Page 30 of The Love Haters

Hutch: Brother of Cole. Nephew of Rue. Rescuer of Jennifer Aniston’s dog.

Hutch. The frowner. Thelove hater.

The guy I was here to profile.

I put my head down on the glass top of the jewelry case then, and I tried to keep breathing, wondering if my new subject was the most scientifically good-looking human I’d ever spotted in the wild… and I waited for Rue to show up. Which she did, a thousand hours later, and found mestill there, slumped over the counter, only to say: “Oh, sweetheart. You must bestarving.”

Five

THE CAFTAN WASa slippery slope.

I sensed it from the start, if I’m honest.This will not end well.

Smash cut to me, the next morning, with bed-head hair, standing in my adorable three-hundred-square-foot vintage motel cabin in a baggyLIFE’S A BEACHT-shirt—also from Vitamin Sea—that I’d slept in, engaged in what can only be described as a spaghetti-Western-style standoff with…

A brand-new bathing suit.

Draped very aggressively on a hanger on a peg near the mirror.

I’d caught Beanie before work on FaceTime for an emergency consultation.

“So,” Beanie was saying, mining essential details from the five-minute verbal dump I’d just woken her up with. “You asked this lady about swim lessons, and now she’s forcing you to take a swimming class?This morning?”

“Kind of.”

A more accurate description might be that she “warmly invited me to join her.” But “forcing” captured some of the vibe, too.

“And she bought you a swimsuit?”

“Compedme a swimsuit,” I corrected. “As a gift. From her tropics-wear boutique.”

“That was nice of her.”

“Too nice,” I agreed.

Beanie dropped her voice. “Oh, I see. You hate it.”

“I don’t hate it,” I said. “I just hate the way it’s looking at me.”

“How is it”—here she made air quotes—“‘looking at’ you?”

“Like it’s the predator, and I’m the prey.”

“This feels melodramatic,” Beanie said.

“The point is, now I have toput it on.”

“Okay, then,” she said, bracing for impact. “Show me the suit.”

All business, I rotated my phone until the menacing garment was in frame.

Was I expecting validation? Here’s what I got: “What are you talking about?” Beanie demanded. “It’s adorable.”

It had a vintage pinup-girl look: a red-polka-dot one-piece with a halter top and a sweetheart neckline with a short little pleated skirt at the bottom.

If something that barely covers your lady bits can really be called askirt.

“It’s adorablein theory,” I said.

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