Chapter 5
Chapter Five
TINSLEY
Kylie sits down with the plate of mozzarella sticks, placing it between Katherine and me. I dip mine in ranch, and she goes for the marinara sauce.
“You girls good?” Kylie asks.
“Well—”
“With food,” Kylie cuts me off.
“I suppose.” We already put our dinner order in, but I can’t bring myself to not order appetizers. It’s a compulsion that I stopped trying to fight years ago.
“We need to make final plans for your birthday,” Katherine reminds me.
“Not feeling it.” I shrug. Plus, I know she has them already.
“Not feeling it? You’re turning twenty-one! We can party it up.”
“We’ve been partying it up since high school.”
“There were maybe three parties our senior year, and they always got busted up.”
This is true. New Hope has two cops, a sheriff and a deputy. The sheriff is married to one of my favorite people in the world, Kindred. The woman knows everything. I haven't gotten a chance to corner her yet, but her time will come.
Two cops are two too many around here. We love them both, but they did always bust up our parties, although they’d give us a few hours before they shooed us along.
Except for that one time I sent Sheriff Hudson on a wild goose chase, planting information that the party was at one location and then another.
We got an extra hour that night. I might have had more fun messing with Hudson than I did at the party.
It was all in good fun. With him moving to New Hope all those years ago and then marrying Kindred, he's turned into an uncle figure more than anything. He’s set the bar pretty high when it comes to how a man should treat a woman. I love the way he loves Kindred.
"I’m good with whatever. Dinner." The one and only bar in this town. Unless you count the small ones inside restaurants or a couple of the B you never know.’"
"And I'd come back the next day all—'oops, my bad.’"
"I think you should do it."
Katherine's shoulder drops. "But all that science. Not sure it's really for me."
"That's all right, we'll come up with something else, but that doesn't mean we can't live together."
"I mean, I suppose."
"You don't want to live with me," I scoff.
"I didn't say that! You know my grandparents.
They'd be heartbroken if I moved out." She's full of shit, but her grandparents are the best. They treat her like a princess, and I don't blame them. Katherine’s mom dropped her right on their doorstep when she was little. “Why do you even want to move out?”
“I heard my parents having shower sex.” I fake a gag. I love how in love they are and reverting back to teenagers, but while gross, it’s also annoying because I don’t have that. I had convinced myself that I would find love while I was staying in the city.
“Two weeks ago they were sitting at that booth.” Katherine points her thumb over her shoulder to the one booth behind her.
“Don’t say on the same side.” Katherine nods, fighting a laugh.
“He was feeding her fries.”
“Bet he even dipped them in ranch for her.”
“Yep.” It isn’t only Kindred and Hudson's relationship that sets a high bar. It’s this whole freaking town.
Kylie drops off our cheeseburgers as my phone goes off on the table. Katherine’s nosy ass peeks at the screen, not that I wouldn't show her.
“I could take over your job.” She grabs her boobs through her sweater. “I don’t even need a push-up bra.”
“Stop bragging.” I grab my phone and see a message from Betty telling me she has a new occupant. That’s not newsworthy, so there has to be something about him in particular that has piqued her curiosity.
“Sup?” Katherine nods to my phone.
“Betty says she’s got a new guest, and he’s tickling her spidey senses.”
“Jimbob better not find out anyone is tickling anything on Betty.” Katherine takes a giant-ass bite of her burger; ketchup drips out, hitting her shirt. “Ah, man.”
“This is why you can’t wear white.” Katherine is a walking disaster, and it’s one of my favorite things about her.
My mouth drops open when a second later, a picture comes through. My heart might give a strange excited flutter and my stomach a funny dip. Not because the man pictured is extra hot and has taken all the extra eyelashes girls kill for. Nope, that's all indigestion from the mozzarella sticks.
"What?" Katherine snatches my phone out of my hand, almost dropping it into my ranch. “Whoa, who is that?” I snatch my phone right back. Katherine's brows rise all the way up. “Wait, is that the lawyer?” She knows me too well.
“What lawyer?” I play dumb. Did I bring him up that much? I only told her the story twice, I think. Who knows? Katherine and I can beat a horse all the way to glue.
"That is totally him." I can see that she is processing the same thoughts that I am right now.
"It’s Biff." That motherfucker is trying to build a resort here to get to me. I should be flattered, but I'm not.
He sent his stupidly handsome lawyer here to do what?
Not sure. I don't know how these things work when you build crap. But I do have an in at the mayor’s office, and I will be calling Kindred to see what we can do to stop this nonsense.
After I do a little digging myself. No need to get everyone all worked up.
"It's impressive how well you trigger a man." Any other day, I would take that as a compliment, but now I'm internally freaking out that I have gone too far this time, and it's all going to blow up in my face.
I fire off a text back to Betty telling her to let me know when he leaves.
"This is insane," I mutter, going back to stare at the picture. The asshole has a cocky smirk. I bet he's one of those people that never takes a bad picture. It doesn't matter how many times you snap it; each one is better than the last.
"But you're good with dealing with the insane. We only need to come up with a plan to be more insane." I huff out a breath. I might have bitten off more than I can chew this time. “Your silence is kind of freaking me out. What gives?”
“What if this really happens?”
“All right, let’s pump the brakes. I only overheard whispers.”
“Between the mayor and Sheriff Hudson.” That’s a really reliable source. My phone goes off again, Betty telling me that Mr. Lawyer Man is in the bar, having a drink and talking to Jimbob.
I should wait until he leaves the bed and breakfast altogether to walk around town, but my patience is at zero right now. The sooner I start collecting information, the better. I don’t know exactly what this super hot lawyer guy is up to, but I plan to find out by whatever means necessary.
“Come on,” I tell Katherine.
“Now?!” She takes a few more bites of her burger, already knowing the answer to that question, while I pay the tab. "Can you just text Kindred and ask her what's up?"
"I could, but I don't think she'll tell me, not yet. If this is in fact true, I'm sure they are going over details and waiting. They wouldn't want it being whispered around town before anything is certain."
“Well, Kindred would never let this happen anyways.”
“You can’t control everything, and like I said, I have a gut feeling this is real.” We fall into silence as we make our way across town on foot toward the bed and breakfast. I head for the back door, pulling out my key and letting myself in.
Having done odd jobs for just about everyone, I have keys to most places. Not that I’d need them to get in. I taught myself to pick locks when I was ten. It was a fun hobby, and you can learn lots of things from YouTube.
“You go to the bar and distract him.”
“Me?” She points to herself, eyes wide.
“Yes, you,” I laugh.
“Okay.” Katherine’s expression turns skeptical, but as she starts to head in that direction, I snag her around the wrist to stop her. “What?”
“Don’t flirt with him.”
“I don’t flirt with anyone.” This is true. “Besides, you already called dibs.”
“I did no such thing,” I hiss.
“If you say so,” Katherine singsongs. I stand there watching her go.
Shit, I'm in deep, and everywhere I look is a freaking landmine waiting for me to step on it.
I grit my teeth, reminding myself who I am. I'm not going to let these rich jerkoffs run all over me and this town. I take the back stairs up to the lawyer man's room and pop the lock, stepping inside.
"Boom, motherfuckers."
I’m not sure what I expect to find, but I’m still going to look anyway.