Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HARMONY
She’d gotten what she wanted. Her plan was back on track, after a detour through Tweedland. Harmony was waiting in the carpeted hallway outside the main offices at town hall with her complete stack of documentation ready for Travis Weaver, and soon she’d have this scheme humming along again.
So why did she have that gut feeling that warned her when a con had gone wrong and she needed to get out before she got trapped?
When the secretary invited her to go through, Harmony stood and gave her shoulders a shake. Preston had thrown her off her game. She had that in hand now. While she wasn’t a fan of being tossed out the other morning, he was absolutely right that she didn’t belong in his neat little life. And that was fine. She hadn’t come this far to make breakfast in some house in Brookville. She’d been aiming for this revenge for years, and she was the one leading this parade.
Even with the lease signed, though, she couldn’t just ditch Preston. She needed to keep up the act she’d established somehow. She’d been flirting with him for weeks. Plus, Sarah Lessner and Bonnie Kelton had commented at Buzzed that morning about her and Preston dancing, and about seeing her with his bike in the back of Furiosa (after she’d picked that lock). Small towns. That was why she’d asked him to accompany her around to vendors.
And she really could use the help, not to make the festival a success but to rope in as many locals as possible—merchants, or performers, or their parents—to really put the squeeze on Travis once the festival was in danger.
She kept this in the forefront of her mind as she marched into his office.
Travis was fussing with some papers in a folder and left her standing there in her favorite teal jumpsuit. Like she hadn’t used this power move a dozen times herself. Uninvited, Harmony swung her purse onto the back of a chair and slung herself onto its cushions, crossing her legs and resting on one elbow. “Great to see you, Mr. Mayor. Been experiencing more of your little town.” She gazed vaguely out the window and its view of the town square, as if not entirely sure which mayor she was meeting with, in which town. “It’s darling.”
Travis shut his folder. “I’d started wondering if we’d be seeing you. Or if you were just a lot of hot air flashing in the pan.”
“Oh, I’m hot, but the festival is very real.” Harmony gave half a smirk. Like nothing in this room was worth too much of her energy. All his diplomas and awards and commendations from local service groups hanging behind him? Real cute. But he was playing with the big girls now. “And a hot commodity itself. I took a few tours around the area, saw a few prospective sites out west of Cranton, took a few lovely dinners with its mayor and stakeholders out that way.” She drew a file from her folio and glanced at it. “But ultimately Rhythmic feels the Brookville site offers the strongest potential, and we’re ready to move forward with planning.” She dropped the folder on Travis’s desk. “Everything you’ll need for permitting.”
“This is still a major decision.” Travis wrapped one hand over the other. “And we have to take the wishes of the community into consideration. They tend to have strong opinions about new enterprises in town.” He huffed through his nose, and Harmony imagined he’d been busy putting out the fire she’d set on top of his new arcade.
“I think you’ll find public sentiment is not only in favor, but will demand the opportunities the festival offers.”
“True,” he said grudgingly. “My wife hasn’t let up about this.”
That at least had gone exactly to plan the last few weeks. Maybe even enough to entice Travis into biting. Harmony wouldn’t mind getting her hands on a chunk of his money upfront. Faking an event bigger than any before required laying out plenty of deposits to really sell the ruse, and her own funds would be stretched thin. Recrossing her legs, she leaned forward. “I shouldn’t really mention this here, where you’re acting in your capacity as a public servant, but I just have to say, if you wanted to come on board as a sponsor, Rhythmic would be happy to offer prime billing—”
Travis wagged a finger. “I never invest my own money in speculative ventures. If an idea is good enough, it’ll have wings.”
At which point he’d happily scoop it up in his net and take all the credit and profit. It’d been worth a shot. But fine, she’d just be sure to have plenty of people ready to scream at him when their investments were threatened, when their babies were losing their chance at performing and internships—why, their very futures . He was going to become the sponsor—the savior—of the festival eventually. Then Harmony would make sure local businesses who’d paid fees or done work prepping for the event were paid back thanks to that cash. Everyone would get what they deserved.
For now she just smiled at him. Gave him the focused attention she’d withheld till now. “Like your own brilliant work.” She drove every drop of vigor she possessed into her gaze, locked on Travis’s beady blue eyes. Daring him to recognize her. Or recognize the partner who had made his success possible.
He acknowledged only himself with a nod. “Built everything I have myself.”
“A real bootstrapper.” She’d like to swing a boot right at Travis’s smug face. Titus Andronicus him. She nudged her papers forward. “Get back to me ASAP. Rhythmic is looking to announce the headliner and dates by next month.”
She strode out of town hall with her fingers clenching the fine leather of her purse, her steps sure in her Louboutins. She was tall and confident and held the reins of power and knew just how to tug them. She was not the little girl who’d listened to her father begging Travis to give him a crumb of his own work for pity’s sake. She was the woman who would steal it all back.
She considered taking Furiosa for a drive through the countryside. Let the wind in her hair and the music blasting on her speaker erase the bad taste of Travis. Speed away from her problems, at least for a while, like she always did.
The library beckoned from across the green. She headed there instead, past the fountain’s statue wearing a Giants hat and jersey, and wandered in, looking for Preston, who wasn’t at the front counter. It was an old retrofitted building, with oddly sized doorframes leading off to different collections and funny little corners and two sets of spiral stairs. Under the one near the children’s section, a bench with leather cushions had been built into the curve for a reading nook. This was where she found Preston, reading Pug on a Rug aloud to preschoolers each sitting on a small square of carpet spread over the floor. Except for one kid, who had climbed onto the bench beside Preston, and leaned against him to see the book up close as he held it high for the group. Each time before turning a page, he angled the book to be sure the boy could see.
Preston was wearing a cream-colored cable-knit sweater today that looked so soft Harmony wouldn’t have minded cuddling up against it herself, nestling her head against Preston’s chest and dammit , yeah, she was attracted to Preston. Who knew why she’d avoided picking up her usual type the entire time she’d been in Brookville and instead settled on Mister Freaking Rogers over there, but fine. If he was game she’d take him for the ride of his life, give him a summer to remember, and he could recall her fondly once she’d left him to his tidy routines she didn’t fit into.
Though the uncertainty of hitting the road again this time, once she’d gotten her revenge against Travis, was like a blur she was avoiding looking at too directly. She was grateful when the kids on the floor erupted into a chorus of woofs and acted out something from the page Preston was reading. Her phone pinged; she glanced at it to see an email from Travis already, providing initial approval of her application. For all his power-tripping, he knew the town couldn’t let this opportunity pass. Victory surged through her, like the rising voices of the children reciting after each page Preston read, in zanier iterations that only ended with the book, as they howled from their spots on their rugs.
She waited while the chatty parents with books in hand gradually pulled their children away for promised snacks out on the square or nap times or whatever else you did with slightly unformed humans that size. One last little girl was still barking at Preston as he gathered up the remaining books that had been propped along the bench on display. “You’re kidding me,” he said in reply. “Really?”
“ Bark !”
“That’s amazing.”
“ Bark ! Bark !”
“Well, I agree. Obviously.” He held out Pug on a Rug. “Want to take the book home?”
The girl beamed a smile, barked a yes (apparently), and grabbed the book, then ran back over to her bemused looking adult.
Preston ducked under a mobile of flying pigs and elephants and spotted Harmony, the serious expression he’d given the puppy-girl landing on her. Not pissed or cold, she was realizing. Simply intent. Considering. Watchful. Preston had a major case of resting bitch face, but the way he squashed a smile down as he walked over to her, books tucked against his side in one big hand … Like how he’d waited stone-faced after apologizing, seeming to brace for the worst. She suspected now he was just extremely practiced at holding himself back.
What would happen if that studious restraint broke? If he turned all that observant dedication on her during activities definitely not appropriate for storytime?
Maybe it wasn’t such a mystery why she wanted him.
“Hey,” he greeted her.
“Hi. I’m checking out a Thai place Sarah Lessner recommended—got time on your lunch break to come along?” She would ignore the mystery of why her stomach swooped while she waited to see if he’d put her off again, like the other day.
That guarded look lasted another beat before his brows lifted and he nodded. “Oh, god, yes, rescue me from the leftovers in the staff fridge.” Preston dropped the books on a nearby cart. “We tried making these zucchini meatballs last night and, well. There’s a reason there were leftovers.”
“Sarah recommended a couple things there,” Harmony said as Preston grabbed his bag from behind the counter. “But looking their catering menu up online they have, like, eleventy dishes, and I’ve never been super into Thai so I have no idea where to start.”
“I will help by ordering whatever-half-of-eleventy-is things,” Preston said like a vow. “I don’t really get to go anymore because Lacey’s not into it either.” He held the door open for her and his hidden smile surfaced a little, feeling like more of a win than the quick polite ones she’d seen him pull out for library patrons. Like the sunlight they stepped into. “But I know what I like.”