Page 38 of Happy Trails & Honey Pots

Her lips curled, and she tilted her head to the side. “You didn’t tell me that you worked with AJ.”

“I know. I didn’t want you to be biased.”

“I heard your voice. It was clearly you.”

“What did you think?”

My heart was in my throat. Even though I had the final say and could cast who I wanted to, this was the real test of whether I’d be doing it just because AJ was Austin’s son or because I wanted Zoe on the set, or if I was casting him in the part because he was the best person for the role.

“He’s perfect.” Braxton’s smile widened. “Not just because it’s his dad; he really had that…” she wiggled her fingers, “that intangible ‘it’ quality. When he’s on screen, you can’tnotwatch him. It’s the same thing you have. Ithasto be him.”

I slid my phone across the table to her.

“What?” she said.

“You can call them and tell them.”

“Me?” She put her hand to her chest. “No. I can’t… No. You have to…don’t you want to look at the tapes?”

“No. I trust you as the head of acquisitions and production.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she took the phone. “I’ll make the calls, but only because I like giving people good news, and most of the time my job is telling people things they don’t want to hear. But that doesn’t change anything.”

“Understood.”

She was going to take the job. I knew it, and she knew it. Change was hard for her. She needed to wrap her mind around being in a new position, but after she did, she was going to kill it just like AJ had in his audition.

I was glad that Kendall had gotten the part, too. He talked about her a lot, and it was very obvious that he had a crush on her. It seemed there was a lot of that going around.

17

ZOE

Four.Days. Alone.

For the next four days, I was going to be by myself. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had four days to myself. I was working doubles the next three days, but today I was off. I’d considered sending out the bat signal to the ladies to meet for drinks tonight, but for some reason, I hadn’t pulled the trigger. Instead, it was going to be a bath, bottle of wine, and trash TV night in for me.

“Ten minutes!” I called up to AJ.

In ten minutes, I was dropping AJ off to head to science camp. Walter left this morning on his annual fishing trip with his Army buddies. Every year, they went down to the Florida Keys. They had been doing it for the past fifty years. It started with eight guys, and now it was down to four. About ten years ago, they’d started placing bets on who would make it to the next year, which I thought was a little morbid, but they seemed to enjoy it.

“Mom! Where are my socks?!” AJ bellowed from his room.

“In your drawer!” I shouted back.

Since hearing Miles talk to AJ about dyslexia, I’d done even more research into it and realized that a lot of the things that used to frustrate me about AJ—leaving his cleats at the bottom of the stairs, him asking me where things were when I think it should be obvious, him forgetting things he needs for school at home, him forgetting he has practice—were just how his brain works. It’s not that it gave him a pass or he shouldn’t work on those things, but it did give me more understanding and insight that he wasn’t just disregarding things I told him or that he didn’t care about my rules.

When I spoke to Walter about what Miles had said and that I thought Austin might have also been dyslexic, he agreed with me. He even recalled that he himself had not been able to pay attention in school, and he’d had a difficult time in reading and math because the letters and numbers didn’t make sense to him. In my research, I also learned that dyslexia is genetic. If one parent has it, there is a 30-50% chance of inheriting it.

I felt a little foolish that I was in the medical field, and yet I knew so little about the condition. I was naive in thinking that it only affected AJ’s reading comprehension. I was and would forever be grateful to Miles for educating me on the subject.

Every time I thought about sending him something to tell him how grateful I was, it started with a card or flowers or an edible arrangement, but my mind quickly took a detour into the gutter. I fantasized about showing up on his doorstep in a trench coat and edible underwear. I thought about dropping to my knees and showing just how much I appreciated him.

Every time I thought about Miles, my mind turned into a porno. I’d never thought about sex as much as I’d thought about it the past few weeks. It was constant and very unnerving. I wasn’t sure what sort of Pandora’s box he’d unleashed in me, but whatever it was, I needed it to close again.

AJ came bounding down the stairs, snapping me out of my inappropriate thoughts. He had his duffle bag slung over his shoulder, and I practically had to superglue my hands at my sides so as not to unzip it and check to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

He’d insisted on packing himself, which I understood he needed to do. He was growing up, and I didn’t want to stunt his development. The only saving grace to his newfound independent streak and the pitfalls it might result in was that there was a store at the campsite that I could call and give my credit card info to so he could get anything he’d forgotten.

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