Page 72 of Hearts of Fairlake

"The only person who should be worrying is him," Isaiah said with a scowl. "And I guess your mom too, but she probably has him staying away so her precious baby boy doesn't get hurt by mean old me."

I approached him and put my hand on his back, rubbing gently. "The speech?"

He made a face before sighing, and his shoulders slumped. "Yeah. It's been bugging me. I can't seem to get thewording right, and I'm supposed to be doing it soon. I'm going in circles and driving myself crazy."

"Do you have to prepare one?"

"I already told Fred I’d do the speech. It would probably ruin his entire day if I backed out now."

"Oh God, please ruin his day," I heard Kyle say from the bay, and he appeared with a bag of Takis.

"Those are mine!" Isaiah protested. "How, with all of the snacks back there, did you find the ones that are mine?"

"I guess you just have great taste in snacks," Kyle said, winking at Isaiah as though it weren't already obvious that his mood had shifted for the better. "Maybe you should fix that. Now, how are we ruining the mayor's day? Because he's on my shit list."

"We're not ruining his day," Isaiah said, annoyed at having lost his snack.

"Aww," Kyle said, sounding genuinely upset.

I leaned in closer. “I hid another bag in the break room and a bag of gummy bears. Just in case you didn't have any one day."

"Let it never be said that you don't know the precise thing to make the world better," Isaiah beamed, reaching up to squeeze my hand.

"Wait, there's gummy bears?" Kyle asked, eyes widening in interest.

"They're hidden," I told him. "Very well. And I'm not telling you where they are."

"Aww," Kyle said with a sigh. "Did you know there was a time when they had a warning on the labels of these things? Because people were eating so many of them, they upset their stomachs badly."

"Some of them still do," Isaiah said.

"Well, hopefully, you're smarter than a lot of people. Imean, seriously, this stuff tastes like pure sour heat. What did they expect it to do, soothe their stomach?"

"You know, for someone with such a dim view of the average person, you certainly chose the wrong career because you work with the public," Isaiah pointed out.

"Are you kidding? Working with the public is what made me this way," Kyle said with a snort.

"And you're naturally like that," Ian pointed out, laughing when Kyle shot him a dirty look. "You know I wouldn't have you any other way."

"The ice you tread is thin, but you are remarkably adept at avoiding the weakest spots," Kyle said, watching Ian carefully. "That pretty mouth of yours isn't going to save you from itself, just so you know."

"And when that day comes, I will accept the consequences with all the gravitas it rightly deserves," Ian told him with a snort. "But until that day, I will continue to play with fire."

"Quit mixing metaphors," Kyle grumbled. "I just found out we're not going to ruin Fred's day, so I'm back to being grumpy."

"Aw, and it was so short-lived too."

"Ian."

"I was saying it would ruin Fred's day if I went and got arrested because then I couldn't do the speech he wants me to do so badly," Isaiah explained, pulling out his phone and frowning. "In...twenty minutes. Shit, that explains why things have been thinning out around here."

"Why would you get arrested?" Kyle wondered, popping another Taki into his mouth.

"Because he hates my brother and threatens violence at the mention of him," I said, now smiling since I could see Isaiah wasn't truly upset. He was stressed and worried about the speech, but that was manageable and easy to deal with,for him anyway. If I were the one giving a speech, I’d probably be up in Canada, changing my name and starting anew.

"Oh," Kyle said, looking between us. "How do you feel about beating old women?"

"Kyle," Ian said with a sigh.

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