by Alina Jacobs
“Leave me alone. Stop harassing me,” Meg said as she wrestled her stuff through the tall glass doors.
“Oh, I plan on being here quite a bit,” I replied.
“No, you’re not! I’ll report you to the police for trespassing,” Meg threatened.
My smile grew broader. “You can’t trespass on your own property.”
“What?” she sputtered and dropped the mixing bowl she was carrying. I picked it up then took the box from her.
“This building is one of Svensson Investments’ early property developments from before you moved back to Harrogate.”
Meg looked around wildly.
“It’s fate. We’re meant to be together,” I said, sweeping into the building. “But honestly, Meg, how much are you paying for this unit? Wait, let me try and remember the rental rates for this property. Somewhere around fifteen hundred a month?”
“Only a thousand,” she countered as we walked through the lobby.
“So you’d rather pay to live on my property rather than live on it for free.”
“You want me to live in your house.”
“I just want you to let me take care of you,” I told her. “I could buy you any property in Harrogate. Shoot, if you wanted to move back to Manhattan, I could arrange that too.”
She drew herself up. “I am a member of the government of Harrogate, and I will not be bribed by shady investors.”
I muttered a curse.
Meg mashed the elevator button. I ignored her when she yelled at me not to follow her inside the cab.
“How else are you going to bring all your thousands of baking items upstairs?” I countered, looking down at her. Her hair was frizzy with the exertion of the day. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you bake anything.”
“Now that I’m not taking care of Barry, I will start baking,” she said, chin set.
I grinned. Meg scowled at me.
“Are you going to invite me over to taste some of your baked goods or…” I chuckled. “Lick the frosting off of your cupcakes?”
“I’m not letting you anywhere near me.” She huffed as we walked down the short hallway to her apartment.
I stepped inside after she unlocked the door. Svensson Investment had bought this building over a decade ago. It had been abandoned when we had moved to Harrogate, and we had squatted in it, cooking over a propane campfire wrapped in blankets after escaping the polygamist cult.
I shook off the memories.
The window of the tiny studio looked at a brick wall.
“If you moved in with me,” I said casually, “you could have a view of the Harrogate Estate backyard, or I could buy us a very nice condo on Main Street.”
Meg shoved me out of the door.
“I don’t even get a ‘thank you for your help’?”
Meg narrowed her eyes at me. “You only did it because you wanted something.”
Yeah… Meg.
5
Meghan
I slumped against the door after Hunter had left. It had taken all my self-control not to take him up on his offer.
He’s just trying to use you. That’s how he is. He acts charming and loving to get what he wants.
But it was a temptation. Hunter had always promised me an easy life.
I nervously checked my banking app on my phone. Maybe I had made too hasty a decision. This apartment was a lot of money. I could have just moved in with Susie.
“I just need to hold on until I officially become the mayor,” I told myself, “then I will be paid four times my current amount, and I will actually hire a deputy mayor that’s more competent than Barry, and I won’t have such a heavy workload.”
As I showered, I continued to give myself a pep talk. “Just be optimistic,” I ordered myself as I put on a skirt, no-nonsense pumps, and a blazer that was my typical deputy mayor outfit. “Barry is healthy, I have somewhere to live for now, and I have free time. In fact, I am baking cupcakes tonight. Maybe…”
My phone was blowing up with emails from people wanting to schedule meetings, residents demanding that I fulfill promises Barry had made, Ida wanting to know why I had rejected her proposal for her friend’s nudist retreat…
“I cannot deal with this on an empty stomach.”
Hazel was at her restaurant making sandwiches behind the counter when I walked in.
“I have your favorite,” she said. “A prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich with pesto aioli, plus mozzarella sticks because I think we all deserve fried cheese in times like these.”
“Is Hunter buying our house back?” Minnie demanded.
“Yeah. I want my room,” Rose complained.
“I thought you hated that house,” I reminded my teenage sisters. “You were never there.”
“That was because of Barry,” Rose said, stealing one of my mozzarella sticks. “Stupid sexist old man.”
“He just got out of the hospital,” I chided.
“Yeah, then ran off with all our money and left us homeless.”
I sighed.
“You should get back together with Hunter so he’ll buy the house back,” Rose insisted.
“You can’t just rely on men for everything,” I told her.
“Hazel has Archer. I bet he’ll buy the house back,” Minnie countered, slouching in her seat.
“I’m not asking Archer to buy that house,” Hazel warned them. “It’s not even in that great of shape. Plus, it has all those teeny-tiny little rooms.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told them. “As soon as I become mayor, we’ll have a lot more money coming in.”
“What if there are other debts we have to pay?”
Hunter still hadn’t been completely straight about the state of Barry’s finances. Surely, I couldn’t be on the hook for what he had spent, right?
“It will be fine. Why don’t you all look for apartments you like in town?” I told my sister, who groaned.
Everything will be fine, I repeated to myself as I ate my sandwich. It will all be fine.
6
Hunter
“I can’t believe she wouldn’t let me help her!” I fumed when I returned to the estate house.
I had dropped Mayor Barry’s bags off with his secretary at city hall with instructions to mail it to his new residence. Then I had driven back to Meg’s apartment, wondering if it was a bad idea to go back up. I decided against it. She had rebuffed me earlier, like she had done so many times before ever since that one horrible night five years ago.
When I walked in, my little brothers were playing some sort of suicidal flying squirrel game where they were swinging from the banister of the grand stair in the foyer. I stood there a moment and waited. When my little brothers realized I was there, there were shrieks and blaming.
“Line up,” I ordered as they assembled in front of me by height. “Clearly you all have too much energy.”
Isaac grabbed the three newest additional toddler triplets, Justin, Jacob, and Johnny, and set them at the end of the line then hustled to his spot near the beginning.
“Isaac, switch places with Bruno. You’re taller than him.”
“Yes!” Isaac said, pumping his fist. I stifled a smile. As much as I complained about my little brothers, I would do literally anything for them. They were the reason I had given up my cushy existence in Manhattan to move back to Harrogate. They needed me, just like Meg’s sisters needed her. Really, she and I were meant to be together. Why could she still not accept that?
“It’s almost spring,” I told my brothers. “Why don’t you all go out and talk to Remy about planning a garden ready? People who are digging holes all day don’t have energy to destroy handcrafted woodwork in a historic house.”
Nate, one of the middle school–aged kids, raised his hands.
“What?”
“We could make a flower bed for Meg,” he offered. “Since she’s moving here.”
I gritted my teeth. “Change of plans.”
I needed a drink.
My brothers darted outside while I went up to the clubroom.
The old Harrogate estate house had a large room that the architect had told us was the clubroom. It had a built-in bar and was completely clad in wood. In the middle of the room stood a giant globe that I wouldn’t let the kids touch because it was some sort of priceless antique. The furniture consisted of large leather chairs—a mix of what had been left over in the house when we bought it and pieces the architect said were period appropriate. Usually, we kept the room locked because that was where we stored the liquor.
The light was on when I approached. Inside, several of my brothers were lounging around, drinking.
“So, you all were here, and the kids were downstairs running wild.”
Parker grunted. “We were entertaining Greg.”
My attention snapped to my half brother. We had been born days apart, and he was perpetually a thorn in my side. He lived in Manhattan, ran Svensson Investment, and never helped out with the kids.
“I’m surprised you’re not out with your fake girlfriend,” Greg said snidely, pausing with his glass in his hand. “What’s the latest one’s name? Fern?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Did Meg take you back?” Weston asked. “We have her room ready.”
I blew out a breath. “Not yet.”
Mace snorted.
I glared at him and poured a glass of scotch.
“We could have just had a call about the new residential development,” I told Greg as I sipped my drink. “Or are you here about Dad?”
“No,” Greg said. “I’m here to talk about your mayoral campaign.”
I froze for a moment.
Weston sucked his drink down the wrong pipe and started coughing loudly. Parker banged him on the back.
“I thought Meg was going to be the next mayor?” Mace asked in concern. “She’s the deputy mayor. So that means she moves up to mayor, right?”
“Barry was just elected for a new six-year term,” Greg said smoothly, “and I will not have our development prospects curtailed for the better part of the next decade. We will therefore force an election for the open seat.”
“No,” I told Greg, shaking my head. “If I run for mayor, Meg would literally never forgive me.”
“You have to,” Greg said simply. “Who else is going to do it? One of the teenagers? You’re the only one here who is unemployed.”
“I look after the kids.”
“And they were swinging from the chandelier when I arrived,” Greg said coldly. He stood up, buttoning his suit jacket. “For years I have had to suffer through making concession after worthless concession to the City of Harrogate to push even the smallest development through the approval process. With one of our own running things in this city, we can finally build whatever we want.”
“You can’t destroy the character of the city,” Mace insisted. “That’s part of the marketing for recruiting talent to Svensson PharmaTech.”
“And to ThinkX,” Weston added.
“No skyscrapers,” Garrett added. “Penny would kill me.”
“I’m not going to plop a skyscraper down, but we need better margins on our residential projects. I can’t spend ten percent of the budget on community centers and parks.”
“Parks are good for public heath,” Parker said.
“This city is lousy with parks, and there is a greenbelt, and you can drive a mile outside of town and hit countryside. There is no reason for us having to give kickbacks to the city,” Greg insisted.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I was still stuck on Meg. All she had wanted was to finally be mayor. She would be devastated.
“Why can’t you have Carl do it?”
“No one knows who Carl is,” Greg said. “Everyone in this town knows you. You’ll be a shoo-in as mayor.”
“No,” I growled at Greg, clenching my fists.
His lip curled back. “Too bad,” he spat. “I’ve already filed the paperwork. It will be announced at the town hall tomorrow that you are running for mayor against Meghan Loring.”
7
Meghan
Another night, another small-town hall meeting. It felt like every gathering was the same, which, after the chaos of the last week, was fine by me. The Svenssons had taken to catering dinner and alcohol for the attendees. As such, attendance was way up, and people were more susceptible to voting yes on their development plans.
My sister, Hazel, was catering tonight, and Ida and her fellow senior citizens in the Harrogate Girls Club were handing out slips of paper. I had banned the bingo cards the group had been giving out after a drunken fight broke out between several participants, one of whom had accused the other of cheating.
I peered at the slips of paper.
What are those? We had to keep level of some decorum—this was an official public event, after all.
Do you really want to be mayor? Minnie and Rose will be in college, Lord willing, in a couple of years. You could just… not be mayor. Yeah, and then what? You could work at one of the Svenssons’ companies. They had practically taken over the town.
When I was in high school, it had been my dream to escape the small-town life. As soon as I had turned eighteen, I had moved to Manhattan for college, attended law school, then landed a cushy job in a white-shoe law firm. I didn’t make it a year before I was fired, thanks to my horrible supervisor Karen.
Though I was happy to take care of my sisters, a part of me still longed for the big-city dream. Maybe I could give Manhattan another try. Until my sisters were out of school, I could do remote work as a lawyer. That was a thing, right? But for now…
I banged the gavel on the lectern. “I call this meeting to order,” I announced.
“Bottoms up!” someone shouted, and everyone tossed back a shot. My eye twitched.
“We have several items on the agenda, including a presentation about a proposed property development. Please let me remind everyone that just because a developer supplies snacks—”
“And alcohol!” someone yelled to loud cheers and toasts.
I banged the gavel. “Just because they supply alcohol doesn’t mean we should rubber-stamp everything that they do.”
“Huzzah!” The crowd took another shot.
I gritted my teeth. So Ida had started a drinking game. That was just great. Maybe I can help my little sisters graduate early. They could do online education.
“First on the agenda, as we all know, Mayor Barry has left Harrogate and resigned from his post as mayor. We need to fill the position. As deputy mayor, I will be taking over as mayor of Harrogate to finish out Mayor Barry’s current term. Would someone please put forward this motion?”
“I would like to put forward a motion.” Greg Svensson stood up. Hunter’s face was unreadable.
“A motion for what?”
“This is America, Deputy Mayor, and we believe in the democratic process.”
Fuck, they aren’t going to…
“I would like to put forth a motion that—”
I banged the gavel. “You do not live in this city, Mr. Svensson. Therefore, you will not be putting forward any motion.”
Greg shook Hunter, who scowled at his half brother. Then he stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. “I motion,” Hunter said.
Please, can he just motion to make me the mayor? Could he just do one decent thing for me?
“I motion that we have a fair and public election to select the next mayor of Harrogate. Anyone may submit their name to be considered for the mayoral primary.”
“Yes,” I said, thinking quickly and trying to recall the city code, “but according to the bylaws, as we have now officially begun the first town hall meeting after the previous mayor’s resignation, any applications for mayor would have needed to be submitted by five p.m. today, which was two hours ago.”
“My application has been submitted,” Hunter said.
“You bastard.”
Hun
ter looked mildly shocked.
“Is this why you were being nice to me?” I shrieked at him, not caring that I sounded unhinged. “Is this why you were trying to get me to move in with you and buttering me up and making promises about how you were going to be there for me forever? You’re such a lying slimeball.”
Hunter’s mouth was a thin line.
“I do care about you,” he said stubbornly. “But I’m also trying to do right by our city.”
“Bullshit,” I spat at him. “You and your brothers want to finish killing our city so you can lord over the corpse.”
“That’s graphic, Meg. There are children present.” Hunter had slipped into his lawyer persona.
“Fine,” I said, trying to calm my breathing. “Fine. We will have an election.”
“Who becomes mayor if we all win the same amount of votes?” Ida piped up from the front row.
Hunter’s eyes widened in shock.
I just laughed.
“I threw my name in the ring,” Ida said, jumping up. “Got my signed forms here and everything. No hard feelings, Meg,” she said, hustling up to the front of the room. “But you weren’t buying into my healthy Harrogate platform. Naked yoga in the park. Organic food options. This is what Harrogate needs to stay competitive!”
“Does that mean no alcohol?” a concerned townsperson asked.
“There’s healthy alcohol and unhealthy alcohol,” Ida explained. “If you just drink straight scotch, that’s good for you. It’s all those sugar additives that will knock out your pancreas.”
The older woman turned to me and Hunter, who looked like he still hadn’t made it past naked yoga in the park.
“Dukes up, you two. Let me tell you. I was around in the seventies. You ain’t seen nothing as ugly as a good ol’ fashioned small-town political showdown!”
8
Hunter