“You were right,” I said, bumping my shoulder against hers as we set off. “Thank you.”
She smiled at me. “Happy to light a fire under my favorite author. You’re going to fly through those words once you get back.”
A car drove by blaring an ancient dance song.
“Ofcourse,” I exclaimed as I listened to the words. “She’s wearing a thong!”
Meredith frowned at me. “Huh?”
“Abby, the heroine in my book, is wearing a thong, not underwear or panties. How did I forget about thongs?” I muttered to myself.
“See? Inspo is all around you,” Meredith said triumphantly.
“You’re right. I’m so mad at myself for staying cooped up. Sometimes all it takes is a single word to trigger—”
“Watch out,” a voice shouted from behind us. “Don’t walk there!”
Meredith squealed and jumped to the side right as I planted my sneaker in a fresh pile of dog poop.
So much for celebrating the moment.
Someone ran up to us while I hunched over and tried to figure out what bit of street trash I could use to clean the mess that stretched from toe to heel.
“I amsosorry. I was about to pick it up, but Brutus got scared by the loud car and darted,” the deep voice was saying. “I have paper towels—hold on.”
I finally glanced up from my ruined shoe to find a Rottweiler, yellow Lab, and Yorkie being held back by a guy wearing a T-shirt that said “Call Me the Houndmaster” across the chest.
He smiled at me as he shifted the three leashes from one hand to the other and slid off his backpack. “Don’t worry. I have a spray bottle with water too,” he said as he dropped to his knee and dug through the bag. “I’ll get you all cleaned up.”
He had the cheerful air of someone who was lucky enough to make a living hanging out with dogs all day and tanned tree-trunk legs that showed off how hard he worked. He was decent looking in that “leading man’s best friend” way. I’m sure moms adored him.
I glanced at Meredith and she gave me an encouraging look.He wasn’t the type I’d normally go for, but there was something very meet-cute about the Prince Charming glass slipper vibes of the scenario.
Minus the poop, of course.
“By the way, these are my clients Brutus, Star, and Bella. Brutus is very sorry for what happened to your shoe.” He smiled up at me and nodded toward the remarkably well-mannered dogs. “And I’m Adam, Houndmaster and shoe fixer. Please hand it over.”
Yup, he was flirting with me. I kicked off my sneaker and hoped that he didn’t have a foot fetish.
Meredith spoke up before I could. “This is Brooke, and I don’t matter because I have to go meet my boyfriend.Bye!”
She jogged backward and, once she was fully behind him, mouthed, “Say yes,” to me.
I considered it while Adam the Houndmaster got to work on my sneaker. Cute, good with animals, Boy Scout level of preparedness... Sure, why not?
I was desperate for inspiration ofanysort, so saying yes was about to become a way of life.
Chapter Two
So far, my “say yes” campaign was turning up mixed results.
The Houndmaster had indeed asked to hang out after our meet-poop, and right as I was starting to think that we were clicking over coffee, he’d mentioned his yearlong, on-again, off-again “situationship.” He’d actually looked surprised when I excused myself, before I was even halfway through my latte.
But there were highlights to saying yes as well, like a front row seat at an experimental theater performance with a group of writer friends (the show was terrible, but we laughed our butts off) and going to a top secret purse sample sale with a woman who literally “psst”-ed me as I was walking by and told me that I could be her plus-one to get in. I’d walked out with a coin purse in the shape of cherries, a little treat that I couldn’t afford.
The inspiration itself so far wasn’t great, but I’d been managing about two hundred not-so-solid words per day since I’d started saying yes to random stuff. My muse hadn’t returned, but at least I’d havesomethingto show once my due date rolled around, even if it was bound to get savaged.
In this moment, I was second-guessing my willingness to be open to new experiences. I headed to Meredith’s room feelinglike a fraud in borrowed workout gear after having said yes to what now felt like the worst idea ever.
