Maya
Reid Lawson did not pick up microphones. He did not make announcements. He did not volunteer for dunk tanks.
His shirt was plastered to him, wet and clinging across the shoulders. He pushed his hair back and heaved himself up onto the platform again.
Someone touched her arm.
The woman nodded once, squeezed her arm, and moved away.
Reid went into the water with a splash and Maya watched him come back up, coughing.
Another person appeared at her shoulder. This one was a regular at the Roll & Run every year.
"My wife always said you were the real deal," he said gruffly, not quite meeting her eyes. "She was right." He glanced at her and then looked away. "I'm going to go get a slice of that cake."
Maya followed his gaze.
The abandoned bake table was gathering a crowd. Maya watched as Jenny stepped through the crowd to take up a position behind the table and start serving. She was cutting slices and taking money with a smile, with Owen stationed beside her.
Another splash, and Maya turned back to the tank.
Reid was in the water again. Maya heard laughter in the cheers now.
Barbara stepped in front of her. "I owe you an apology," she said. Her voice was stiff. "I just—" She broke off. "I'm sorry, Maya."
She held out her hand. Maya looked at it for a long moment and took it, let her shake her hand.
Barbara nodded, once, and walked toward the bake table.
Edith appeared then. She stood beside Maya and they watched the dunk tank together. Thomas joined them, handing Edith a rice crispy treat.
Reid went into the water again. Maya looked toward the bake table.
Jenny was laughing at something a customer had said, her whole face open with it, one hand resting on her stomach. Owen was serving too, now. The line had grown.
Maya could see Barbara had joined the queue, and the man from the Roll & Run was there as well.
Reid went into the water one more time.
Reid surfaced, all wet hair and broad shoulders and a white shirt gone transparent against his chest. Then he pushed the water out of his eyes, found the ladder, and climbed back up.
This was not the cold stranger who had arrested her.
This was the Reid at the kitchen counter on a Sunday morning, wearing pajama pants and reading the financial section. This was the Reid reaching for her in his sleep, pulling her back against him with a sleepy sound low in his throat.
The target rang again.
Reid dropped into the water.
This was not the man who had stood in front of her with cold eyes and handcuffs, not the man who slammed the door in her face. Not the man who had believed the worst of her.
This was the man whose heartbeat she had fallen asleep to.
And she wanted him.
For weeks her body had felt like something she was dragging around with her. A thing to move through rooms, to sign documents, to sit in lawyers’ offices.
Reid came up out of the water for the fourth or fifth or tenth time and pushed his wet hair back from his face. She wanted him.
Maybe tomorrow she would be broken again. There would be lawyers and charges and decisions and the impossible knowledge of where she stood.
But this afternoon Maya did not want to be careful.
She wanted to choose.
She wanted to take.
Across the grass, Reid climbed out of the tank again, soaked and shivering and beautiful.
The community was not Reid’s to give back to her. It was hers to take back for herself.
She stomped across the grass toward the dunk tank, past people with paper plates in their hands, past faces that turned toward her, apologies already forming.
The teenager with the clipboard and microphone saw her coming and gaped at her.
Maya held out her hand.
The last time she had held a microphone in front of these people, she had been standing on a stage at the Roll & Run with the sun in her eyes and joy in her chest, looking out over a crowd she had helped build.
And then Reid had walked toward her through that crowd with cold eyes and metal handcuffs.
Reid hit the water again with a splash.
Maya turned.
He surfaced and saw her there.
Everything in his face changed. Maya looked at him for one second, then she turned to the crowd.
The microphone amplified her voice. “I’m glad you’re buying cake,” she said. “The money goes where it was always supposed to go. Ramps for our neighbors’ houses. The upgrades to our community.”
A few people looked down. Good.
“I didn’t steal any money,” Maya said. “But it was stolen on my watch, and I’m sorry I let you down.”
She tightened her hand around the microphone. “I put everything I had into that charity.”
“I organized fundraisers. I installed ramps in your parents’ houses. I campaigned for quiet rooms in your children’s schools.”
Her throat tightened. No one spoke.
The whole picnic seemed to have gone quiet around her. Even the children near the dunk tank had stopped shouting.
Maya looked over the crowd. At faces she had known for years. Faces she had loved, faces that had turned away from her.
“You knew me. And you let one terrible day erase all of it.”
Behind her, water dripped steadily from the dunk tank platform. Reid did not move. She could feel him there, silent and soaked and listening.
This was not about him.
“I love this place,” she said. “It would be easier if I didn’t. Then I could walk away and never care again. But I do care. I care about the library and the sports center and the picnic and the bake sale.”
“This is my home,” she said. “We are supposed to be a community,” she said. A few people winced.
No one moved. Maya looked toward the bake table.
“I just wanted to tell you that. Also, please buy the cake,” she said, her voice rough but steady. “Because the railing still needs paying for.”
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then a voice called out. “I’m sorry, Maya.”
And another. “I believe you.”
A couple of people started to applaud. Someone stamped their foot against the wooden platform by the raffle table, and then someone else did.
Maya’s breath caught as the applause rose around her.
Maya handed the microphone back to the teenager.
She turned toward the dunk tank.
Reid was still on the platform, water dripping from his hair into his eyes. He was looking at her with an expression so naked she almost had to look away.
The last time she had stood with a microphone in her hand, he had walked toward her and taken everything apart.
Now he had watched her claim it all back.