Zed’s work on her shower continued, and somehow, things had gotten awkward after what she considered to be a pretty fantastic encounter in the swamp. He didn’t seem to know how to talk to her anymore. His jokes fell flat and awkward and he didn’t seem to know where to look. She found herself more disappointed by that than she thought possible. She had hoped to indulge in a healthy, enthusiastic affair while she was living in Mystic Bayou, but apparently sex had made things weird for Zed. She’d hoped maybe they could avoid that, but as she suspected, Zed was a relationship guy and that made things complicated. Dani couldn’t help but feel that she’d lost a good potential friend. And then there was the possibility of Zed turning the populace of a very small town—and his good friend who happened to be her boss—against her, which was pretty damn distressing.

She’d started to leave her own house at the crack of dawn and make excuses to be somewhere else, just to pre-empt Zed’s attempts at avoiding eye contact. She’d shopped at the Walmart in Slidell. She’d even camped out in her office a few times, but accomplished nothing because the ringing and rustling of all the other people drove her damn near crazy.

Her corner of Building Eleven was a tiny space that she was pretty sure would be a walk-in closet if the trailer was used as a house. Her doorway was marked by an enormous coffee splatter stain on the carpet just outside the waiting area, where someone had apparently dropped the world’s largest latte. It had apparently geysered up to the ceiling and left creamy brown flecks up there, too. And now the entire building smelled like stale coffee.

Even with that and the portly ginger-haired socioeconomics consultant who insisted on microwaving tuna noodle casserole every day for lunch, it still wasn’t the worst-smelling environment she’d ever worked in. That honor belonged to Rotorua, New Zealand, with its geothermal springs that smelled of dirty diapers and regrets. She hadn’t been able to watch The Hobbit for years.

Still, having an office had its perks, especially at night, after everybody left for the day. The evening before, she had decided to take advantage of the office’s wifi signal and make a FaceTime call to her grandfather.

She’d had a very difficult time holding back tears when her grandfather’s face filled the screen. Because he was, as usual, leaning way too close to the laptop.