Chapter 16 Sebastian #2
He knew it was about more than Saved by the Bell , of course.
That had been low-hanging fruit. They were of the same generation and he’d been sitting in a trademark A.C.
Slater way. What other reference could she have possibly made?
No, the bonding had happened before that.
Something had changed. Maybe it had happened
in the moment when he realized she didn’t look around to see if anyone was watching or if Orly was filming her emotional reunion
with Doc. Maybe it came from that little bit of empathy that had slipped in regarding her on-air failure or the way she had
grabbed his arm to stabilize herself and he had involuntarily tensed in response to her touch. Or maybe he had just chosen
her as the lesser of two evils in a head-to-head battle with Bill Kimball. Whatever had caused it, he needed to get himself
in check.
“She sure is pretty,” Andi said in a low voice.
Okay. There it was. That got him in check.
His head snapped up. “That has nothing to do with anything.”
She shrugged. “Didn’t say it did.” A smirk spread across her face.
Sebastian sighed and rolled his eyes as he pushed off the floor with his fingers and rose to his feet. Once he had brushed
off the back of his pants—as if the meticulously tidy Andi Franklin would ever allow dirt or crumbs on her kitchen floor—he
offered his hand to his cheeky friend and pulled her up.
“I think you know me well enough by now to know a pretty face is not going to turn my head.” Even if, admittedly, Brynn’s
beauty was worthy of a full one-eighty. But Andi was pretty. Laila was pretty. He was not a man who was weakened by a woman’s
appearance. He hadn’t been for a long time.
“Well, sure, but when you combine her looks with her kindness. Golly... that girl-next-door sweetness... not to mention
loyalty and integrity. And brains!” She was trying to keep a serious expression on her face and failing. “I can see why you,
of all people, would bond with someone whose job it is to sit on a couch and show off her shoes.”
“You’re being mean.”
“Yeah, and you’re being a man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on, Seb. You were being a self-proclaimed jerk to her literally minutes ago. Do you really want to stand there and
tell me you’re back here hiding for any reason other than she worked the same magic on you she’s worked on most of the world?”
She patted him on the arm and crossed back to the stove to stir her soup. “That’s fine. It is. Just relax and indulge your
little crush. But don’t forget that three days ago she pretty much spat on a whole town of people who have done nothing to
deserve it. A bunch of people who had every right to turn on her twenty years ago but instead insist that television out there
is tuned to Sunup every weekday because it’s not in their nature to do anything other than cheer her on. That’s all I’m saying.”
She was right, of course. But she couldn’t have been more off base in her insinuations that he’d forgotten or stopped caring
about any of that. He cared more than ever. Like he’d said to Doc, he both hated and missed the life he had left behind. Brynn
embodied a lot of the bad and a bit of the good, but some of the best was the feeling that there was a lead worth following. That you didn’t judge a book by its cover, you didn’t take a source
at their word, and you could never be satisfied with someone else’s version of a story.
It had been so long since he’d felt the rush of unearthing a lead, so he was rusty, but he knew in his gut that somewhere
behind all the defenses, Brynn Cornell was a story worth pursuing.
“I’d better get back out there.”
Andi grabbed a clean spoon from the drawer next to the oven, dipped the tip into the pot, and handed it to Sebastian to taste.
“Yeah, you’d better. I don’t care what she’s done or who she is. She doesn’t deserve to be torn apart by Old Man Kimball.”
***
Laughter. He really hadn’t expected to walk back in to the sound of laughter. But so it was. It was all so jarring that it took Sebastian
a moment to figure out from where and whom exactly it was coming, and then the discovery sent his discombobulation over the
edge.
“Hey, Seb,” Doc greeted him. Doc—who was not laughing.
Jo scooted her chair back and stood, grabbing her jacket from the back of her seat as she did. “I think we’re about finished
here.” No laughter there either.
“It’s good to have you back,” Bill said as he stood, laughter... having recently subsided? Could that be right?
A somewhat creeped-out grin spread across Sebastian’s face. “What did I miss?” An old Buster Keaton film? A George and Gracie
radio show? A roomful of wedgies and purple nurples? He really had no idea what made Bill Kimball laugh.
His ear tuned to the lilting, higher-octaved accompaniment, and then he turned his head to look at Brynn. Sure enough, she
was the other laugher. Their eyes met and hers grew wide, as if to communicate, “Who’d have thunk it?”
“We were just catching up,” Brynn answered as she became the final one to stand. “Old times, good memories... stuff like
that. It’s been really great.”
Jo came around the table and stood by Sebastian and Brynn. “You should tell Sebastian about the offer you just made. I think
he’ll be interested to hear.”
“Oh, I don’t know that he would—”
“Well,” Jo interrupted, “whether he’s interested or not, he’s the fourth member of council. So he needs to be filled in before
the vote.” She slapped Sebastian on the back and squeezed through the gap between them to head to the door.
“What vote?” Sebastian looked from Jo back to Brynn. “What is she talking about?”
The smile on Brynn’s face was appearing less genuine by the second—bright, toothy, and camera ready. “I’m going to do what
I can to help support the return of Township Days. Isn’t that great?”
Oh no.
“You mean...”
“She said if the date is set before the end of the week, she’ll announce it on Sunbeam .”
“ Sunup , Bill,” Doc corrected. “The show is called Sunup .”
Sebastian grimaced. “Well, that’s just fine and dandy.” He plastered on a smile that he hoped came across every bit as authentic
as hers. “But we don’t have a council meeting scheduled this week.”
“According to the bylaws, as long as all members of the council are notified no more than...”
Sebastian stopped listening once Bill started quoting specific guidelines and resolutions. When the rules were Bill’s friend,
they were sacred, inexorable mandates. What is she doing? Never mind. Scratch that. He knew exactly what she was doing. Brynn Cornell was a master at making people like her. That’s
all that mattered, right? It didn’t matter how fake she had to be, or what sort of mess she left in her wake for others to
clean up. She’d promised what she had to in order to win over the grumpiest man west of the Mississippi.
Bill was still prattling on about articles and sections and quorums, but that didn’t even matter. Sebastian had known that
Brynn’s last-minute visit was nothing more than a stay of execution on the vote, but he’d thought it would buy him more than
a few hours. Whatever. It really didn’t matter. Things were going to play out regardless. But he couldn’t help but be disappointed
in her.
“You’re pushing for the return of Township Days?”
She squared her shoulders and kept the smile intact. “Well, sure! It was always such a special event for this town, and I think it will be really great to—”
“Don’t you know any other words?!” Apart from switching it up and going with “great” instead of “precious,” nothing had changed
from the day before. Wow . He was out of practice. His journalistic gut instinct had died, apparently. At the very least, it was enjoying its retirement
somewhere on a beach, drinking frozen beverages with little umbrellas in them.
Well, he might have been mistaken about something inside himself having been awakened, but something had sure come to life
in her all of a sudden. The Morning TV Host Barbie smile fell away as her fists slammed onto her hips.
“Why can’t you let me have this? Why do you care? You didn’t bother staying in here while we were talking, so I don’t think
you have any right not to like the way the conversation went. If you’d been here, you could have—”
“If I’d been here, Brynn, I would have called you on your crap. You realize that, right?”
“ Excuse me ? Why, because you think you know me or something?”
“No, because it was only about seventy-five hours ago when the whole world heard you make fun of this town’s interest in ‘colonial
times.’ Isn’t that how you said it? ‘Obsessed with colonial times’? Even allowing for our collective ‘twelve brain cells,’
how stupid do you think we are, to think you came around”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but he was done. And not just with the conversation.
He looked around at his fellow city councilors and then focused in on Doc. “I’m sorry, but I’m out. Someone else can babysit
from this point on.”