Page 10 of Wildly Yours
“I don’t want to take it. I know how much you like cake.”
“I can’t find anything to put it in and I don’t want to eat it before I have dinner.”
My hand is still holding the cake between us, willing him to take it if only so I can stop feeling weird. So much like old times.
He grabs the cake and just as I release my hand, my finger brushes against his. The touch isn’t electric—not like a shock, anyway. It’s like I just touched my grounding wire after years of being dangerously ungrounded.
Damn Cody Barone.
“So Blake Johnson is going after you, huh?”
That’s one way to kill the mood. Or whatever that was.
“He seems to think I’m not representing the community I was elected to serve. But after five public hearings on the library, we made a decision. Not once did he speak up at those meetings. Not once did he offer an alternative solution. But now he is making the use of rainy day funds for the library one of his main talking points.”
“I think I can help you out.”
“What? Why?”
“What do you mean, why? It’s the least I can…”
“Finish that sentence, Cody.”
“So now we’re back on a first name basis?”
Heat is taking over my body. In the last hour, I’ve been physically close to Cody for longer than I have for nearly a decade, and I feel memories flush through my system. Anger is filling in the cracks that have been there since he smashed me open seven years ago. When he withdrew the breath from my lungs with his words. I want to know why he turned his back on me.
“Finish the sentence.”
I watch his face contort again. If I weren’t straddling the space between rage and exasperation, I would find this funny. He’s out of his depth and I like it.
“Look. Serena, I…”
I cross my arms over my chest, waiting. Just as he opens his mouth to apologize, to explain why he did what he did, Meredith walks in and interrupts us.
“I’m heading out. Do you need anything else before I go?”
She looks between Cody and I, and takes a step back as if she can feel the energy that is crackling between us.
“Thanks Meredith. That’s it for the day.”
She backs out of my office in a hurry, and I set my gaze back on Cody. But instead of finishing the conversation, he’s stuffing the documents in his coat pocket and following Meredith out the door. Just as he is about to pass out of my sight he turns back around.
“I look forward to seeing you again.” His head dips down like he’s trying to find something he dropped. “You know, with the files.”
Chapter Six: Cody
Somehow Serena and I managed a truce for more than an hour and then I had to go and screw it up. I don’t know why I can’t be straight with her. She deserves the truth about what happened all those years ago, but all I can manage is being a fucking coward. There is no one else who makes me fear judgement like her. No one else who I don’t want to disappoint more than her. And no one else who makes me feel hope like she does, before I remember who I am and what I’m capable of.
And if I'm being honest with myself, there no one else who I want to be with, to bask in their presence, more thanher.
I climb into my truck and drive to the park where I work and live. Other than the mining operation on the adjacent land, it’s paradise. There’s almost no one else up here because there’s only one small campground. Everyone else who works here lives in town, so most of the year it’s just me, the frogs and birds, and the dark starry sky.
I park next to the visitor center and check in with the volunteers who are finishing their shifts. You gotta love retired people. They are some of the most passionate volunteers acommunity can have, and our park would not run right without them, mostly because of all the budget cuts over the years that have left us on a bare bones crew. Which means without making any phone calls to the state agencies that fund parks, I already know there isn’t going to be any money to buy Mr. Miller’s land.
I lock up the center and lay all the documents I got from Serena on my desk before firing up my aging desktop computer. Everything around here needs fixing or replacing, and the weight of it all starts to press against my mind.
Where am I going to get the money? And how am I going to help Serena? Guys like Blake Johnson require a certain type of handling. He’s got some outdated ideas about the world that she’s too kind-hearted to see. He won’t say it in public, but I know he doesn’t have a problem with the library so much as he doesn’t approve of a woman being mayor of this town.
