Page 49 of My Husband Problem

I can also see one of her most prized possessions at the corner of her desk—the otter lamp, a replica of the otter statueon Main Street. It looks like the little statue I have on my front porch, but with a patchwork lampshade in Mardi Gras colors. And Nora’s is holding a plate of beignets. Mine is just an otter standing on its hind legs as if watching over everything going on in and around my yard.

Most homes in Rebel have one. Either on the front porch, in the front flower beds, or by a front tree or bush. They’re believed to bring good luck and to be guardians of the house and its people.

That myth has to do with why this town is obsessed with otters to the point of having a twenty-foot statue on their Main Street and an otter haven in the park. And an otter club. And a huge World Otter Day celebration. And a festival celebrating the birth of the first litter of otter pups in the town. And a few other things I’m forgetting.

They even sell little “outfits” and accessories at the Everything Shop downtown that people use to dress their otters up for holidays and various occasions.

The otter mania around here is real.

My phone dings with a text message, and I pull it out of my pocket. Maybe the caramel corn supplier is getting back to me…

But no, it’s about Declan. Of course.

Wilson: Things are going great. Declan seems to like this idea. Beth is totally charmed.

I frown.

Things are goinggreat?

Declan isn’t supposed to like what he and Wilson are doing.It’s supposed to be annoying. The man spends his time in meetings with the CEOs of big companies, influential leaders in multiple areas—science, tech, industry—and political and social leaders. He should consider it a waste of his time to sit around my kitchen table with citizens of Rebel asking for money forthings like a new playground, their son’s film project, or a new used car for their mother-in-law.

I’ve been doing that exact thing with Wilson as a part of the O’Grady Foundation, using Declan’s money to fund things great and small in Rebel and the surrounding area, but posting on Rebel’s website that people can meet with Declan himself today was just one more thing I added to the Repel Declan Plan.

Sutton notices my frown. “Is everything okay?”

I shake my head. “Declan is…not responding the way I expected.”

“To what?”

“Anything.” I sigh. “I keep expecting him to be irritated or confused or annoyed or turned off by things. Like… my ducks,” I say as an example. “Instead, he’s fine with it all. Interested in it, even. He doesn’t seem irritated at all. He almost seems…like he likes it?”

Sutton nods. “My aunt’s cat, Pepper, was like that.”

“Your aunt’s cat?” I repeat.

“She would try to keep the cat from doing things like climbing the curtains and chewing on her plants. She would squirt him with water from a spray bottle. Most cats hate that, but Pepper loved it. He’d get up there by the plants and then look at her, waiting for the squirt of water.”

I just stare at her for several seconds. Nora laughs as she comes out of her office with a bright yellow binder she dug from a pile on the floor next to her desk.Then I feel myself start grinning, even as I shake my head.

Dammit. Declan likes the ‘squirt bottle’ that’s supposed to be the deterrent. That’s the perfect analogy.

“What about a romantic movie in the park?” Sutton suggests, looking at her computer screen.

Still smiling about the water bottle, I shake my head. I don’t see Declan as a movie-in-the-park guy and definitely nota rom-com guy, but that is way too normal. “Something bigger. Something way more annoying than that,” I say.

“I don’t love the insinuation that the activities we do are annoying so that something can bemoreannoying,” Nora says.

“Not to me. Not to most of us,” I assure her. “But to a stuck-up perfectionist like Declan, I mean. I need abiggersquirt bottle.” I shoot Sutton a grin as she giggles.

Nora narrows her eyes. “Give me an example.”

I decide to give her something obvious that I will also take responsibility for. “Our hockey league. Declan has a very specific idea about how things should be when it comes to managing a hockey team.” I think about how perfectly arranged his kitchen is, how neat and devoid of clutter his desk is, how there is no color or personality in his entire apartment.

He thinks your house is interesting, though.

I shake that off.

“He loves hockey,” I continue. “He owns a professional team. He knows how hockey is supposed to go from the practices, to games, to the front office. The fact that we’re doing everything with very little structure and crazy rules is the perfect example of something that will frustrate him when he’s right here in it every day.”