Chapter 2 Xaden #4
I cut across the square, weaving through the slow-moving crowd. That’s when I spot James Lexington III walking beside the guy from Savage Amen. They’re strolling down the street, looking very smug, arms brushing and heads bent close.
Lexington looks half-scandalized, half… lustful.
Morales looks half-lustful, half… nope, it’s lust all the way.
None of my business. But also, funny. I wish I could tell Cole.
I turn toward Baywood Beans, needing a word with the Bloom sisters. A few days ago, I watched Willard stroll in, help himself to coffee and a donut, tip his hat like he owned the place, and then walk out without paying. No tab. No greeting.
Dorothy and Delilah didn’t even blink. But they didn’t look happy, either.
Before I can reach the café, the door jingles open.
Cole steps out. With Noah. And Elaine Hudson.
They’re each holding iced drinks and looking very committed to the “sip and stroll” part of today’s festivities.
Elaine is every inch the small-town belle in her fifties: elegant, composed, and not a strand of her bun out of place.
She’s always been polite to me. Pointedly polite. The kind that coats judgment in honey. Once, during dinner, she looked me dead in the eye and asked if I was friends with “Caspian, the wonderful, darling boy Cole likes so much.”
I said, “Not really.”
Cole said, “Mom, come on.”
Her hair is wavy underneath all that smoothing spray. Just like Cole’s. Just like Lizzie’s. Like Noah’s.
I step behind the statue of Mayor Billings, feeling half like a stalker and half like a ghost.
Cole’s in sweatpants, low on his hips, clinging just right.
That alone would knock the air out of me, but then someone squeezes past him, and his shirt rides up, showing just a flash of bare skin.
A sliver of sunlight on his stomach. It’s such a Cole thing: bold without meaning to be, leaving me wrecked without even noticing.
The memory montage crashes in before I can stop it. Every kiss, every push and pull — him straddling me one moment, blushing and bolting the next. I should’ve told him yesterday: it’s not just him looking at me. I do too. Always have.
But it’s not just lust. It’s everything. He’s my everything.
I watch them head the other way.
Stay rooted for a while. Breathe in. Square my shoulders.
I have a job to do.
COLE
After sipping and strolling until our feet begged for mercy, we had dinner at my parents’.
Noah, who usually treats anything green like a personal insult, ate three helpings of what my mom proudly called Jurassic Sunset Surprise. It was roasted carrots, glazed Brussels sprouts, and some kind of sweet potato mash sculpted into what looked exactly like a stegosaurus.
“You know,” Mom told Noah conspiratorially, “they found fossilized squash seeds in a T-Rex’s nest once.”
“Wow,” Noah said. And ate every bite. I felt like taking notes.
Later, while I was loading the dishwasher, Mom gave me a folded sheet, tapping her nose in conspiracy. The sheet was color-coded and titled Acceptable Lies for Nutritional Success. The same one she apparently used when Lizzie and I were little.
It was a parenting masterpiece. The columns included dish names, real ingredients, suggested backstory and appropriate age range. One, underlined as Cole’s favorite, read: Space Ranger Fuel Pasta = Kale pesto + zucchini noodles. Backstory: Official dinner of astronauts aged 5–7.
I glanced at Mom admiringly. “You’ve been weaponizing vegetables for decades.” She just sipped her wine and said, “All is fair in love and vitamins.”
Dessert came with gossip.
“Steve Pell’s latest plan is to turn the old garden center into an open-air nightclub,” Mom reported between bites of chocolate cake. “Luckily, Harold’s already banned open-air clubbing within town limits.”
Without a pause: “Earl’s Finnish friend is visiting in September, and poor Earl is beside himself, trying to build a guest room into that glorified shed he calls a bachelor pad. I’m taking over that project. Taupe walls. Timeless. Soothing. Neutral, like the Finns.”
“Isn’t Switzerland neutral?” Dad asked mildly.
“That’s what I said. Europe,” she replied. Then: “Did you see the scantily clad man James was strolling with? James looked one step away from dragging him behind a rose bush for disciplinary action.”
I coughed. Hard.
The house is dim now, lit only by one lamp.
The warm light glances off the beveled coffee table, the antique stools Mom scored at an estate sale, the crystal candy dish perched on its lace doily.
I cringe, remembering how I once filled it with walnuts.
Xaden was coming over — the first time as my boyfriend — and I was so nervous I accidentally became Martha Stewart.
In the far corner, the piano waits with its slightly yellowed keys. Clair de Lune is open on the stand. I wonder if Mom’s started playing again.
Noah wanted to play hide-and-seek, but I just found him asleep on the couch under Mom’s throw blanket.
“You should stay the night,” she says, already heading for extra pillows.
I want to protest, because staying here always feels like I’m slipping into a too-small version of myself, but I’m too tired.
“Okay,” I say, and her happy smile catches me off guard.
Upstairs in my room, I settle on the floor beside the bed, the way I used to whenever Xaden was here.
My old posters still line the walls: Hozier, Troye Sivan, Blondie.
I feel the old itch to strum something.
I long for my guitar, for Xaden here next to me. I want to sing him some of his favorites, like This Night or Apocalypse. I wonder if he still likes them.
Suddenly my thoughts make a sharp turn, back to the whispered conversation I overheard earlier when Mom and Dad thought I was out of earshot.
“You have to come clean,” Mom had said, voice low and sharp. Dad’s reply was too quiet to catch.
And then there’s what I saw in South Ridge.
Willard talking with JJ and Ronnie. Not arresting them. Laughing.
I wake too early to coffee drifting upstairs.
Dad’s at the table with his crossword and favorite pen. “Morning,” I mumble.
“Morning,” he replies, eyes still scanning the puzzle. “There’s coffee.”
We sip in silence until I ask, “What’s the deal with Willard?”
Dad doesn’t flinch. “What do you mean?”
“He was here the other night, for that awkward dinner. It feels like he’s everywhere lately.”
“Well, he’s the town sheriff,” Dad says evenly. “No concern of yours.” Dismissive. Like always. Upstairs, Noah’s voice calls out, breaking the moment.
Dad’s smiling. But he’s hiding something. No doubt about it.
The house feels warm and safe, like it always has, with coffee, creaky floors, Noah’s laugh drifting down the stairs.
But safety’s only as strong as the people holding it.
And if Dad’s tied up with Willard somehow, then none of this is safe at all.
Not for me. Not for Noah. Especially not for Xaden.
XADEN
By my third mile, the Bloom sisters’ words are sitting heavy in my chest.
They’ve let Willard crawl so deep into their lives that free donuts and forced silence have become routine.
“It’s not about the money,” Dorothy said, cheeks pink. “It’s about power.”
Delilah just nodded, resigned, and gave me a list of names: Ann-Sabrina, Steve, Earl, Mickey… almost every business owner in town.
“But you didn’t hear this from us,” she added in a hushed voice, “or he’ll confiscate our Sudoku grids.”
I cut my run short, cooling down with a slow walk past the strip of shops on Main.
I peek inside Fenton’s Books and spot Ann-Sabrina behind the counter, dressed in full emerald-and-gold regalia like she just stepped out of a fantasy court. She’s wearing a tiara. Could be fake, could be real, you never know with her.
“Hi Xaden, you’re all sweaty,” she says, fanning herself with a paperback.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I say, running my fingers through my damp hair.
She just giggles. “Don’t be sorry.” She leans forward conspiratorially. “Would you like to accompany me to The Annual Fae Summit and Live Action Role-Play Picnic next month?”
“I probably shouldn’t. Considering the only word I understood was ‘picnic’,” I say, rubbing my neck.
Ann-Sabrina squeals with laughter as if I was joking. “I was just pulling your leg, I already have a date. Rhysand. Not his real name, obviously. It’s Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald Smith. But you should totally come. There’s archery, and swords… which reminds me. Are you available for a hit job?”
I blink. “What kind of hit job?”
Her eyes narrow. “Willard’s been threatening to review my event permits. Every summer he does this. Just strolls in here, makes little comments about fire codes and safety inspections. Like my fake swords are some kind of public menace.”
“That’s—”
“Devastating,” she fills in on my behalf. “So, I was thinking… you and Willard, a duel at the summit. Real swords. An unfortunate accident.”
I keep my face neutral. “That’s not really my area.”
“Fine, be boring,” she sighs. Then she perks up. “Would you mind posing for me in front of the Shadow Daddy altar? For my social media? It could bring a swarm of new customers in.”
“That’s not really my area, either,” I say, half-exasperated, half-amused.
Stepping back out into the sunlight, I shake my head.
This is just another dot in the same pattern: people keeping their heads down, adjusting their lives, all so Willard can keep his boots clean.
If I’m going to take Willard down, I need something that won’t sound like a joke in a courtroom.
I go to Earl’s next. He opens the door halfway and immediately blanches.
“Did Cole tell you about the pictures?” he gasps. “Please don’t hurt me — I have a Finnish pen pal! Technically, we’ve advanced to Zoom. We’re Zooming now!”
“Earl,” I say, already regretting this.
“I mean it! Maija is right there on the screen!” He points frantically toward a cluttered table. “She’s a witness!”
“Hello, Xaden,” says a calm, amused voice. On the laptop, a woman in her forties studies me with interest.
“Why does your Zoom pal know my name?” I ask.