Page 29 of Side Hustle
Fuck. Heat hit my face, from her comment or from the gaze I could practically feel, I wasn’t sure. I could say the same about her. She stood there in cutoff denim shorts, a red checked shirt tied at her waist, and showing off a sexy sliver of bare skin. Her hair was down and curled, a tiny section on the side pulled back by a bunch of sparkly clips. She looked like the sexy girl next door every guy dreams about.
“Get your flirt on later, missy. We have important things to discuss.” Yedda flapped her arms and Hazel backed off with an eye roll and a tolerant smile.
Tiny Yedda stood toe to toe with me, peering up at my face, her hair perfectly curled and her eyes squinting so hard I couldn’t really see much beyond the bushy snow-white eyebrows. Her neon pink track suit would have been garish on anyone else. Her matching painted lips pursed and I held my breath. You couldn’t rush Yedda. We’d all learned that over the years. If she had something to say, she’d say it eventually and you needed to just hold your horses and wait for her. Rushing her only got you slapped with something embarrassing coming out of her mouth you could never live down. She might be old, but Yedda was sharp as a tack. When she wanted to be, that is.
Her face cleared and she finally spoke. “Hazel told me everything this morning. Every unfortunate and fortunate thing. I must say, I knew that mayor was up to no good. High time someone took him to task. I hate that it has to be you, but I think it’ll do you some good, young man.”
She stopped talking so long I figured she was waiting for a response.
“Thank you, Ms. Redding. I hope it all comes out right. Public speaking is not in my wheelhouse.” I tugged on my collar, nerves flaring, realizing she and everyone else would be counting on me now. I’d somehow placed myself in a position where people would be watching me, believing in me, and expecting things. For the guy who tried to blend into the wallpaper, this was scary stuff.
“It’s Granny Yedda to you.” Her eyebrows came together again and I leaned back, feeling like a scolding was coming. “You think being the weirdo quiet kid keeps you from connecting with people, don’t you? You think nobody understands you. Nobody gets you.” She harrumphed and I feared the worst. “What you need to understand is what makes you differentisyour gift, Rip. Whoever taught you different should be whacked in the knees with a billy club. And I have an idea of who that rat bastard was.”
Granny Yedda poked me in the chest with a bony finger. “Well, that’s on them, Rip, not you. Embrace your weird and share it with the world. Let everyone know that being slightly off center doesn’t have any effect on being a good or successful person. Let your freak flag fly, son. That’s always been my motto and look at me today.”
A cat, one I didn’t own and had never seen before today, ran past my legs and jumped onto the couch arm and then onto Yedda’s shoulder. She gave it a stroke and let it jump onto the top of her head. She cackled, her face splitting into a grin so wide I saw where her dentures ended and her gums kept going. She two-stepped out the open front door, a song playing in her head that no one else heard, a cat balancing on her head like some sort of National Geographic photo of a culture not known to first-world countries.
I watched until she got in her ancient baby blue boat of a car, a strange feeling creeping up my spine and into my brain. It felt a lot like confidence. Like a superhero might feel right before he swoops in to save the day. Granny Yedda was weird as shit and yet so right. Iwasweird. And as of today, I’d finally embrace it. I would stop letting it pull me away from the things I wanted to do, or the person I wanted to become. Yedda, of all the dang people in this town, had talked some sense into me.
I needed to get a fucking cat to sit on my head.
Glancing over at Hazel, she shrugged like “what are you gonna do?”
I knew exactly what I would do. I marched right over to her and cupped her face in my hands. Her eyes grew wide and I let that superhero feeling fill my chest. I wanted to kiss Hazel, so I was going to do it and fuck the consequences.
My lips claimed hers in a bruising kiss, but she held on tight to my waist, not pushing me away. She tasted like sunshine and a thousand lazy Sunday mornings. Like I could be unapologetically me and she’d kiss me back no matter what. I wanted to feel her enthusiasm, the way she jumped up and down on her toes at the slightest hint of a party. I wanted her to punch my arm again when I teased her, thinking she was punishing me when really I just wanted her to touch me any way I could get her. I wanted to surround myself with Hazel while being the man she deserved. Someone who wasn’t afraid to speak the truth and stand up for himself, no matter his enemy.
The double blast of a car horn had us both jumping apart, our lungs heaving. Apparently we’d both forgotten to breathe while our mouths were fused together.
“Granny,” Hazel informed me, her eyes dancing even as a blush formed on her cheeks.
I nodded and rubbed a hand over my mouth. After the press conference, Hazel and I were going to talk about this kissing business. I needed to know what was happening here and how I could get her to keep kissing me. Instead of kissing her again, which I desperately wanted to do, I grabbed her hand and hauled her out the door. We had a press conference to start.
* * *
“Thank you for coming here today. I’m sure you expected our annual Gold Rush Festival, not a boring press conference.”
Hazel tried to step back from my side as I took to the single microphone stand outside the park entrance to the festival. I snaked my arm around her waist and kept her next to me. No way was she getting out of this. We were partners. And if I had any say in it, we’d be partners in more ways than one once this little speech was over.
The crowd chuckled and looked around at each other, probably wondering what the mayor’s son was doing. After today, hopefully they’d know me as Rip Bennett, the guy who made some of their dreams come true.
“I assure you I won’t take long.” I saw my father push his way through the back of the crowd, waiting to get into the festival, a severe frown on his face. The sight made me pause, but not for long. I had something to say whether he liked it or not. I wasn’t a scared boy any longer.
“A few weeks ago, Hazel Redding and I made an important discovery. We would have told you about it then, but we wanted to make sure we called in some experts first to confirm what we thought we found.” The crowd went completely silent at that, all of them intrigued like I knew they would be. Even my father quit pushing between people and stood there in my field of vision with his arms folded across his chest.
“I own a piece of property right next to Hill Hotel. A few weeks ago, Hazel and I found gold in a closed-off cave on that property.”
The crowd erupted in questions lobbed at me, smiles and shouts of excitement drowning out the questions. I put my hands in the air and tried to get them to calm down long enough for me to explain. Hazel put her fingers to her mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle that got everyone’s attention.
“Hold on, guys. Let me explain.” When everyone returned their attention to me, I continued. “The company I hired starts mining that cave on Monday. I’ve already written up a contract that states I’ll split the gold with Auburn Hill, fifty-fifty. I’ve invited a notary here today to notarize that contract so you know it’ll stand up in court. Whatever we find in that cave, half of it will be split between each citizen of Hell. You have my word.”
The crowd erupted into excited chaos, but that didn’t stop me from noticing my father turn right around and push his way back out of the crowd and away from the park. Hazel looked up at me and we shared a glance. He was probably running off to check his files to see if he could spin it somehow so that he still owned that property.
“How much gold is in there?”
“How much does gold sell for anyway?”
“How come you’re splitting it with us?”
