Page 8 of That Kind of Guy

He was in his early forties, decent enough guy, always pleasant to everyone, but something about him irked me. Maybe it was that his wife never spoke, she just smiled at his side. Maybe it was that he always looked perfectly groomed, too perfectly groomed—not a single hair out of place. Maybe it was because his kids were so well behaved that they seemed like robots. Or maybe it was that for the last decade, nothing in our town seemed to change.

“Emmett.” He blinked. “Did we have a meeting?”

I shook my head. “Nope, just thought I’d stop by to chat.”

Isaac blinked again and put the paper down, leaning over to look at his calendar. “Sure, but I think I have a meeting soon—”

“This won’t take long.” I took a seat across from him. “Let’s talk about the power outages.”

His eyebrows went up. “Okay. What about them?”

“What is the city doing to fix them?”

He frowned and shook his head. “Emmett, as you know, our grid is from the sixties. It just isn’t designed for how many people live here.”

I gestured at him to go on. “And?”

“And that means we’re out of luck.” He shrugged. “What can we do?”

I frowned. “Cities expand all the time. I’m not an electrical engineer, but can’t we upgrade the power grid?”

He gave me a sympathetic look. “That would be really costly. There’s just nothing we can do.”

I frowned deeper. His first sentence proved his second sentence wrong. I watched as he sat back in his chair, his expression resolved.

“People are moving away from town,” I told him. “The town spent money on a new tourist center two years ago, but we can’t spend money on the residents themselves?”

Isaac shrugged again and shook his head. “What can I say, Emmett? My hands are tied. Just consider it part of our small-town charm.”

It was like he didn’t want to fix it. My chest was tight with irritation. The role of the mayor was to take care of the town and work hard for the people who lived here. Isaac didn’t seem like he really cared about the town or the people. I swallowed thickly and stood.

“Thanks for your time.” My voice sounded curt.

I spent the rest of the morning in my office with the door closed, catching up on paperwork, emails, and client calls. I kept my head down and worked to keep my mind off Will and Isaac and the power outages.

* * *

“Hey, Div,”I called out my open office door later that afternoon.

He appeared at my office door, phone poised and ready to go. “Yes?”

Div, short for Divyanshu, was in his mid-twenties and wore a full suit every day. I’d made it clear that he didn’t have to dress up for work, but the guy insisted. Div was a good assistant—punctual, memory like a steel trap, tech-savvy, and often knew my schedule without looking at my calendar. He could wear whatever he wanted, as far as I was concerned.

“Did Holden submit his invoices yet?” I asked him.

Div pointed to a corner of my tidy desk. “Right there.”

“Ah. Thanks.” I scooped up the papers and shuffled through them until I found the one I was looking for.

“I’m ordering lunch.”

“Nothing for me, thanks. Hey, can you send Cal at SparkPro a bottle of the whiskey he likes?” We still had six months left on the community center project. Staying on Cal’s good side would prevent misunderstandings like this morning.

Div made a note before disappearing back to his desk.

On the bottom of the pile of Holden’s invoices sat a business magazine I had done an interview with a couple months ago. I cringed at my image on the cover, leaning casually against the railing of one of our custom-built homes. Holden never wanted to be involved with this kind of thing, so I took care of it. I didn’t want to be involved either, but it was good for our reputation and good for business. We had employees to keep busy and mouths to feed.

“Your mom wanted ten copies,” Div told me. He didn’t dare laugh but his eyes gleamed.

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