. Well, they referred to him as their next victim.
Little did the mob boss matchmakers know, they could shoot all the arrows they wanted, he was not in any sort of headspace to be set up. His life was in a state of limbo. He wasn’t in the headspace to bring anyone into his life. If he was, he knew exactly who it would be and as tempting as she was, he wasn’t right for her.
Last night, after Kennedy had dropped him off, he hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d tossed and turned replaying the conversation he’d overheard her having with the producer from the reality show. Unlike her, he didn’t have anything close to a photographic memory, so he didn’t remember all of her requirements, but he did know a few that he didn’t have.
Two that stuck out in his mind were the fact that he wasn’t gainfully employed, and he didn’t have a college degree. Hell, he didn’t even have his high school diploma.
“Hello, Mrs. Weathersby. How are you doing today?”
“I just came to drop these off for Whisper Lake’s newest resident.” Mrs. Weathersby handed him a pan. “They are my double fudge BTS brownies.”
“BTS?” Seb repeated wondering if that was some sort of dietary thing he hadn’t ever heard of, like a gluten replacement or something.
“Better than sex,” she explained as she winked at him.
“Oh, right.” Seb grinned. “Well, thank you.”
“I heard that you are in rehab up at Well Brook.”
