Page 13 of Knot the Plan
“Josie Porter.” He's out of his booth before the bell over the door finishes ringing, which for Pete is a dead sprint. “You were on the phone yesterday.”
“I'm often on the phone, Pete.”
“You were on the phone walking past this window yesterday afternoon, and then you went into the fire station.” He pushes his reading glasses up his nose like he's presenting evidence. “And you came out eleven minutes later walking fast.”
“I had business at the station.”
“What business does a preschool have at a fire station?”
“Fire safety, Pete. The leading kind of safety.”
Dottie materializes between us with my cup already poured, oat milk, too much cinnamon, because the woman has a sixth sense and a sense of timing that should be studied. “Pete, your eggs are getting cold.”
“My eggs are fine.”
“Your eggs are getting lonely, then.” She hands me the coffee and steers me toward the door with one hand and a look I can't read, which worries me more than Pete's whole investigation, because Pete guesses loud and wrong and Dottie guesses quiet and right. “Tell Lily her order's ready at eight. And Josie.” A beat. The coffee pot gestures, vaguely, at all of me. “Whatever it is you're up to this week, honey, eat something first.”
I escape with my coffee and most of my secrets and walk the two blocks to Hollow Creek Outfitters in the morning sun, rehearsing the pitch a second time. The pitch went sideways with Finn inside of a minute. But Finn is a locked door. Hudson is a different animal entirely.
Hollow Creek Outfitters smells like juniper and rope and the kind of competence I do not personally possess outdoors. It opens at seven, for the fishermen, and at seven forty on a Wednesday it contains one wall of carabiners, Hudson Grant up a ladder hanging a kayak from the ceiling like it weighs nothing, and Beckett Fletcher at the counter signing for what looks like a quarter mile of new rope.
“Morning, Josie,” Beckett says, in that low flat way of his, already coiling the rope over one big shoulder. I know him the way you know everyone here after five years, by face and by reputation, his being mountain rescue, the man they send when somebody's done something stupid above the tree line. We've maybe exchanged forty words, total, and thirty of them were the time he fished my keys out of a storm drain and made it sound like a personal failing.
“Beckett. Restocking?”
“Always. People keep getting lost.” He says it like the people are doing it on purpose, to spite him. He nods at Hudson, drops some bills on the counter, and heads for the door. “Tell Scarlett I'll settle the tab tonight, I'm headed to the Tipsy Berry after my shift,” he says, to Hudson, and then he's gone, and the bell jangles behind him.
I have forty minutes before twelve children expect me on the alphabet rug, which means this pitch has a hard out.
“Josie Porter,” Hudson says, still without turning around, because apparently no alpha in this town will ever let me announce myself. “You smell like good news.”
“I smell like what?”
“Cinnamon roll that wants a favor.”
He racks the kayak, drops off the ladder without using the last three rungs, and lands in front of me with the crooked grin already loaded. Sandy hair shoved back. Flannel sleeves rolled. The whole catalog page of him.
“Last time you came in here in person, you needed forty kid-sized life vests by that afternoon. I'm on the edge of my seat.”
So I tell him.
I've gotten better at the speech since yesterday. I keep my voice level and my hands still and I lay it out like a project plan. The lie. The reunion. The month, the three alphas, the acting requirement, the rehearsal schedule, the absolute secrecy. By the end, I'm almost proud of how sane it sounds.
Hudson doesn't say anything for a second.
Then he reaches over, very slowly, and rings the little brass bell on the counter. The one that says RING FOR SERVICE.
“Best day of my life,” he says.
“Hudson.”
“Yes.”
“You haven't even?—”
“Yes. Obviously yes. What's my name?”
“Your name is Hudson, that's not?—”
