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SADIE
Drew’s neighborhood was filled with old but well-maintained homes. I wandered the streets a few blocks from his place. I’d opted to walk again today since the weather was decent. Everything in this town was walkable, and I needed some time to sort out my approach to asking him about being Valor King.
Plus, I enjoyed checking out all the cute little houses. This was the kind of town you could imagine raising a family in. I grew up as a military brat and we moved around every few years, usually staying in base housing. My upbringing was part of what gave me wandering feet. But this neighborhood was well-established. Gave off an air of stability. Looked like the kind of place where you rooted down.
I rounded the corner and spotted Paul Harris trying to extricate himself from what looked like a very extended goodbye with an elderly woman on the front porch of a brick Tudor.
I threw him a bone.
“Hey there, Paul,” I called.
He glanced over his shoulder at me with a relieved look, said something else to the little old lady, then bounded down her front steps while waving at me.
“Hey, Sadie,” he called out, and then mouthed the words thank you where the woman couldn’t see him. He grinned as he reached me. “You just saved me from fifteen more minutes of saying goodbye to Yvette Rogers. You have no idea how much I owe you.”
“You can grab me a coffee sometime while I’m here.” I laughed.
“You headed to Drew’s?”
“I’m making my way there slowly. Checking out the neighborhood.”
A look I couldn’t quite read passed over his face. “Mind if I walk you?”
“Do I need to be worried about the mean streets of Kelly Bay in the middle of the afternoon?”
“No, of course not.” He laughed, but then his expression grew more serious. “But I’d like to talk if you’ve got a minute.”
“Lead the way,” I said. “So, what was all that back there?”
Paul hung his head sheepishly. “I helped Yvette repair her flower box. Ran into her at the Sip ’N Fill earlier this week and she mentioned it got torn off in the last storm. Lord knows if she can’t get those geraniums in the soil the day she’s supposed to, everyone in town is going to hear a forty-minute story about it any time they see her. Just doing my part to maintain everyone’s sanity.”
“Well, aren’t you just the local hero?”
“I don’t know about that. Yvette also has the best gossip, so when I do her a favor, I get caught up on what’s happening. Speaking of which, I heard you’ve been asking around a lot about a certain celebrity. What’s going on with that?”
A wave of unease settled over me. What was it with this town and making me question my career choices? “I work for this website, HypeKey—”
“Oh yeah.” He cut me a look and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I spent a few hours reading the last several months’ worth of articles on there.”
“Really?”
“I take protecting this town seriously. I wanted to know exactly what kind of reporting you were going to be doing here.”
“Didn’t realize you were the designated media liaison. I would’ve come to you first if I had.” If he was going to act all small-town menacing, I was going to sass him right back about it. This wasn’t my first rodeo.
“You should have. I would’ve told you there was nothing worth reporting on here. Unless…you’re not planning to write an article about Drew, are you?”
“What? No.” My skin prickled at the suggestion, and nausea rolled through my gut. The visceral reaction was surprising. “Why would you think that?”
“Like I said, I read everything on HypeKey for the last three months. You think that didn’t include your vacation romp articles?”
I stopped in my tracks and turned to face him. “Look, we’re not supposed to admit this to anyone, but seventy-five percent of the stuff on our website is either completely made up, or vastly inflated. Have I used some of my past relationship experience to add a kernel of truth to those articles? Sure. But lots of details are changed around and I never use anyone’s real name. Hell, half the time I’m talking about something that didn’t even happen in that same city. There’s no way anyone reading it—not even the person I might be referencing—would know who it was.”
He pulled his hands out of his pockets, raising them in surrender. “I’m just saying I don’t want to see Drew get hurt.”
“What even makes you think I have the ability to hurt him? We barely know each other.”
“You’ve spent more time with the man one-on-one in the last three days than all of his former friends combined in the last two years. And from what I hear, it sounds like things are taking a turn in a certain direction.” He smirked at me.
