Page 9 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

Jennifer

I swear, as I drive toward the hardware store, I half expect animated woodland creatures to appear, birds, raccoons, a helpful possum, all dragging triple-lined, leak-proof trash bags and something industrial to line my SUV with.

Maybe a tarp woven from the broken dreams of men who thought calling me “feisty” was a compliment.

This really should be a nighttime chore, but hell, who’s going to think twice about me doing some good old-fashioned daylight gardening?

I text Derik from the parking lot.

Date two?

He replies in less than a minute.

My place?

Of course he didn’t hear a single word when I told him I don’t go home with strange men. They never do. Not until they’re screaming “why are you doing this” mid-chloroform.

Sure, tomorrow I reply, because I do love an optimist. I pocket my phone, grab my purse, and head inside.

Aside from trash bags and a better shovel, what else do I need?

Grief hits me like a rake to the shin. My garden was thriving.

I had tomatoes, dammit. Heirloom. Organic.

Better boyfriend material than Derik. Now I’ll be digging it up like it’s a crime scene.

Which, I guess, technically it is. But can I save the lavender?

Maybe the mint? God, please let me save the mint.

Inside, I’m fingering shovels, trying to decide which one will be gentlest on my spine while also being hosed clean of DNA. Because wood? Wood holds evidence. Wood’s for Girl Scouts and guilty consciences.

“Sure do go through a lot of trash bags,” Leonard, the store owner, says like he’s the mayor of Fucking Nosyville.

I smile like a lunatic. “I’m spring cleaning. For charity.”

He makes a noise, somewhere between a cough and a scoff, that clearly says, bitch, I was born in the dark but not yesterday . He watches me like I’m about to build a dungeon in my backyard. “What’s the shovel for?” he asks.

“Digging,” I say. “You work in a hardware store. Shovels are for digging, Leonard.”

If he asks me what bleach is for next, I’m putting him on the list.

He scoffs and walks off like I’ve personally offended his decades of retail knowledge. In his defense, I have bought a suspicious number of contractor bags from him lately. But in my defense, he’s a gossiping little shit with a sad mustache.

It’s amazing, really, that I haven’t redirected my talents toward removing rude townspeople. But I have standards. All heroes do. You start knocking off nosy neighbors and the line between vigilante and supervillain gets real thin, real fast.

Leonard rings me up without further commentary. Silent judgment: my favorite flavor.

But just as I’m leaving, I hear it, low, like they think whispering means I can’t hear them.

“That one ate lunch with Edgar and smiled about it,” Leonard mutters to the woman who was in line behind me.

“Oh yes,” she replies, voice syrupy and full of bullshit. “Had Cookie make them breakfast. She’s practically fucking him.”

I freeze halfway through the exit.

Well. Damn. They got my number on speed dial.

Also, rude as hell.

At home, I waste no time organizing the essentials into two piles. One for Derik’s place, just in case he decides to go full greaseball and two, the stuff I need to transport bodies from my property to the funeral home without leaving a goddamn trail of femurs behind me.

When I crack open the case Edgar gave me, I have to pause.

Oh my god.

First, there’s an apron. Not like my cutesy “Bless This Mess” one, it’s heavy-duty, rubber or some industrial shit.

One hundred percent something he wears to keep blood and viscera off his tidy little mortician cosplay.

There are gloves too, same material. It’s the kind of practical, serial-killer-romantic gesture that makes me genuinely stop to consider, if I get down on my knees right now, is it to suck his dick… or propose?

But then I see a single white orchid, in perfect condition, nestled like it’s not the most deranged little bouquet this side of an evidence locker.

And my breath? Gone.

I don’t let myself linger. I drop it in a vase like a normal woman and get back to the task at hand: digging up ex-boyfriends like they’re heirloom potatoes.

There is absolutely nothing cute about exhumation. I start with the oldest ones, because I’m a lady and I respect seniority. But holy shit, these garden beds are rooted. I’m sweating like a nun in a dick museum and I’m only three corpses in.

Upside? The bones are just bones. They don’t smell any worse than the rest of my compost. I bag them up, haul the sack to the SUV like a damn pro, and move on to the next section.

The next guy? Hoo boy. He smelled like gym socks and sour beer when he was alive, now he’s basically man soup. No saw needed. I just scoop and gag and thank Edgar, who is probably my soulmate, for the gloves.

But the next is fresh. We’re talking wet.

So there I am, sawing through this asshole like a goddamn lumberjack in an ‘80s horror flick, fully expecting banjo music and a clown to jump out of the shed behind me when I hear my name.

“Miss Jennifer?” Blake calls.

I whip around, dragging a trash bag over the mess like that’s going to help. “I’ll be right there!”

Too late.

He’s already standing there. In my garden crime scene. I need a lock on my damn gate. Or a moat.

“You need help?” he asks, eyes sweeping the absolute carnage. “You putting in a pool?”

Sweet, dumb, heartbreakingly hot Blake.

“My garden got a virus,” I say, straight-faced. “Had to start over.”

The thing about chopping up bodies while your hot neighbor redoes your garden is that it’s a logistical challenge. Timing. Angles. Body position. You gotta stay low, and let the shrubberies do the heavy lifting. And do not get viscera on the petunias.

“I can start turning this bed for you if you want,” Blake says, already grabbing a shovel like I’m not wrist-deep in compost-slash-Hank. “Soil looks like it’s got some sort of fungus.”

“Virus,” I call over my shoulder, sawing a thigh bone like it cut me off in traffic. “Garden plague. Very biblical.” Pretty sure I saw a locust earlier. Or it might’ve been Greg’s eyeball.

Blake whistles low, face scrunching. “No kidding. Smells like roadkill had a threesome with Satan and forgot the safe word.”

“Mm-hmm,” I hum, wiping sweat off my forehead with the clean part of my glove. “So tragic.”

He keeps digging, muscles flexing in that soft blue T-shirt I want to see peeled off with teeth. Meanwhile, I’m hacking through my late ex’s spine with the kind of focus usually reserved for bomb disposal.

“You want me to grab you some fresh soil?” Blake offers. “Can’t replant into cursed earth, right?”

“Oh my god, marry me,” I say.

“What?”

“I said that’d be lovely.”

He flashes a grin that has no right being that pretty while he’s ankle-deep in rot-dirt. “You’re lucky I like dirty girls.”

God help me, I nearly propose over a sack of dismembered Steve. I might be in love. Again. While knee-deep in body parts. I have a type and it is “men who help me dig graves without asking follow-up questions.”

Behind the cover of a drooping hydrangea, I dislodge a foot that was never cute in life and is now… haunting. “This one had a bunion,” I say. “Gross.”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

He’s now filling in one of the holes I’d emptied, completely unaware that ten minutes ago it held a man who used to think I was “too emotional to understand politics.”

“You want me to grab those bags for you?” he asks, already stacking them neatly like I haven’t been casually shoveling ex-boyfriends into them. “I’ll help load ‘em.”

I freeze for half a second. “You don’t mind?”

“You kidding? You’re trying to protect the whole neighborhood from virus dirt. That’s hot.”

God help me, I beam like a prom queen at her first exorcism. He hauls one of the heavier bags into the trunk of my SUV like it’s mulch and not Steve’s torso.

“You’re so thoughtful,” I tell him.

Blake leans against the open hatch and smirks. “So are you. Honestly, if you ever do decide to date again, some guy’s gonna be real lucky.”

Oh, sweet summer child. “I’ve got a date tonight,” I say. “Real responsible, emotionally mature type. Works with fire.”

He gives a slow, appreciative nod. “I like that for you.”

So do I, I think, watching him walk back to the garden bed. He bends down and my brain spirals with indecent thoughts. My hands are covered in corpse juice and I’m imagining him bent over a kitchen counter while I whisper filthy things into his neck and moan around the taste of sugar and heat and…

Nope. Focus. Bodies first. Orgasms later.

Probably.

It’s full dark by the time we get the last bag loaded into my SUV.

The porch light casts Blake in a halo as he wipes his hands on his shorts, leaving a streak of suspicious garden gore across his thigh. He doesn’t seem to care. Just flashes that perfect smile that could cause ovulation in a five-mile radius.

“There,” he says. “Crisis contained.”

“You’re the best,” I tell him. “Seriously. If this virus had spread any further, the whole neighborhood could’ve been crawling with dead things.”

He nods solemnly, like I just explained soil pH levels and not a cover story for corpse disposal. “You handled it like a champ.”

I grin. “Come over for breakfast on your next day off?”

His smile goes full wattage. “Hell yeah.”

“Hell yeah,” I repeat.

He gives me a two-finger salute and strolls off into the night like he didn’t just help me load several ex-boyfriends into my car. I watch him go, ass hypnotic in the moonlight, and make a mental note to google if someone can be both your next victim and your next husband.

Then I head inside, shoulder aching from overuse. I peel off the gloves and apron, roll them tight into a garbage bag, and toss them in the laundry sink. I’ll bleach the hell out of them later, or maybe burn the whole set. Depends how romantic dinner gets.

For now, I wash off the mess and lean against the counter, breathing in the sharp smell of antiseptic and metal.

Breakfast plans made. Bodies bagged.

Now I just need something cute to wear for dinner with my possibly-boyfriend, possibly-accomplice.

Date three with Edgar.

If he survives date four, do we get matching rings or matching alibis?