Chapter 21 #3
Michael leveled a look at her over his glasses. “If you have a concern, Monica, say it precisely and be ready to back it up. Otherwise, that phrase is just fearmongering. And, I’ll say it, shitty.”
I’d never been so glad for search-and-rescue dogs.
“Now.” Michael eyed his Association colleagues.
“If you all don’t mind, I’d like to table the discussion about whether the Shailor-Chapmans are in breach of our code of conduct and revisit that in our next meeting”—Hodges nodded and noted something on his clipboard—“and return to the pitch at hand. I have a question for Mike.”
I made a bring it on gesture.
“Why’d you have to bring up the time I got lost in the woods again, mate?” he asked. “I was twelve and that has nothing to do with your farm animal business.”
I grinned. I’d been hoping he would ask, but I didn’t know he was going to do it moments after riding to my rescue like a fucking hero.
“Mate, I just thought it’d be a good idea to remind you what happened last time you didn’t listen to me when you should have. Strategy, yanno?”
Michael rolled his eyes, but his mouth twitched.
“All right, I think that’s enough questions.” Hodges pushed to his feet. “Mike, if you want to wait out in the entryway for us to quickly discuss among ourselves, we’ll call you back in when we’re ready to vote.”
I glanced around the room, thinking quickly.
I couldn’t leave things like this. The vote was teetering on a cliff edge. Even if I ignored Martin and fact-checked Monica, I already knew the town was worried about my rep, and it wouldn’t take much to set them off. I needed to get out in front of the criticism.
So I said, “Just one more detail. Did I tell you about the site?”
I hadn’t, because I didn’t have one.
At the expected head shakes, I announced with great fanfare, “Mike’s Place will be located at the old Blossom that’s why there were so many takeaway Levitate cups in the room.
My indecision wasn’t really about beverages though.
A peach pit of dread had formed in my belly when Monica and her husband had started in on me, and now the little fucker was sprouting.
Instead of being a good boy and making a coffee I wouldn’t drink, I ducked out of the hall and slipped around the corner to the doors that led up to the stage at the front of the hall.
When I went to this school, we’d had to queue up outside these doors for hours for end-of-year prize-giving (even though I didn’t get real prizes, just the participation certificates everyone got).
I slipped into the alcove by the stairs to the stage and pressed my ear to the door that led back into the auditorium. From here, I could hear every word perfectly.
“We’re going around in circles,” Hodges was saying. “Let’s just vote. All in favor of investing fifty thousand dollars in Mike’s Place for 24 percent equity?”
I needed a majority.
Monica and Martin were write-offs, obviously.
Hodges confirmed this when he said, “Two votes no from the Shailor-Chapmans. Fine. I’m a yes, and so are you, Michael. Good. Sarnia? Yes.”
“An emphatic yes,” Sarnia added. “Write down that I’m emphatic.”
The scratch of Hodges’s pen paused. “How about I just write keen ?”
“Come on, Brent, it’s not that hard to spell. E-m-p?—”
“Sarnia is very, very keen,” Hodges said slowly, his pen following his voice. Sarnia seemed to accept this.
Jason was a yes. Oz’s dad woke up for long enough to vote, and he voted no. This also wasn’t a surprise. That pickled cucumber hadn’t voted yes to anything since 2001.
That just left Oz and Lily.
I had four yeses and needed five.
I was so close.
Butterflies were twisting and flipping in my gut. After all this work, I was so close to being able to build my dream in the town I loved.
Oz was on Hodges’s left, so he got to vote next.
It didn’t matter to me if he voted no, I’d expected that.
But his behavior in the meeting had surprised me.
Maybe he would be decent and vote yes, for old times’ sake?
Oz and I had spent many hours at the pub together when we first turned eighteen, keeping our livers and Jase busy.
What was one little punch between old friends, after all?
“Are you sure, Oz?” Hodges asked, not asking him exactly what he was sure about, which was inconsiderate to eavesdroppers. “Absolutely sure?”
“I don’t think we can trust Mike with fifty thousand dollars,” Oz said.
Piece of shit. I should have punched him harder.
“Sure, he remembers some dumb stories from our childhoods,” Oz continued, “but we remember stories about him too. Recent stories. A few weeks ago, Keri pulled him over for public indecency with that American girl he’s moved into his house.
Did you all hear about that? And yesterday, Tom saw them at the public fair; he was feeling her up in front of the whole damn town.
She straddled him. In public!” There was the sound of a hand meeting the thick kind of puffer jacket Oz was wearing.
“Ow, Sarnia! Don’t slap, it’s true. Not to mention, Mike decked me after our last rugby game because he couldn’t take a joke.
I was going to let it go because I’m not a grudge-holding kind of guy—Sarnia!
No!” he warned, suggesting she was threatening violence again.
“Look, I know Mike’s a charming guy and we all like him.
Everyone likes him. But we also know he’s a loose cannon, and the moment a pretty girl gives him the eye, he loses his shit.
He’s like Hodges’s stud bull when one of the heifers is in season. We like him, but we can’t trust him.”
There were murmurs. I couldn’t hear the specifics, but I knew it wasn’t good. A sinking feeling of defeat was threatening to settle on my shoulders.
Still, I pressed closer to the door, straining to hear Lily’s soft voice. Hers was the only opinion that mattered now. Everything rested on her angular little postie shoulders.
Oz went for the jugular. “Mike Holliday is a PR disaster. Do I need to remind you all about the incident with the destination wedding bride?”
Finally I heard Lily’s voice. She finished the rest of the story. “Mike had sex with the bride on the morning of her wedding.”
Like that, I knew I’d lost her vote.
It was over.
That particular incident hadn’t even been my fault!
I didn’t know the woman was getting married that fucking afternoon; she neglected to mention it.
But Oz had high-fived me and acted like it was a race between us to fuck every Woodville tourist, and so everyone had thought I’d deliberately set out to nail a bride.
I should have left the Woodville School Hall at that moment—I should have turned on my heel and made a dignified exit, holding on to whatever shreds of self-respect I had left.
But I didn’t.
The stage door flew open under my shove, and I was striding to the front of the hall before I could think better of it.
“That’s how it is, huh?”
Hodges stood. “Mike, calm down?—”
“It’s all good, I hear you, loud and clear. I just want to say something to Oz real quick.”
The two-bit asshole looked at me, satisfaction written all over his face.
“You’re an absolute stain, mate.”
But the words weren’t strong enough. Some of Lyssa’s popped into my head and I drew myself up to my full height.
“Oscar Wylie, you are a villainous pigeon turd. A crusty-faced goon. Away, you bull’s pizzle!”
Then I left.