Page 22 of One Chance to Stay
“What I want to do with my future?” I cried. “That’s what I’d learn.”
Tyler snickered as he stood, signaling our therapy session had reached its conclusion. He stood with his hands on his hips, giving me a long stare before he shook his head. I don’t knowwhy, but I liked this guy. He had charisma for days, and I bet he charmed the pants off all the little old ladies in town.
“I don’t know if Seamusisa distraction.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, sorry, I have to take this.” He reached into his pocket, shuffling around for his phone. When his hand emerged, he spoke into his pinky with his thumb by his ear. “Oh, not busy at all. Just making a kid do his homework.”
Subtle.
He continued the conversation with himself as he returned to the desk. Leaving me with the fake fire, I hated to admit, he had a point. I loved people. Instead of diving deep, I thought about dancing with Seamus. I hoped he walked out of the situation with a little less yearning. I did. Confused as all hell, but less yearning.
Maybe if I stopped thinking of him as a distraction. Dammit. Tyler had been right. The answers were there. I just needed to find the connection.
HAND AXES & HOT CHOCOLATES
“Off with its head!”
“Swing harder!”
“For crying out loud, put your back into it!”
“Split it right down the middle.”
My boots, barely unlaced, and I froze at the shouting from the backyard of the bed-and-breakfast. It sounded as if somewhere, a mob was ready to kill. Firefly Valley might be an adorable town from the outside, but that’s where killers loved to hide. This one time, in grade school, Judy’s older sister had a cousin whose best friend witnessed…
Now that I thought about it, Judy might have been a liar. She also claimed her parents won the lottery but preferred the middle-class lifestyle.
To be safe, I reached for the first weapon within reach. An umbrella. It’d have to do. I inched my way through the house, ready to see something gruesome. Should I call the cops? I almost chuckled. Firefly didn’t have cops. They’d be lucky if they had a sheriff.
“Hack it to pieces!”
I walked through the kitchen and through the back door, and I spotted the head of an axe held high. It swung downward, outof sight, as I rushed to the door. I burst outside as everybody cheered.
I recognized Bobby and Evelyn, the older gentleman and another woman I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting. The older gentleman held the handle of the axe, half buried into a log set atop a tree stump. The only thing being murdered was kindling for a fire.
“Why the umbrella?” In her bright neon-pink puffy jacket, Evelyn crossed her arms. Looking up to the sky, she stared, eyebrow cocked.
“Oh, this?” I threw it into the kitchen and walked down the stairs. We’d laugh about that later. “What are you guys doing?”
The other woman snorted. “My dad is convinced he can out-chop Bobby.” From the flannel button-down to the hunter orange cap and dark tan boots, she couldn’t look any more like a lumberjack. I couldn’t help but smile when I realized she and Bobby had matching multi-colored mittens.
“Never going to happen, Pops,” Bobby said.
His dad threw up his hands and stepped aside. “If I had my glasses?—”
“You’d be able to see yourself missing the log,” Evelyn said. “Abraham, you lost fair and square.”
“Laurel, want to show the men how to do it?” asked Abraham.
On closer inspection, I should have seen the family relation. Bobby, Laurel, and their father all had a similar smile. As Laurel rolled her neck, shaking out her hands, her dad put a hand against her chest before pointing in my direction.
“Let the new kid give it a shot.”
“I don’t think?—”
“City boy,” Abraham said. Laurel and Evelyn both made an “oooh” sound in response. He had thrown down the gauntlet,and my pride as a Mainer had been called into question. He knew exactly how to motivate.
