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Sierra gave me a thumbs up and disappeared. Moments later, an older, very sexy man appeared.
“Ummm, hello,” I said.
The man grinned.
He walked up to me and held out his hand, eyes alert and focused entirely on me.
Though, I had a feeling that he’d cataloged everything in the room.
He seemed dangerous to me.
Yet, his smile seemed genuine.
“Hello, Avery. My name is Lynn.” he said. “I heard you’ve had a rough day of it.”
I snorted. Now that was an understatement.
It wasn’t every day that you almost broke your neck.
“You have no idea,” I told him. “Try the last two years.”
His eyes went soft as he seemed to come to a conclusion.
“You know…” He took a seat on the hospital bed across from the chair I was sitting in. “I knew your mother.”
My brows rose.
“You did?” I asked, surprise clearly evident in my voice.
He nodded once.
“I met your mother a long, long time ago,” he said. “In police academy.”
My brows rose.
“Wow,” I said. “That means you knew my father, too.”
The mayor grimaced.
“I knew your father,” he agreed. “But he didn’t much like me.”
It was then my eyes went wide as I started to think about how he knew my mother.
“It wasn’t in the biblical sense, was it?” I asked, genuinely terrified to hear the answer to that.
He barked out a laugh.
“Though it might’ve once been like that,” he offered. “She turned me down and cut me loose the moment that she laid eyes on your father.”
That made me feel a bit better, but not much.
I blew out a relieved breath.
Then thought, fuck it.
“I just found out that my dad might possibly have an infant,” I told him. “Today. Yesterday. What time is it?”
Lynn looked at his watch.
“It’s only nine in the evening,” he answered. “And…this infant that you speak of. Is it just speculation? Or are you sure that it’s your brother or sister?”
Brother or sister. When he said it like that, it sent chills through me.
I might have a brother or sister out there.
I wasn’t alone.
I mean, sure, the baby wasn’t able to really do anything now. But he or she was going to grow up one day.
Then I might be able to hold a conversation with him or her.
“At this point, it’s only speculation,” I admitted. “I read some things…”
So there I went, explaining to the fucking mayor exactly what I found out today. Down to the last detail.
Then I got my phone out and started to search the woman’s name up, turning it around to show him.
The mayor, Lynn, was sitting forward with his arms resting on his knees, staring at the screen I was showing him.
“I can look into this for you,” he said, sitting back and looking at me with concern.
I sighed and twisted my phone in my hand.
“I have bigger problems than that right now,” I admitted. “The cops just left here. Lynn, did you know that they’re calling this bullying?”
I gestured to my metal halo, and he grimaced.
“It’s rather unflattering, isn’t it?” I laughed.
He tilted his head.
“You’re probably going to be bullied even more by the end of this,” he admitted. “I’m sorry to say.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and carefully pulled my feet up into the chair I was sitting in.
I was thankful that I had a blanket covering my legs, because I was still wearing the stupid hospital gown that did a terrible job at covering my body.
“In all honesty,” I said. “I can take it. I don’t care what she does or says about me at school. I just honestly never thought she’d take it this far.”
The mayor leaned back on my bed and planted his hands into the mattress on either side of him.
I watched the muscles play in his forearms and thought, this man is beautiful. He’d really make a beautiful subject to photograph, too.
Not as beautiful as Derek, but Lynn had some gorgeousness to him that was surprising. At first when he’d come in, I’d been too intimidated by the ‘mayor’ title to really take stock of his features.
But holy shit.
He was like the George Clooney of the regular world. Or the Richard Gere. Or Sam Elliott.
“The problem is you shouldn’t have to ‘take it,’” he admitted. “Bullying is getting out of hand. With all of these school shootings happening around us, one would think that we’d have this under control already. This is where we should start. At the basic level. We should make it safe to be at school. Not only from the obvious—school shootings—but for the smaller but no less serious things—bullying.”
I agreed wholeheartedly, which I told him in the next moment.
“I agree, but I’m not sure how to fix it,” I admitted. “There are a lot of Rachel Howells in the world. You can’t just kick them out of school.”
Lynn tilted his head. “I agree. But we know where to start.”
