Me and the Dreamy Doomsday

Excerpt:

Chapter 1

Kori

I yank my wrench back, tightening a bolt and grunting a little as I do.

Making a parade float is almost an annual occurrence for the residents of Good Grief, Idaho. I’m sure I’m not the only one lying on an old flatbed wagon, grunting, wrestling with wrenches, and covered in sawdust in our town today.

Our annual Chainsaw Festival, where the residents of Good Grief and thousands of other people celebrate everything there is to celebrate about a chainsaw—and there’s more than you think—starts tomorrow.

This particular float, for the parade at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, is for Cherry Tree, the senior living center in town, and it doesn’t have anything to do with chainsaws.

“I think that should do it,” I say, letting the wrench rest on my stomach and turning my head to my sister Leah and her husband, Doug.

Leah is studying it with her pointer finger tapping her chin, a thoughtful look on her face.

Doug looks more horrified than anything.

I bite back a smile. Ever since they’ve gotten together, they’ve been about the cutest couple ever. Even more so now that they’re married.

I have a feeling they’re about to have one of their “discussions.” The kind of discussion where Leah is saying one thing and Doug is saying another and neither one of them understands what the other is saying.

It happens all the time, and I really enjoy watching it.

“It looks like a gallows,” Doug says, tilting his head to the side like looking at it from a different angle will completely change his perspective and make it look the way he wants it to look, instead of the way it does.

“That’s morbid,” Leah says, putting one brow down and one brow up and giving her husband a look that says he has no clue what he’s talking about.

“I agree. It looks like a gallows, and that’s morbid. I definitely don’t think I should be trying to bungee jump off the top.”

This is kind of where things get interesting, because I think I hear my sister mumble something about honey and ropes, and Doug’s features, which had been pinched up tight, relax into what could loosely be termed a grin, and he gives his wife a look of interest, which she returns.

I sit up, taking the wrench off my stomach and setting it on the flatbed floor, as Doug mumbles something that sounds very much like, “Do you really mean that?” And I’m thinking that I’m probably not supposed to be hearing that.

My sister nods, and her grin widens.

They seem to reach some kind of understanding before Doug looks back at what he’s termed a gallows and says, “I think it might be dangerous, but I’ll do it.”

“You know what,” Leah says with a hand on her hip. “Why don’t I just do it? I think it would be fun.”

“No! There is no way I’m going to let you ride in the parade, pretending to bungee jump off the top of that thing. You’ll die.”

“That’s being dramatic, don’t you think? I’ll be fine. And, since you don’t want to, and I do, it just makes sense that I should.”

“I want to,” Doug says, sounding the way he probably would if someone just asked him if he wanted to be buried alive.

“It’s not quite finished yet,” I say, enjoying their conversation but also knowing that I need to go and finish the last lesson on the photography course I’ve been studying as well as help my friend Denise ice the chainsaw cake we baked yesterday. “Miss Agnes said she was going to send someone for a drill, and we need to finish putting those bolts in at the top. That will make it sturdier.”

“I don’t think it will be sturdy enough,” Doug says, still looking at my miniature bungee jumping tower like he’d rather use the wood as fire starter than as a parade float.

“I could probably put a couple more braces on the bottom,” a deep, familiar voice says from behind me.

Hoover.

Hoover and I have a little history together, and maybe it’s because of this that I don’t turn around and greet him.

“I have the drill that Miss Agnes said you guys wanted,” he continues. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“I’ll take it,” I say, lifting my chin as I turn, holding my hand out for the drill.

There’s something about Hoover that gets my back up every time I see him.

Maybe because he’s so quiet and serious, and he seems to think everything’s a national emergency, while I would much rather have fun with my life.

Or it could be the possum potpie he tried to make me eat.

Either way, he’s not my favorite person, but I know he hates me. Still, we’ve been able to set aside our animosity and work together in the past. Which is where our history lies.

He doesn’t place the drill in my stretched-out hand. Rather, he says, “What needs to be done? I can do it.”

The man acts like he was raised with wolves in the back mountains of Idaho.

Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. But he does have that cavemannish attitude that says he’s a man, so he can do it, and I’m a woman, so I can’t.

Maybe it’s just my imagination. Maybe I’m looking for something to be offended over. Like I said, the man gets my back up for some reason.