Chelsea Fine: Best Kind of Broken

Welcome to Hotel Horny Women, home of scruffy cheese and sensual produce.

From the corner of my eye, I catch his Adam’s apple bobbing with a nervous swallow, which can mean only one thing. The boob brush was an accident.

Well, crap.

If he had been trying to cop a feel with his Hulk-ish forearm, I could have responded with some kind of snarky “you’re a pervert” comment. But it wasn’t on purpose and somehow that makes it sexier, and now the cracked-out bumblebee is buzzing in my nether regions and my hands are starting to tingle and why the HELL is this stove so hot?

I turn the burner down another notch and take a slow, deep breath. I have a boyfriend. A great boyfriend. So this sexual frustration I feel around Levi is nothing to get my bee-loving panties in a bunch about. I just need to calm down.

Levi lowers his arm for a moment, his eyes still on the alarm, and stretches his neck.

Ah, the neck stretch. The universal sign of stress. Well, at least I’m not alone in my frustration. My hot, distracting, pants-are-so-inconvenient frustration.

Wait, what?

Who said anything about pants? I am NOT thinking about pants—or lack thereof. Damn you, bell peppers!

I toss the wooden spoon to the side and move back to the counter, where the threat of being turned on by a handyman or, you know, a sautéed vegetable is much less severe.

I stare at the scruffy quiche and bite back a groan. What was I thinking, living under the same roof as Levi? There’s no way I’ll survive the summer.

Hell, I can barely survive breakfast.

Sexual tension is like a ruthless pigeon. Feed it once and it will follow you around forever. It never tires or goes on vacation. It just lingers. And it’s lingering all over me every time I’m around Pixie.

Like right now, in the kitchen.

I carefully keep my eyes fixed anywhere but on Pixie’s blonde hair or the yellow bow of her apron at the base of her back as I finish my task. But I can still hear her. The shuffling of her stained sneakers as she scoots around the counter, the soft inhale-exhale of her concentrated breathing as it flows between her lips…

Yeah. I have to get out of here.

I quickly finish with the fire alarm and spend the next hour checking the remaining ones around the inn before heading for Ellen’s office.

Along with the lobby, kitchen, and dining room, the downstairs has two small converted bedrooms. One is the library, where guests play chess beside tall windows and pretend to enjoy books by Ernest Hemingway, and the other is Ellen’s bright yet incredibly cluttered office.

The wooden planks just outside her open office creak as I step into her doorway, and she looks up from a pile of papers, sticky notes, and pens.

“What’s up?” She smiles.

“The fire alarms look to be in working order, but they’re pretty ancient,” I say, not stepping fully into the room for fear of being swept into one of her famous conversation traps. “You might want to think about installing a whole new system.”

She nods and chews on the end of a red pen. “Yeah, I figured as much. I’ll add it to my ever-growing list of New Crap the Inn Desperately Needs. Thanks for checking everything.”

“No problem.” I turn to leave.

“Your mail’s still at the front desk,” she says to my back, halting my exit. “It’s been collecting dust for almost three weeks now.”

I slowly turn back around. “Is that right?”

Her eyes narrow. “Don’t make me open it up and read it out loud to the waitstaff. ’Cause I will, and then you’ll have to face the music.”

I scratch my cheek, which feels oddly bare since shaving. “I’ve never understood that phrase. There’s nothing scary about music.”

“Says the guy who’s afraid of his mail.”

I cock my head. “Must you bust my balls at every given opportunity?”

“Someone needs to.” She smiles, but it’s half-sad. “Just pick it up so I don’t have to listen to Angelo complain about how untidy the desk is, okay?”

Angelo’s incessant need for things to be clean and organized spills over to all areas of the inn, not just his bar. And it is his bar, as he likes to remind everyone.

“I’ll be sure to pick it up today,” I say, wiggling a hinge on the door I’ve just realized is loose. “Anything else?”

“Just the lobby chandelier.” She grins.

I sigh. Chandeliers are a pain in the ass. They’re heavy and cumbersome and contain more wires than any lighting fixture should. I honestly have no idea why people still use them. And by people, I mean Ellen.

Her grin widens.

“You don’t have to look so amused,” I say.

“Oh, but I do,” she says. “I find the look on your face right now very amusing.”

Ellen knows of my severe distaste for her choice in lighting fixtures. She doesn’t care. It’s pretty and it adds charm, she says. There’s nothing charming about a five-hundred-pound hanging lantern.

“Whatever,” I say, moving down the hall. “I’ll fix your precious chandelier.”

“I love you!” she calls after me.

I shake my head but can’t help smiling.

After turning off the main electricity, I retrieve the inn’s only ladder from the maintenance closet and set it up in the lobby beneath the chandelier. It wobbles as I climb to the top, and I make a mental note to add “ladder” to Ellen’s New Crap list. This one is probably older than the alarm system.

I carefully begin unhooking a few chandelier wires under the close and obnoxious scrutiny of one of the inn regulars, Earl Whethers.

I’m not sure what it is that draws retired men to my side while I’m fixing things—maybe they find handiwork fascinating, or maybe they’re horribly bored—but I sometimes feel like the Willow Inn sideshow.

Take Earl for instance. He’s pulled up a chair in the lobby and is now watching my every movement with expectant eyes.

And for my next act, I shall fall from this prehistoric climbing contraption and break both legs—with no hands, because they’ll be dangling from this hanging candelabrum after being torn from my body during my amazing fall!

I should set out a tip jar.

Earl scratches his white-whiskered chin. “You sure you know what you’re doing, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

The skin around his faded blue eyes crinkles as he squints up at me. “You look too young to be running the maintenance around here. How old are ya?” He crosses his arms over his short and stocky frame, once probably stacked with muscle, and leans back. His balding head shines a bit in the light streaming in from the lobby windows.

“Almost twenty-one,” I say, shifting the chandelier to my left arm and clenching my jaw under its weight. I find the problem wire and slowly untangle it from the others.

“Did you disconnect the electricity before climbing up there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you check for frayed ends before you started pulling at those wires like a chimpanzee?”

A chimpanzee?

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you—”

“Leave the poor boy alone, Earl.” Vivian, Earl’s wife and one of the inn’s more outspoken guests, enters the lobby with her short blue-black hair wrapped in pink curlers and her thin, pursed lips coated in pink lipstick. She’s tall and slender and manages to look poised even when she’s gripping a martini and slurring her words—which is often. “He doesn’t need you distracting him.”