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2
After the weekly council meeting, where they unanimously voted Maynard Timmons as the next City Manager, Lucas made a stop at the Wayward Whiskey House.
He took a seat at the bar, flagged Herschel the bartender, and ordered an IPA.
Replacing Cindy Wahim as City Manager was one monumental task he could now remove from his to-do list. In celebration, he took a long pull from his beer.
If he were being honest, watching Cindy cry as she hugged Maynard and congratulated him made him feel somewhat melancholy. Even if she was ecstatic.
He was going to miss her.
There was no doubt in his mind Maynard wasn’t perfect for the position. The man was detailed and goal-oriented and he genuinely cared for the people of Wayward.
But he’d be lying to himself if he thought he wouldn’t miss the daily conversations he had with Cindy. She had a way of getting past all of his self-sabotaging bullshit, helping him to systematically unpack his trailer load of baggage so he could clearly see the matter at hand.
Maybe he could visit her some afternoon on the pretext that he was visiting the baby? Update her on what had happened with Birdie and the reason she had left town.
Again.
No doubt, Cindy had already heard the gossip-enhanced version of events. Which were surprisingly accurate, with only a few added embellishments that further cast Birdie as a repeat offender.
One of the Pinkie Posse called him every day to check on him, each managing to ask in an indirect way if he’d heard from Birdie. He wasn’t sure if it was because they were worried about him, or eager to get their next TikTok uploaded.
In some alternate universe, the clip Birdie and Mia recorded and uploaded had gone viral. As the number of views skyrocketed, so did the collective egos of Pinkie and her ever-faithful posse.
They’d had a taste of fame and were ravenous for more.
Someone sat in the seat next to him, and without looking, he knew who it was.
Grant, his foster brother and the chief of police for the small community. It must have been his day off as he wasn’t in uniform but wearing a pair of worn jeans and a Henley shirt.
“Hey, bro,” Grant said, waving down Herschel behind the bar and ordering a beer. “You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I rarely see you here. Unless you’re stewing about something.”
“What would I have to stew about?”
Grant didn’t bother to respond and instead asked, “So where’s Mia?”
“She’s been staying with Bernadette to help with Angus.”
Bernadette had insisted on taking in the cantankerous Scot to, in her words, “properly care for him and put the boie in ’is place.” How Mia managed to interpret between the Scottish brogue and Gullah-Geeche dialect that spewed when the elderly couple were in a room together, he had no idea.
Angus had stayed with Lucas for the first few days after being released from the hospital. But the stubborn man didn’t seem to understand his legs were fractured and, inevitably, Lucas would come home to catch him attempting things on his own so as not to be a bother.
To his relief, Bernadette offered up her watch-dog services.
Herschel handed Grant a beer and moved on to the next customer. Lucas could tell his brother had something to say, as Grant cracked his neck before taking his first pull. “Have you heard from her?”
“You can say her name.”
“Fine, asshole. Have you heard from Birdie?”
His chest caved in. Fuck. Maybe it was too soon to hear her name.
He shook his head as he took another swallow.
