Page 20 of Off Plan

Loafers blinked down at his phone dejectedly while I shifted back into drive and pulled back into the middle of the road. “Are you sure?”

“Friends don’t letfriendsmiscaption their photos.”

And friends also didn’t let friends go on thinking Whispering Key would be their hashtag-new-home when it was actually a hashtag-nightmare.

“Okay, Loafers. Real talk. Big Rafe…” Is a liar, a swindler, a crook. “He exaggerates.”

“Yeah? Like, how?”

“Like, about Whispering Key. The thing is—”

“Um, I believe that man is waving at you,” Loafers interrupted. He nodded toward a small, white clapboard building off to our left that bore the sign Omar’s Sundries, and a middle-aged man sunning his substantial beer belly in a folding chair in front of a gas pump, who waved enthusiastically in our direction. “Is that Omar?”

“No, that’s Dale Jennings,” I said, annoyed at the interruption. I held up a hand to return Dale’s wave. “His family owned the station before Omar bought it. As I was saying—”

“Does Dale work for Omar now?”

“What? Ah, no. When his mom sold the place, Dale took his share and bought a motor home. Parked it out back. Now he pumps gas and socializes. Omar doesn’t mind. Look, the thing is—”

“He really seems quite eager to talk to you,” Loafers said. He pointed at Dale, who was still waving wildly.

Fuck.

I sighed and pulled the car to a stop on the far side of the road. “Look, Dale’s a talker,” I warned Loafers as I rolled down the window. “I amnot. Do not engage, okay? You and I have a discussion to finish.”

Loafers nodded.

I turned to Dale with a smile. “Afternoon, Dale.”

“Heya, Fenn! Scorcher out here.” Dale took off his cap, which readWish You Were Beer,pushed back his thinning hair, and put the hat back on.

“Sure is. You staying cool?”

Dale grinned broadly. “Body like this can’t be anything but hot, Fenn.” He put his hands behind his head and rotated his ample hips in an exaggerated bump and grind. “Specially since I started takin’ my supplements.” He looked over my shoulder at Loafers. “Heya. I’m Dale Jennings.”

“Mason Bloom,” Loafers said brightly. “I’m the new doctor for Whispering Key.”

Dale’s eyes widened. “Ya don’t say!”

“Yup. Just arrived today, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, alright!” Dale exclaimed. “Doc, how much d’you know aboutferrymones?”

I covered my face with one hand and groaned so only Loafers could hear me. “Why, Loafers, why?”

“I’m beingfriendly,” he hissed. “Try it sometime.” To Dale he said, “Uh. Pheromones?”

I could sense Loafers looking at me, expecting me to explain this, but I shook my head. Dale and hisferrymonesweren’t the sort of thing you could explain in a two-second whisper. Besides which, if Loafers had kept his mouth shut, we would have been halfway down the street by now.

“I mean, I know what pheromonesare—”

“B’cause I been taking a hundred percent pure mating hormones, what’ve increased my virility ’n’ sexual potency by seventy-one times the national average according to clinical studies? And I asked my doc over on the mainland if he could get me a prescription for ’em, but he said they’re not an actual medication, which can’t be the truth. I figure it’s because they’re too strong for the government to let us have ’em. In fact…” Dale pulled his T-shirt away from his body and took a cautious sniff. “They ain’t too much for ya, are they?”

Loafers tilted his head to one side, considering. “Um, no. Did you say you’retakingpheromones? As in, you’re ingesting them?”

“Ingesting!” Dale looked affronted. “I’d never! I just swallow ’em right down with orange juice.”

“That’s… never mind.” Loafers twisted to put a knee on his seat and leaned earnestly toward Dale, bracing a hand on my door and getting all up in my space in the process, smelling like the beach and expensive cologne. “Look, I know we’ve just met, Mr. Jennings, but I promise you, that’s not how pheromones work.”