Page 170 of Story of My Life
“Imagine how much worse you are at it for me to be the one to say something.”
“Fine. I’ll think about it,” she said.
“That’s all I ask.”
We were approaching a curve in the trail.
“Ease up on the gas,” I advised. “You don’t have to keep it floored to get where you’re going.”
Hazel scoffed but did as she was told. “That is such a small-town thing to say.”
37
LET SLEEPING PIGS LIE
HAZEL
I walkedinto my second town meeting feeling like I wanted to barf. This was why I didn’t get involved in things. I put things down on paper and sent them into the world, where I didn’t have to see the audience and survive their immediate feedback. Tonight, I would be putting myself out there, and not through the safe distance of the pages of a book.
Clutching my emotional support notebook to my chest, I took a look around. Unlike my first meeting, tonight Pushing Up Daisies was a packed house. With no competing viewing, all three of the funeral home’s gathering rooms were opened into one large space. Apparently everyone wanted to see how the vote for chief of police had gone. As much as Levi didn’t want the job, I could only imagine how bad things would be with Emilie the fun police becoming the actual police.
“Hey.”
I turned and found Levi behind me. It was hard to tell through the beard and the black eye, but I thought he looked a little green around the gills.
“Oh, hey. Are you ready for the results, potential future chief?”
“No. Either I’ll end up responsible for everyone’s problems or we’ll all have to live with Emilie policing how we chew in public. Both options suck.”
That was a fairly long string of words for Levi to utter.
On cue, the woman in question marched into the room with her husband. They were wearing matchingDon’t Be a Chump Vote for RumpT-shirts. Garland was walking backward in front of them, snapping photos from his phone like a photographer desperate for one good smile out of a toddler before naptime.
I wrinkled my nose. “I think we both know this town is better off with you wearing the badge.”
Levi grunted.
“Hey, thanks for hanging my TV and finishing the weeding in the front yard today. You guys didn’t have to do that.” After avoiding Cam all day, I’d emerged bleary-eyed from my office with a finished presentation for the council and the outline of a pretty epic fight scene to find my house empty and my chore list significantly shorter.
Levi ducked his head. “That was mostly Cam. He’s trying to get back in your good graces.”
“Hmm.” It was the best response I could manage. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him back in my good graces, a.k.a. my bed. Well, technically we’d never actually made it to my bed.
Levi’s grin was brief but brilliant. “Keep torturing him,” he advised, before slipping away into the crowd.
I spotted Darius behind the moonshine table—this time it was raising money for little Zelda Springer’s therapy dog—and headed in his direction. A little liquid courage felt like a good idea tonight.
I got in line behind the broad shoulders of tow-truck-driving Gator Johnson.
“Well, if it isn’t Hazel Hart,” he said. “I downloaded one of your audiobooks. It ain’t half bad.”
“Really? I’d have taken you for a historical military fiction kind of guy.”
“I’m a man of many depths,” he insisted. “I enjoyed it. Heck, I had to pick up Scooter when his truck broke down, and we sat in the cab for an extra five minutes just to finish the chapter where Bethany saves the town’s oldest oak tree from the evil developer.”
A pang hit me in the center of my chest. Pride and loss were so intertwined at this point that I couldn’t tell which one was winning out.
“Thanks, Gator,” I said.
