Page 62 of Cherry Picked
“Uh. What?” I glanced up at Jack, but he pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“Never mind,” she said, waving a hand. “You survived your ordeal, and that’s really all that matters.” She clasped her hands to her chest. “I told Emma you’re… kind of my hero.”
“Uh.What?” I repeated.
Beside me, Jack’s body shook with suppressed laughter.
“So, like… I know you’re basically a famous environmental activist now, and you probs have, like, way important friends and all, but can we get a selfie together? The other Peakies will be so jealous.”
“Uhhhhhh… whaaaat?” I said for a third time.
Jack was full-on chortling, bent over so his face was pressed into my shoulder.
“Please?” she begged.
“Oh… kay?”
Gracie sighed happily, like I’d just made her entire day. She came up beside me, wrapped her arm around my waist, and before I had a chance to fix my face or even look at her phone camera, she snapped three quick pictures. “Thank you so much, Hawk!”
Jack straightened. “Gracie,” he said, soberly enough to grab her attention. “If you’re posting that pic on Instagram, please remember to use the Save Fogg Peak hashtags that Hawk’s been using, okay? Amplify Hawk’s message while you’re doing your selfie thing.”
“Oh gosh, of course,” she agreed, wide-eyed. “No, like, I’m totally committed to the effort now. I’m Peaky forlife.”
“You’re…?” I frowned.
“Peaky. You know, a person who supports saving the Peak? I convinced my mom to talk to her bridge club and her bunco ladies about it,” she said proudly. “Mom says they’re having a joint meeting about it tomorrow at Panini Jack’s—”
I looked up at Jack in surprise. “They are?”
“I let lots of organizations hold their meetings at the diner.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal… but it was averybig deal to me. I knew he’d turned Helena Fortnum down when she’d tried to hand out flyers from the Environmental Committee at the diner earlier this year.
“—so, like, I was wondering if Save Fogg Peak has an official merch shop where we could buy T-shirts? Or is that something I could help out with?” Gracie asked.
Merchandise? Really?
“Y-yeah. Sure. You could definitely help out,” I agreed.
“Sick! Thanks, Hawk!” With that, she ran off as abruptly as she’d come over.
“Jack?” I demanded, staring after her. “Did that just happen?”
“You mean, are the young people of the Hollow treating you like a celebrity because you had a kick-ass idea and you executed it? Yep. That definitely happened.”
I turned to look at him. “Careful. You’re starting to sound like you support the cause.”
Jack grinned. “I supportyou.You’re doing good work, Bird, and I’m proud of you… even if your happily ever after in this particular case looks a little different from mine.”
“I think I’ve spent so long focusing on this one thing I wanted that I thought the no votewasthe happily ever after. I forgot that the story didn’t end there,” I admitted. “If this development gets canceled, what kind of oversight do we want to guarantee before we consider a new one? What kind of developmentwouldbe okay? I don’t know. But I told you I’m going to meet up with Simon for dinner sometime, maybe even this week, and he promised me information on Evola’s environmental monitoring of their recent build sites. That might be a good jumping-off point to start figuring things out.”
“And you reallywillonly be talking about the development at this dinner,” Jack said in that overly casual, not-at-all-casual way of his.
I grinned. “What do you think?”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “I think… it sounds like you’ve got a busy week coming up, Hawkins.”
“Oh yeah. I’ve got a campout protest to continue, alternate proposals to consider, an Instagram campaign to keep up with, an octogenarian Hooker to pin down, a job at the diner to get back to—assuming my boss still wants me—and a hike with the Mini Scouts. I’m swamped.” I gave him a sideways look. “From what I saw at the diner earlier, you’re gonna be run off your feet this week, too, eh?”
“No question.” He darted a sideways look at me, then glanced at the rows of tables we hadn’t yet visited. “How hungry are you, baby?”
