Page 52 of The Lies We Told Ourselves

Trace looked like he went a slight shade of green, and Delaney chuckled at his discomfort.

“You know, if you ask, they sometimes stop it when you’re at the top,” Blake said, sniggering as Trace groaned at the suggestion.

“Not a fan of heights?” I asked.

“Not a fan of carnival rides that have traveled down the highway and then suspend me two hundred feet in the air,” he grumbled.

“That’s a big Ferris wheel,” I quipped before realizing what I’d said, and Delaney snorted in amusement. “Do you have a carnival in Willowbrook often?”

I was really hoping they were going to say yes because this was the sort of small-town life I could get on board with. Plus, I’d give anything to go on a Ferris wheel finally.

“No, actually, this is only the second time,” Delaney said, and I saw Blake look just as disappointed as I was. “But it’s hopefully going to be an annual thing now.”

A grin slipped across my face and when I looked at Booker, he was giving me a curious look, like he was trying to figure me out.

Wait, please tell me he wasn’t a carnival hater!

“We need this one to be a success first,” Trace said ruefully.

“It will be. You know it will be.”

“I don’t. I don’t have access to any local business information anymore.”

I looked around the table at the people present. There was clearly something more to this that I didn’t understand. Blake, thankfully, took pity on me.

“Trace used to work with his father at The Farrington Group, which basically had its fingers in all the town pies. They’re trying to get some increased tourism into the town, boost the economy, blah blah blah. Trace is freaking out because he doesn’t work there anymore, so he doesn’t have all his behind-the-scenes access anymore.”

“Oooh, okay. But all the businesses are still individually owned, right?”

“Yeah, we were more of an investment group,” Trace agreed.

“And a way to exert your mother’s dictator-like control over people,” Delaney muttered.

Blake snorted at the comment, but no one disagreed.

“So you could just have a town meeting then,” I suggested. “Get all the business owners together, see where you stand, who needs what, brainstorm together.”

Trace’s spine seemed to snap straight, and he looked at me with wide eyes. “Why aren’t we doing that?”

“Erm, are you asking me, or is this one of those rhetorical things?”

He finally seemed to exhale before turning to Delaney, who was already pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll start a group chat with whoever I have numbers for and see if we can get a time and a venue decided in the next few days.”

They quickly fired off questions and details between themselves like the rest of the room had faded away.

“They do this a lot,” Blake said, and Cade nodded, rolling his eyes.

Dex pulled out his phone and sighed dramatically. “I guess I don’t count as a local business owner, then. Rude. Not even added to the group chat. It’s like I’m not even here!”

Booker apparently decided this was a good time to join in the conversation. He dramatically pulled out his own phone and showed the screen to Dex, who sighed loudly again. “It’s justthe two of us against the town, Book. Two stallions put out to pasture, no longer useful to society…”

“Hey, no one’s putting me out to pasture,” Booker quickly added. “I’m in my prime.”

In a total un-Booker-like move, he gave me a cheeky wink, and I felt the blush rush to my cheeks. He was getting absolutely no arguments from me in that department.

“Ewwww,” Delaney said dramatically.

“I don’t get it,” Cade suddenly said, and I looked at him in alarm.

---