LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)
Lucy Lennox & Molly Maddox
Acknowledgements
We’d like to thank the following:
Leslie Copeland, Sloane Kennedy, Shay Haude, Victoria Rothenberg, and Chad Williams for invaluable beta feedback.
The Lucy’s Lair FB Group for answering the question (quite thoroughly) about whether or not a horse can fit through a front door.
Cate Ashwood for fast, talented design work.
Eric McKinney and Dustin McNeer for a stunning cover photo.
Sandra Dee for speedy, thorough editing.
Lori Parks for eagle-eyed proofing.
Our father for “forgetting” to put in his hearing aids the days we worked on LOL at his house. Dad, you missed all the good stuff.
We’d like to dedicate this book to a group of people who make us LOL every single day. To the members of Lucy’s Lair on Facebook, thank you for your support, your humor, your patience, and your zany comments. You are all so deliciously crazy. Don’t ever change. You are our people.
1
Scotty
Cop Commandeers Horse Carriage For High-Speed Chase Through City!
When a cop comes racing out of a building on Fifth Avenue, hops in your horse-drawn carriage, and screams, “Go!”—you go.
You don’t stop and ask for paperwork. Or a badge. Or an explanation of who you’re chasing. You simply follow his shouted orders about where to turn.
At least, that’s what I did when it happened to me.
After the uniformed man jumped in shouting, I snapped the reins on Nugget’s big brown ass and felt the carriage lurch ahead into the park. Playdate moms and iBanker joggers leaped out of the way, spilling Starbucks mocha lattes and missing key points from their podcasts about the volatility of the yen in today’s bear market.
Onward we surged. It was a race against injustice, or so I assumed. I hunkered down in my seat and sallied forth up Cedar Hill toward the obelisk. There were definitely people racing after us both on foot and in those tricycle hackney things I’d never quite understood. But whether those people were other police officers or just lookie-loos, I wasn’t sure. And I certainly couldn’t take the time to swivel around to see them when I was trying to keep Nugget from cardiac arrest in front of me.
“Are we heading to the Park Precinct?” I yelled back, assuming his closest brothers in blue would want to help him continue his pursuit on the back of a faithful NYPD steed instead of my plodding carriage horse. Poor Nugget was running for glory, but there was no doubt my girl’s stamina was going to run out if we kept this up.
“No! Keep going!” the cop barked from behind me. His commanding voice brooked no argument, so I continued spurring Nugget past other carriages, ignoring the calls of “WTF, Scotty!” and “Dude, etiquette, man!” from my fellow drivers. It wasn’t usually cool to shoot ahead of everyone else, but didn’t they realize I had a situation on my hands?
“Left! Shakespeare’s Garden,” the man called out.
I hung a quick left, leaning the opposite way to keep the high-sprung carriage on four wheels. There was haste, and then there was stupidity. Whoever we were chasing wasn’t worth me losing a limb, for god’s sake.
As we approached Central Park West, I either had to turn left to stay in the park or get confirmation there was a dire emergency that justified my breaking any number of laws by driving my carriage on a city street away from the Central Park area.
“Where to now?” I called over my shoulder.
“South! Left!”
Just as I was about to swing us in that direction without thinking, I noticed none of the traffic was heading south on Central Park West. Only north. Duh, one-way street the other way.
“South on Eighth isn’t happening. Have to go down Sixty-Sixth to Columbus.” Belatedly, it occurred to me that was the type of information a cop should know. Unless he was super new to the city. But still.
We continued through the intersection, horns blaring and people shouting, before weaving in and out of traffic on the cross street. I spotted a Starbucks and spent a solid thirteen seconds wondering if I had time to duck in and grab an Americano to help warm me up. It was fucking cold as shit today.
But unfortunately for my frozen toes, the pursuit of justice took precedence. I urged Nugget onward, hanging a left on Columbus when we reached the end of the block. Finally, we were heading south. The speed had lessened, and I tried to pick up the pace. My heart was hammering in my chest as the reality of our situation sunk in. Were we in danger? Was there someone with a weapon behind us? Or… in front of us?
The cop barked more orders out, turning us east and then south and then west again. As we crossed the same street for the second time, but from a different direction, I began to wonder just what kind of emergency we were dealing with here. It wasn’t until we were fighting traffic on West Fifty-First that I began to question whether maybe this guy had just wanted a ride to Anthropologie for something trendy but unique.
“Um… Officer?” I called over my shoulder. “Are we… following anyone in particular?” There were definitely still people behind us, only now it seemed like yellow cabs more than anything.
“Yeah. Uhhh… that… that black car there.” He waved his hand vaguely. “Go!”