Page 15 of Kingston
“I have no doubt that you could take them on and come out the winner.They’ve been terrible all my life, and I’m glad that they’ve been taken care of by the council.I don’t know what happened to them, but whatever it was, it wasn’t nearly enough.”She agreed with him, and she hadn’t been around when they were causing so much trouble.“Trust me when I tell you that they would have tried to do something to you from the very beginning of our relationship.”
After closing the connection she had with Kings, she decided that she needed a malt.Chocolate on chocolate ice cream.The others agreed, and even Kaida decided that she needed a brownie sundae.As they were seated eating their treat, she looked around the town and could see what other improvements needed to be done.
Someone had planted trees on the sidewalk.They had been pretty, she was sure, when they were first put in, but now that they were overgrown and too large, their roots breaking the concrete slabs, she could see the potential for someone getting hurt.The flags were still up from the Fourth of July.There were yards along the main street that needed to be cleaned up.Two of them had cars that had trees growing out of them.There were other things, too, some of them major, like the trees in the sidewalk, but there were little things, too.The library needed a new parking lot.There were empty buildings that needed to be boarded up because the windows had been broken out, and the glass was still there.This was all along Main Street, where she noticed this and not throughout the entire town.
“What are you thinking about that’s going to cause me trouble?”She laughed with Ace, the more relaxed of the two brothers.“I was joking, but what were you thinking about?”
“This town has gone to pot.”She pointed out the few things that she’d seen in the few minutes that she’d been looking and said she knew it was like that all over town.“Now that no more projects are going to be finished up, it’s not difficult to tell what this town will look like in a few more years.”
Ace looked around before speaking.“You can bet things like the streets will be the first to go.Then the schools.The schools will get funding from the state if it’s needed, but if the town isn’t viable, then there will be no one voting in the taxes that will be needed to maintain the buildings.Or pay for teachers.They’re doing all right now, but like you said, in a few years, when there is just as much wear and tear going on with them, what they’ll look like.”He looked at her after taking one more glance around the streets.“Our town that we came from was just getting back on its feet.The sidewalks were being replaced.There was a new school going in.Also, the mayor there was working to keep the buildings that were falling down in good repair.You might be better off moving to where we live than staying here.”
“You might be right.”Her treat ruined now, she stood up and tossed it into the trash.“I’m going to go home and look for options on what to do when the town you grew up in is no longer a place you want to be.”He told her he was sorry.“You didn’t do it.It’s the government that is around here.They’ve let things slack off for lack of a better term.”
As she made her way home, she was feeling kinda depressed.So much was wrong with the town that she had to wonder if it was ever going to be a pretty little town again.It certainly didn’t look like it from where she was standing.
~*~
Reading over the laws and rules that governed his kind, he couldn’t believe how old some of them were.Like the second one he’d read said that they weren’t to, under any circumstances, have anything to do with humans.There were several more like that, and he’d not even gotten to the third page yet.
There were instructions too on what to do with a dragon that needed to be beheaded.It was a long, drawn-out process that basically said stand back, cut their head off, and walk away.But there were fourteen steps that one had to follow before they could kill a dragon.
“Are you having any luck with that thing?”He turned to look at Tank, glad for the company.“I’ve seen that book before.I believe that every dragon was given a copy when they were just hatched.I don’t remember reading it, but I remember someone giving it to me when I was little.”
“Get this.You and your brother would have been killed when you were born—if you had been born, because you’re not true dragons.Whatever the hell that means.And your mother wouldn’t have been able to be a mate to your father either.Who would have been killed as a half breed.It mostly talks about what to do about humans and the rules we had to follow when we encountered them.”Kings snorted.“They outnumber us about fifty to one, and we’re to avoid them in the event that we need to kill them later down the line.”
“I think they outnumber us by a great deal more than that, my friend.”Kings didn’t comment as he was reading another little tidbit of information when a hatchling was changed into a dragon.Kings told him what the rule said.“It almost sounds as if we were never supposed to shift into humans at all, don’t you think?I mean, how do we avoid them when we work with them or beside them daily?”
“I have no idea.”Finally, Kings put the book down in order to talk to his new relative.“Skye said you were thinking of moving here.I have to say, after our conversation about the town, I don’t know if I want to live here any longer.It’s not like it can’t be fixed, it can be, but it will take a great deal of money, I just don’t see the town coming up with.”
“If I were mayor, I’d start with the most dangerous ones first.Like the lift for the pool and the sidewalks.”He asked about the pool and why to start there.“Because someone is going to think that swimming in a pool that has no lift for them is going to be a good idea and drown.That’s all the city needs: a lawsuit that will be millions of dollars.Same with the sidewalk.I’ve seen them; they are a danger to anyone who wants to take a walk along them.”
“What else would you do as mayor?I’m assuming that you’ve given this some thought.”He told him what else he would do.“You know I was thinking the same thing.Why aren’t the owners of these buildings boarding up their windows when they’re obviously broken out?Someone should have done that years ago.And not cardboard either.It needs to be really plywood covering them.”
Kings started a list of things that they were talking about.Some of them were silly things, like the sidewalk needed to have yellow cones around the trees, and the school needed a bounce house on the premises so that they could keep track of the teachers who would be leaving when the funding dried up.
It was still being talked about when the others joined them for dinner.Cassian and Brenin laughed the hardest when they spoke about the mayor being taken out by tar and feathering him.However, it was Tucker who said that the mayor was running for reelection in the coming months, and it would be a perfect time for Ace to be put in the position.
“I was joking.”No one wanted to hear how he’d been joking about becoming mayor and what he’d do.His ideas were spot on, and they were good ones to get them out of the situation they were currently in.“Look, I don’t even know if we can live here or not, and I’ve got a full-time job as it is.What am I supposed to do if I have to run around policing the area every day until things look better here?”
“You’d get to live in the house for free, and from what I understand, it’s a really nice house.Idon’t know if it’s furnished or not, but it wouldn’t be difficult to get that taken care of either.There’s also a car that you have access to, as well as staff that the city taxes pay for.At least for now.But if you start the race by saying all the things that you’re going to do without the funding from us, you’ll be loved right from the start.”He said that he didn’t want to be loved; he had a job.“That you can literally do from anywhere and in about ten seconds.You said that it’s no problem for you at all to find people and get things rolling in the direction that is needed.This would be the perfect job for you and your brother.”
“How did I get involved in this?”Tucker pointed out that Ace was going to need an assistant.“But why me?I have a job too, remember?”
“You could both still keep your jobs now.I think that the only requirement to be mayor is that you attend so many meetings a month.And anyone that is having a luncheon or breakfast is the only time that the mayor—what the hell is his name anyway?”He was told.“His name is Morgan Trail?Did someone actually name him that?”
“Apparently, his parents had a good sense of humor.”They all laughed about that as he was pulling the steaks and chicken off the grill.“I’m starving.All this talk about working has me worked up into starvation.”
There was plenty to eat.The eight of them had choices of salads from green to potato and macaroni.Besides water and tea, there was wine that they could enjoy as well as juices.The cook had gone all out in making them things to go with the meal, and he couldn’t have been happier.
After dinner, there were desserts as well.Ice cream, his favorite, as well as several different kinds of pies and two cakes, one chocolate and one yellow.Coffee was served along with more wine, and when they were finished with that, they went right back to talking about Ace becoming mayor for their little town.He certainly couldn’t do any worse than the one they had in the position now, Kings thought.
When everyone was headed home, he had a feeling that they’d convinced Ace that the job would be perfect for him.It had a good pay with it as well as perks they didn’t know of, too.As soon as he was up in the morning, he was going to take him downtown to fill out the application for running for the job.Hell, he’d even pay for all the signs that were going to be needed to keep him in office as well.It was going to be a good fit for everyone, and he thought that Ace wouldn’t be in their pockets all the time, too.
There had been mention of funding that could be gotten for small towns to use.Once Cassian looked it up, there was even funding for the pool lift that could have been used to purchase and put in.Not to mention the empty buildings that were all along the main street that needed to be taken care of, and the sidewalks could be repaired as well.There were nonrefundable application fees that went along with it, but if you got the money, it would be so much more than what they were paying to apply.
All in all, it had been a fun night.He only hoped that Ace took them seriously about his running for the position of mayor.He’d be a perfect fit with them, and things would get done on a good timeline as well.That’s just what they needed, too.
Chapter 6
