Page 99 of The Love Haters

Rue said the whole area went dead quiet. Everybody witnessed that one act of kindness—and had to confront the humanity of those ticket agents in a whole new way. The man who was mid-rant lowered his arms, closed his mouth, and walked quietly back to his seat. Rue herself, who had been frustrated, too, totally recalibrated. That one action, she told me, shaking her head, just neutralized everybody, and reminded them what human decency was—and let the agents get back to work.

I guess what I’m saying is… if a guy like that wanted to sleep in his underwear, he could sleep in his underwear.

It’s such a vital skill—learning to recognize who’s a good guy and who isn’t. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, and sometimes it’s impossible. But I had to admit right then that I was as sure as a person could be that Hutch was, absolutely, a good guy. From watching him take a sticker burr out of George Bailey’s paw on our walk tonight, to the way he’d grabbed my pasta bowl back so he could add a sprig of basil… I knew. I just knew.

He was a person it was okay to feel safe with.

“Just sleep how you’d normally sleep,” I said. “I’m not uncomfortable.” And I meant it. “But,” I added then, getting back to Sullivan, “if you’re not putting thingsonfor bed, could I film you taking a few thingsoff?”

Sixteen

IDIDWINDup getting licked in the middle of the night.

And not just licked.Sat on.

Because that night, there was a thunderstorm. And Hutch wasn’t kidding when he said that George Bailey had thunder-phobia. Or whatever it was called.

I woke to George Bailey, who had fallen asleep on the rug beside the sofa, clawing his way on top of me, panting, drooling, and trembling all over.

I looked up, and George Bailey looked down.

And then I realized that I couldn’t exactly breathe. So I grabbed the frame of the sofa and hauled myself up and out from underneath him. Which should have been fine. But George Bailey, teetering above me, lost his balance as I shifted and then went thrashing off the sofa and collided with the coffee table… which flipped on its side.

It was twoA.M.

The sound was so loud, it rattled the whole boat.

As George Bailey and I recovered and stared at each other, Hutch came bursting out of the bedroom.

Were you wondering if Hutch had just been teasing about the boxer briefs? That when it came down to it, he would don some modest, gentlemanlike cotton pajamas?

Yeah, no.

At the sound of the crash, Hutch showed up—ready for action—with, honestly, next to nothing on.

Deep breaths: those boxer briefs were not that shocking. If we’d been on the Tour de France, I argued to myself forcefully, they could almost be bike shorts.

Fine: bike shorts that shrank in the wash—but bike shorts, all the same.

“What happened?” Hutch demanded, looking around, arms out like he might have to pummel an intruder barefoot.

I got up off the sofa and started working to right the table, and he helped me. We picked up all his newly fallen books and his backgammon set.

“Um,” I said, not even sure how to explain, “I guess it was thundering? And George Bailey climbed on top of me? But I couldn’t breathe, so I tried to wriggle out from under him—and then he kind of flopped over and crashed onto the coffee table.”

It was such an odd story when you put all the pieces together.

But Hutch just said, “It’s thundering?”

Right then, as if the universe wanted to confirm, it thundered.

George Bailey, in response, tried to dive between Hutch’s legs—until Hutch was basically riding him like a cowboy. A cowboy in his Tour de France underpants.

I blinked hard.Pull it together, Katie!

Hutch scrambled off George Bailey’s back, and then he started trying to lead him by the collar back into the bedroom. “This is what we do,” Hutch explained, as he tugged. “We go in the bedroom and close all the curtains, and I turn on a white-noise machine, and then I hold him tight until the storm passes like he’s a cow in a squeeze chute.”

George Bailey braced against the pull.

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