“Your bid has already been approved for the rec center. It’s been approved and has been recorded in the minutes at the last meeting.” I shake my head.
“Minutes can be altered,” he says. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“You have my word,” I say, “that nothing will happen to your contract.”
He huffs. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll bring a couple of guys with me.”
“Thank you.” I close my eyes. “I appreciate that. Also, I want you to bill me personally.”
“You bet your ass I’m going to bill you personally and also as an emergency case. If the contract still stands, I’ll adjust my invoice.” His voice goes lower. “FYI, he’s made other calls.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Let’s just say, it’s going to be hard for her to get anything to open that place again,” he says. The bathroom door opens, and I see Savannah coming out with a brown paper in her hands.
“Thanks for letting me know,” I say and hang up the phone. “Are you okay?”
“No.” She shakes her head and looks at me, her blue eyes so bright you can get lost in them. “But it is what it is, and I’ll deal with whatever I have to.”
“There’s my girl,” I say, smiling at her. I grab her around her neck and bring her to me, kissing her forehead. The two of us have always been touchy-feely around each other, and I never make it seem that I love it more than I do. I just shrug it off and leave her after I either hold her hand or kiss her head. “Now what do you want to eat?”
She shakes her head. “Anything. I just don’t want to see anyone.”
“Got it,” I say. We walk out of the bar, and she locks it and gets into the truck. When she pulls up in front of my house, I wait for her to turn off the truck before getting out, and she follows me up the front steps of the old Victorian house I inherited from my grandfather when he passed away ten years go. I’ve only just renovated it and made it more mine and less antique. I walk in, tossing my keys on the table in the foyer, and then head down the hallway past the stairs and into the kitchen.
“I forget how pretty it is in here,” Savannah says, walking toward the back wall of windows as it faces out to two old willow trees with a hammock hanging between them. Something I put in for Savannah but never told her. She once told me when we were walking how her perfect date would be sitting in a hammock together and just listening to the birds or the crickets.
She turns around now and comes into the kitchen with me and opens the fridge. “Oh my God. What is that smell?” she asks, putting her hand in front of her nose.
“I have no idea,” I say, and I cringe when I see all sort of food gone bad. “I don’t usually eat here.” She walks over to grab the garbage and starts tossing shit in the bin. “I usually crash at your house for dinner, or we go out.”
“Yeah, we should definitely be eating here more.” She shakes her head, and I want to tell her that she can come and eat here every single day if she wants to.
“The door is always open.” I smile at her, and I want to bend my head and kiss her, but the doorbell rings. She looks at me, and I shake my head, turning and walking out of the kitchen and past the dining room and formal living room toward the big brown doors. I open the door and groan inwardly.
“Well, hello there, Mayor,” Melody says, pushing her way in and leaning up to kiss my lips. It happens so fast that I don’t have time to step back. I made the mistake of agreeing to go out with her on a date, and the minute I sat down, I knew that it was a one-and-done sort of date.
“Melody.” I say her name and look at her. She’s wearing a tight red dress that has her breasts practically falling out of it. “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”
“Well, I tried to get to you at the party, but you disappeared, so I figured I’d drop by to congratulate you in person.” She steps in closer, and I take a step back.
“It’s really not a good time,” I say.
“You’ve been saying that for weeks.” She uses her finger to run down my chest. “I thought we had fun.”
I want to tell her the last thing we had was fun. It was one dinner, and I kissed her on the cheek and then spent the night trying to wash the smell of her off me. Besides, she was like an octopus the whole night, and I felt like I was at a kung fu class. “Listen, Melody …” I start to say, but she wraps her arms around my neck, and before I can peel them off me, I see Savannah standing off to the side. My head turns to her, and it makes Melody turn also. “Oh, hey, Savannah,” she says, not taking her arms from around my neck. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Yeah,” she says, avoiding my eye contact and forcing a fake smile on her face. “I was just leaving,” she says, walking toward the door. “I’ll just leave you two be.” She nods, and she is out of the house before I can even do or say anything.
“Well, now that we are alone …” Melody says, and I can swear her hips thrust forward, making my cock duck for cover.
I slowly peel her arms away from my neck, and she looks at me confused. “Listen, Melody, I don’t really have time for a relationship right now. I just became mayor, and I want to focus on that.”
“But …” she says, trying to think of something to say. “It doesn’t have to be anything serious.” She winks at me. “We could be friends.” Her voice goes low. “With benefits.”
“I couldn’t do that,” I say, and she crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up even higher.
“I know about Teressa,” she tells me, and I look at her, pinching my eyebrows together.
“Teressa, the woman who works at the bank?” I ask. She’s the teller who always serves me.
“You don’t have to pretend. I know that you guys have your dates, or shall we say rendezvous on Wednesday, and I—” I hold up my hand now.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but there has never been anything with me and Teressa, nor has there been anything with any woman in this town.” I don’t mention that it’s been a fucking long time since I’ve been with a woman. After I found out about Jacob and Savannah, I went after anyone I could get. I had sex just to have sex, hoping that I would get that connection with someone, but it all amounted to nothing. It always came back to the woman I wanted who I thought slept with my best friend.
“But,” she says, and I shake my head.
“How about we forget that we had this conversation?” I try to make her feel better and less embarrassed about this whole thing. My phone starts ringing in my pocket, and I see that it’s Jacob. “I really have to get this.”
She looks down at the floor. “Of course, I’ll get out of the way.” She turns and walks to the door. “But the offer is on the table.”
She turns and opens the door and walks out, and I let out the breath I was holding. The only thing I can think of doing is getting to Savannah when I answer the call.
Chapter Eight
Savannah