Excerpt of No Bunny But You by Carol Rose

“Here. Try on this bunny head for me.” The door to her yellow VW Beetle open, Molly yanked at something in the back seat, her white blonde head bobbing with the exertion.

“What?” Drake Hampton stood next to his friend’s car in the bright Austin sunshine, watching her wrestle out of the back seat what looked to be a large costume head.

“Try it on.” She jiggled the large bunny head in his direction in a silly way. “You know that as a party planner, I often have a guy in various costumes show up at parties. When I was at the costume place this morning, getting a Spider Man outfit, they offered me a great deal on the bunny costume. You never know when this might come in handy. Here.”

“I’m not trying on the stupid head! We’re in a parking lot, Molly. I’m not making a fool of myself by putting that head on.” Knowing he sounded irritated, he looked around to see if any restaurant patrons had noticed them. “I thought we were having lunch.”

“We are,” she insisted. “I just wanted to see how the head looked on someone. Geesh. I have several interviews scheduled this afternoon with costume character people. I wanted a better look at the bunny outfit, that’s all.”

He leaned on the open car door as a leaf skittered by, swept by the wind. “You know, you didn’t ask me these weird things when you were an interior decorator.”

She shoved the head into the back seat of her sunny car. “Ha ha. Being a decorator allows much less latitude for fun than planning parties. No bunny costume opportunities.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun. Can we have lunch now? I need to get your text for the next blog.”

“It’s in my bag.” She slammed the car door and followed him to the restaurant door. “About the blog…. We need to talk.” When the waiter had seated them and taken their order, Drake looked at her across the table.

Molly cleared her throat and shifted her utensils around several times. They’d been best friends for a long time. Drake watched her, knowing something was up.

“I think you need to handle the blog on your own,” she blurted out suddenly. “You know, without me giving you the details of how to do home repairs. All on your own. No help from me.”

“What? What the hell!” He stared across the table at her, unable to believe she meant what she was saying. “You can’t be serious.”

Leaning forward to grasp Drake’s hand, she said, “Listen, you can do this yourself. You’re too good a guy to keep on living a lie like this. In the beginning, I thought I was just helping till you got comfortable with the blog. I never intended it to go on so long.”

“No, I’m not.” He straightened, pulling his hand from Molly’s as her words sunk in. She was bailing on him. He couldn’t believe his best friend was bailing on him. “I’m not really that good a guy. Besides, it’s not like I’m lying. This isn’t earth-shaking stuff and I am learning as we work through different projects. I do write every line. You’re just my data person. You’ve always worked with your hands.”

Her gaze held his as she said again, “You can do this. All by yourself.”

“I can’t believe you won’t help me with the blog anymore?” Drake stared at her, willing her to change her mind. “Is that what you’re saying? You won’t help anymore?”

“Listen, Drake,” Molly again shifted the cutlery next to her plate, her pale features determined, “we’ve been friends since high school—“

“Best friends,” he stuck in. He and Molly had been tight since they’d wandered from dating to friendship when they were teens. With her fair complexion and white blond hair, he’d noticed her right away, and in the randy manner of teenage boys, he wanted to nail her. But he soon learned that Molly was more than eye candy. She was nice to look at and she initially seemed deceptively fragile, but this girl was anything but fragile.

“Yes.” She nodded. “We were best friends since after we stopped dating—“

Molly wouldn’t let him down. She couldn’t be serious about this. They’d been through thick and thin.

Drake said in a teasing voice. “After you left me in high school for the varsity quarterback, I think you owe me to keep helping with the blog just because of that.”

“Get a grip, Drake,” she said with exasperation. “When you were unemployed after the newspaper shut down—I know you loved that job—you applied a lot of places to find a journalism position—“

“I looked everywhere,” he said in a level voice, “for months. I had rent to pay.”

“—and I understood that. I even encouraged you to apply for this paid blog job—“

“Yes, you did. And since I don’t know crap about home improvement stuff, you said you’d help me. You said that.” He couldn’t believe she was serious about not helping him anymore. Not Molly. “You know I haven’t done any of that work before. It’s embarrassing for a guy to admit to, but I’ve never even lifted a hammer. Hell, I took a bunch of AP classes, for all the good it did me, and I wrote the school paper. I never had a job where I had to work with my hands.”

She nodded. “It was weird. The rest of us had no clue what we wanted to do when we got out of high school or even when we went to college, but you knew even then that you wanted a newspaper job. And you didn’t even have an afterschool job because your dad didn’t want you to work in high school—“

“People aren’t reading newspapers the way they were. Content is on-line. That’s why I started looking for internet journalism jobs, but I wouldn’t have even considered this home improvement gig after seeing the Bloggies at the South By Southwest Festival if you hadn’t said you’d help.”

Molly swiped a hand through her chin-length white blonde hair, shoving it off her face. “I have helped you with the blog’s content, for two years now. I don’t think I’m helping you, if I keep doing this.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table between. “You are,Moll. You are helping me and I’m very grateful. Really grateful. I don’t know one wrench from another. Hell, you’re a designer and you build things all the time.”

“I’m not a designer anymore,” she reminded him. “Remember my new event planning business? And when have you ever even worked on home improvement stuff with me, the way I suggested?”

Drake laughed. “It doesn’t matter if you’re not designing anymore. You’re still good at that kind of thing. You started working with your parents when you were old enough to pick up a screwdriver. You’ve always spackled and painted and now you build decks on the back of your little house and—“

“This has to stop, Drake,” she insisted. “You know we can’t go on like this. I never intended this to be a long-term thing. You don’t like taking my mangled text and smoothing it into a blog. You’ve said yourself that I don’t do words.”

“No, but I do.” He smiled at her. Drake liked being a team with Molly and he couldn’t imagine doing the blog without her. She’d been his rock in so many ways.“It’s not that big a deal to smooth everything out. I am picking up things from you. And together, we work magic. The last blog about choosing the right paint color—terrific.”

Molly shook her head. “This isn’t the right way to handle things. You are sharp and focused with news content. You leave me in the dust with that. This blog, with you writing things I tell you about, this isn’t good for either of us. Yours is the name and the face on the blog. It’s your thing. I’ll teach you the home improvement things. It’s not that hard. You’ll learn how to do all this stuff in no time. You’re intelligent and capable. If I stop doing the work for you, you’ll do it. You’ll learn. I know you can do this.”

“Will you be serious? I’ve never been a handy guy. My dad is a college professor, for heaven’s sake. He never worked on things around the house.” he said with exasperation. “He always called repairmen. I don’t know crap about flooring or joists or any of that stuff. You can’t quit, Moll.”

“You can learn—given the right incentive. Listen, I don’t like having to be the tough guy, but you can’t continue like this.”

He stared at her. “What do you mean?”

She hesitated a moment, before raising her candid gaze to his. “If you want to keep this job, you need to learn to handle the home improvement projects on your own…before word gets out that you have someone else telling you what to write.”

Drake’s gaze narrowed. “Are you threatening me, best friend?”

“Don’t look at it like that,” she begged.

“That’s how it sounds to me.” He looked at her in disbelief. “You’d tell my boss? Molly Stanhope, that’s blackmail! Are you blackmailing me?"

“Don’t get all dramatic. You’re acting like I’m being mean to you. All I want is to help you feel better this gig. You don’t need to keep up this charade. If you’re going to keep writing a home improvement blog, you need to be able to do it on your own.”

He sat back in his chair. “I can’t believe you’d rat me out.”

***

“I tell you, Abby, it was one of the hardest things I’ve done.” The next day Molly took a swallow of her iced tea, curled up on her couch across from her friend. She kept seeing the expression on Drake’s face when she’d told him she wasn’t giving him projects for his blog. “It felt like I was dumping him, only worse because….”

“Because now you have a thing for him.” Abby nodded sympathetically. “Crazy, considering that you two have been best friends all these years. I mean after you dumped him in high school.”

“I know.” She stared glumly at her glass. With his dark hair and eyes, he’d have been a chick magnet, if he hadn’t been so nerdy and studious. “And I dumped him to go out with that dumb quarterback in high school.”

“Don’t feel so bad about it,” her friend chided her. “People fall for their best friends all the time. He’s a hot guy. He just needs to see you in a different light. Again. Like he used to.”

“You mean, see me other than as his crutch?” She made a face at her friend as she swizzled her straw around in the tea glass.

“Other than his best bud,” Abby corrected. “Although I must say some people would think you helping him with his blog was romantic, if they knew.”

Molly stared at her.

“Not me, but I’m just saying, some people would see it that way.”

“This isn’t romantic for Drake. He just doesn’t want to learn any home improvement stuff himself,” she said with asperity. “Actually, it could be embarrassing, if he knew how I feel now. What if he finds out that I have a thing for him, but he doesn’t feel that way toward me?”

“Possible, but not likely. You’re hot, yourself. Actually, I’m surprised he hasn’t hit on you. Seems like every other guy does.” Abby sipped meditatively at her tea, staring into space. “Drake’s always kind of been a ‘news nerd’. You know, in that hot kind of millionaire way? He’s all tall and well-built, too. Nice. I go for guys with dark hair.” Molly shook her head. “I’m just helping him lie. Helping him undermine himself. He’s not good at dealing with failure or showing people his weaker side. You know, he doesn’t take a lot of risks, particularly not emotional ones. He needs to develop some skills in this area or get another job. You know what his boss would say if he knew I tell Drake everything about the actual work?”

“He’d fire him.” Her friend leaned back against the booth.

“So, what’s the plan? You stop feeding him info for the blog and then you tell him you’ve got the hots for him?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I just want to knock his block off and other times I want to strip in front of him. It’s crazy.” With her friend staring at her, she assured her.

“I’m not gonna. I’m just saying….”

“Too bad you didn’t hang on to him when you had him.” Abby made a wry face at her.

“I was sixteen! Who the hell knows what they want when they’re sixteen?”

“And that football jock guy you dated after Drake was pretty hot himself.” Abby grinned. “I’ve seen the photos. Why didn’t you get any photos with his shirt off?”

This time it was Molly who made a face. “We were in high school, let me remind you. And this was before kids had the option of posting naked photos of themselves on line.”

“Most people don’t know who they want to be with when they’re in high school,” her friend said, clearly trying to comfort her. “They wait until they’re seeing their first flame at a reunion or start chatting with them on FaceBook after twenty years. Then they realize they need to leave their husbands for their first loves.”

Molly stared glumly into her glass. “Guess I’m just doing it backwards. I wonder if Drake would be more interested if I were married to some other guy.”

“I don’t think that’s your best option, at this point. Just give him some time to adjust to the blog thing and then show up to his house wearing nothing, but a raincoat and a smile,” Abby recommended. “That’ll get his attention.”

Shaking her head, Molly laughed. “I think I’d like to try something a little less, I don’t know, extreme? Scary? Out there? Maybe I could just talk to him.”

Her friend made a face. “He is a word guy, but on some level, men prefer action over conversation. Besides, you can’t do any of that until the blog deal is taken care of.”

“I don’t need this,” Molly wailed suddenly. “Why do I have to get a thing for my best friend!”

“Could be because he’s pretty spectacular.” Her friend sent her a wry smile. “I mean smokin’ hot. With his dark eyes and his muscles—. If I didn’t have a boyfriend, I’d be into him. As it is, my heart’s belongs to another, but hormones…. They notice.”

Holding up her hand to stop her friend, she said, “Please. Don’t go on. I know he’s hot. I know too well.”