by B. B. Hamel
He smiles at me and doesn’t speak for a long moment before turning to look at Lora. “I want her family to do something for me,” he says.
I sigh and open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but Lora speaks up before I can get it out. “What do you need, Mr. Ashman?”
“Here’s the deal,” he says. “For a very long time, your family’s been in charge of this town. I don’t like it, lots of folks don’t like it, although a lot of folks think your family is the only thing keeping us all afloat. Fine, maybe that’s true. But I think someone ought to be in power that’s not beholden to you all, unlike the rest of this town.”
“And you think that person is you,” Lora says with a smile.
“I think so,” Dad answers. “That’s my idea, at least. The mayoral election is coming next year. I want to be a candidate and I want to win.”
She looks surprised. “You want to be mayor? Town council isn’t good enough for you?”
“Dad, you can’t be serious,” I say. “They can’t give that to you.”
“Of course they can,” he says. “If they tell folks to vote for me, it’ll be a landslide. They’re the damn Lofthouse family.”
“We don’t get involved in politics,” Lora says.
“Oh, bullshit.” Dad glares at her. “Everything you people do is political. For once I want you to do it out in the open like everyone else.”
Lora doesn’t speak. I shake my head, totally taken aback. I’ve never heard my father talk about becoming an elected official before. In fact, he’s always made fun of the people that ran for anything. He’s had nothing but contempt for them.
And now he wants to be the mayor. It makes no sense.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Lora says.
I stare at her, shocked. Dad seems just as surprised as I am.
“Really?” I ask her. “Are you serious?”
“My family doesn’t do politics,” she says. “But there might be other ways.”
Dad laughs. He leans back and he laughs. He shakes his head, shock and amusement all over his face. “Of course there’s another way. There always is for you people. Isn’t that right?”
Lora stands. “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Ashman. In the meantime, leave us alone, please.”
“Make some guarantees, and then we’ll see what I can do.”
She turns and leaves the room.
I stare at my dad. “You’ve gone too far,” I say. “I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Sorry, son,” he says. “But some things are bigger than you.”
I stand up. “When this is over, don’t bother calling me that again.”
“Calling you what?” He tilts his head and frowns.
“Son.”
I turn and leave his office. Lora’s waiting for me out front.
“What do we do now?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “He wants to be mayor, but…”
“That won’t ever happen,” she says. “Even if that’s something my family could do, I wouldn’t let them.”
I nod once. “I agree.”
“So what’s our other option?”
“We get that permit,” I say. “And once we have it, we go forward with our plan.”
“Your father won’t like it.”
“Good.” I take her hand. “Let him be mad.”
She grins at me and kisses my cheek. “Good for you. I don’t think I’d have the balls to stand up to my family.”
“You have the biggest balls I know, girl.” I take her hand and pull her along. “Come on. Let’s figure this out.”
19
Lora
There are benefits to being rich.
One of them is a private jet.
We don’t use it often. Private jets are expensive to operate and horrible for the environment. My mother does care about that sort of thing, even if it is only because of her reputation and for no other reason.
But this is an emergency. When I explain to my mother what our problem is and what I want to do about it, she agrees to let me borrow the plane, on the condition that we will be discreet.
Problem is, there’s nothing discreet about a private jet.
We board the aircraft and sit down on enormous, plush seats. Dean laughs as he sinks down deep into the leather. “This is insane,” he says. “Seriously, this is way too insane.”
“I know,” I say, grinning. “I’ve only ever been on this once before.”
“Really?”
“Mother isn’t generous with the plane. We normally fly commercial.”
“First class, I assume.”
“Well, of course.” I make a face. “We’re Lofthouses, after all.”
He laughs at that. The attendant we hired for the trip comes over, offers us drinks, and the pilot taxis not long later. Soon, we’re in the air, hurtling through the sky.
“This is insane,” Dean says to me, looking out the window. “Do you know how many times I’ve left Loftville? I mean, aside from going to school.”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“Zero.”
“Come on, that’s not true. You want on vacation, right?”
“Not once. My dad never took time off, never wanted to go anywhere that wasn’t local. Just the way things were for me, growing up.”
“You’re in for such a treat then,” I say with a laugh.
“Just being up here in this plane is a treat.” He sighs and stretches his legs.
The trip out isn’t bad. It takes a few hours to get from Loftville out to Tampa, Florida. We land on a private airstrip and the pilot parks the plane in a hangar. “Two days,” I say to them. “And then we’re back up.”
“Sounds like a plan,” the pilot says.
Dean and I get off the plane, find a taxi, and take it into town. It drops us off at the hotel I booked. We check in, get the room, and get settled.
“Not bad,” Dean says, nodding.
“It’s not a private plane, but it’ll do.” The room is a suite with a large bedroom and a small living room area. There’s a fully stocked bar, a large television, and a comfortable couch. It’s not a five-star hotel, but it’s nice enough.
“So, where to from here?” he asks me.
That’s the big question. I managed to track Leo Archer to Tampa, Florida. He was surprisingly easy to find and apparently very active on Instagram.
“Now I send him a message and see if he’ll meet with us.” I take out my phone and find his profile. “Hey, look. He went fishing today.” I show Dean the picture of Leo holding up a couple of little fish and grinning. The location says Tampa, Florida.
“Good for him.” Dean frowns a little. “Think he’ll help?”
“I have no clue,” I say. “Uncle Ron thinks he’s a crook. But Uncle Ron is an asshole, so it’s hard to say.”
Dean just nods and sits back on the couch.
I draft out a message, make a few changes, and then stare at it for a long moment. This is important, what I say to him now could change everything. “Ready?” I ask.
“Ready,” Dean says.
I hit send. The message goes through.
We sit there and wait, staring at the phone.
It’s dead quiet in the room.
Nothing moves. I barely breathe. Dean’s tension is obvious.
It buzzes. I jump. “Oh, shit,” I say. “Sorry, false alarm. Just a text from Delia.”
Dean groans. “I don’t know if I can handle the wait.”
“He’ll message back. For now, maybe we should kill some time? I mean, this is your first trip outside of Loftville.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Dinner and drinks,” I say. “The usual.”
“Okay then,” he says with a grin. “Take me out and sweep me off my feet.”
I laugh. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
“We’re progressive here. Come on, lady.” He gets up and comes over. I stand as he wraps his arms around me and kisses me gently. “Sho
w me a good time.”
“Will do.”
“You know, I used to think Loftville was the center of the universe,” Dean says as he finishes his whiskey and leans back in his chair. “But maybe it’s Tampa.”
“Oh, you dear, sweet man,” I say, shaking my head. “The only thing Tampa is the center of is meth.”
He laughs. “There are a surprising amount of missing teeth around here.”
We’re sitting together on the back patio of a nice, upscale restaurant. It’s comfortable and fun in a way I hadn’t expected, and for a while I forget all about what we’re actually doing here.
“You know, what if we just forget about this whole thing?” I ask. “I mean, let’s just have a vacation for a few days. We can come back to the whole thing another time.”
He frowns at me. “Is that what you really want?”
I close my eyes and sigh. “Of course not.”
“But it would be nice, though.”
“Right? We could just… you know. Relax, be normal. Enjoy each other.”
“I like the sound of that.” He arches an eyebrow at me. “I could enjoy a lot of you.”
I laugh a little. “See, you want it too.”
“I do. Is that why you’ve been keeping your phone face down and on silent all night?”
I nod a little. “I’m not backing down. Don’t get me wrong. I just…”
“It feels nice to be normal for a little bit. Even if things aren’t normal at all right now.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“I hear you.” He smiles a little. “But fuck normal. Fuck being normal. Do you really want that?”
I laugh and sip my wine. “I guess not.”
“No, you don’t. You’d be so bored with normal. That’s not you, Lora.”
“I should check my phone,” I say.
“You really should.”
I sigh and pick it up. I feel like I’m giving something up as I unlock it and stare at my Instagram message.
“Well?” Dean asks.
“He says he’ll meet us tomorrow.” I grin at him. “And he says he has one hell of a story to tell.”
“Perfect.” Dean stretches. “So that gives us… well, tonight. What do you say we go back to the hotel and enjoy each other?”
“I guess we could do that.” I give him a sly little smile. “What did you have in mind?”
“I plan on taking you back to that room, stripping you down, and feasting on you however I want. And when you think I’m done, I promise, I’ll just be starting.”
I smile and feel a little shiver run down my spine. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
I wave down the waitress, ask for the check, and let him drag me out of that restaurant as fast as we can go.
The morning comes bright and early but Dean’s already up. He goes for a run before I manage to drag myself out of bed and is showered and dressed by the time I manage to brush my teeth. I have this perfect little ache between my legs from where he took me, again and again, rougher and rougher, all night long.
“Ready?” he asks me.
“I think so. Do you think this guy can really help?”
“I have no clue,” he says. “If he worked with your uncle, he should know something about what’s going on at least.”
“Uncle Ron did say that this guy was his business manager.”
“Whatever that means.”
“But he called him a crook.”
Dean snorts. “Do you take your uncle’s word to mean anything at all?”
“No, that’s a good point.”
“So let’s hear the guy out. He says he has a good story. I don’t doubt it.”
I nod a little and finish getting ready. When I’m done, we head out together, grab a cab, and give it the name of the coffee place Leo wants to meet at.
We’re a little early, so we grab drinks and find a spot in a quiet corner. I shift nervously in my seat, not sure why I’m so worried about this. I mean, nothing can go wrong here, he can either help or he can’t. Either way, we’ll be left back where we started.
But still, I feel strange. Tracking this guy down wasn’t hard, but it’s raising more questions than answers.
About ten minutes after we sit down, a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, dark tan skin, light blue eyes, frizzy white hair, and a heavy gut comes walking over to our table. He smiles down at me. “Are you Lora Lofthouse?” he asks.
“I am. And you’re Leo Archer.”
“Good to meet you.” We shake hands and he turns to Dean. “And nice to meet you, too.”
“I’m Dean Ashman, I’m Lora’s partner.”
I sit back down and the guys follow suit. Leo leans back in his chair and looks at the two of us with a little smile on his lips. “So, what brings you down to Florida from Loftville?”
“Mr. Archer, you worked with my uncle, correct?”
“Ronald?” He nods. “I sure did.”
“At the warehouse.”
“Oh, yeah.” He laughs. “Among other things.”
I let that comment slide. “Dean and I just bought the warehouse from him, but we’re having issues with the permit and the zoning. Uncle Ron said you were the person I should talk to.”
“I’m sure he did.” Leo shakes his head. “Ron always was good at passing responsibility off to someone else.”
“What do you mean?”
“Back when we worked together, I was his fall guy.”
“You’ll have to elaborate,” I say.
“Ron was in business with some shady people,” Leo said. “Mobsters, gamblers, gangsters, men like that. I don’t know why. I think your uncle was just attracted to that kind of danger. But he needed someone to be the face of his official business, just a little layer between him and his assets so that the mobsters and the like couldn’t go after his stuff.”
“Ah,” I say, frowning. “So that was you?”
“Exactly. A lot of that stuff was in my name for a long, long time. He wanted to make sure that if anything happened, some thugs couldn’t just come into the warehouse and steal everything. He wanted to make sure they didn’t know he was involved.”
“But we bought it from him,” I say, frowning.
“Right. Well, what happened was the warehouse started to lose money. I couldn’t figure out why… until I caught some guys stealing from it. Turns out, Ron was selling them access and letting them take some stuff to fuel his gambling habit off the books. When I saw that, I just walked the fuck away.”
“So you’re not the owner anymore?” I ask.
“I have no clue,” he admits. “But I knew that if I stayed and tried to keep working the place, eventually either I’d go bankrupt or I’d get killed. So I took what money I could and moved down here. Best decision I ever made.”
I glance at Dean and he’s just shaking his head with disbelief. “So Uncle Ron is a straight-up criminal,” he says.
“Pretty much.” Leo grins and shrugs. “Sorry to break it to you, Lora.”
“That’s okay. I knew he was an asshole already. I just didn’t know he was an asshole and a criminal.” I take a deep breath to calm myself as Leo laughs. “But listen, what about the permits? You had to have gotten them, right?”
“Oh, I definitely got them,” he says. “I don’t know what happened after I left. I suspect your uncle took ownership of the warehouse and just never renewed them.”
“Wait… we just have to renew them?”
“Oh, sure. It’s just a small licensing fee. Nobody told you that?”
“No,” I say, staring at him. “Nobody told me.”
“Well, listen, my office isn’t far from here. Why don’t we swing past it and I’ll give you everything I have on the place?”
“That would be amazing.” I glance at Dean and he’s grinning.
“What do you plan on using it for, by the way?” Leo asked.
“We’re building an indoor fun park,” I say. “Giving the community something
to do.”
“Good for you.” He grins at me. “I’m glad to see you didn’t inherit the asshole gene from your uncle.”
“I suspect he got all those genes possible.”
Leo laughed, stood up, and led us back out front. We piled into his tasteful black sedan and he drove a few blocks over to a small, squat business park.
“What do you do now, Leo?” Dean asks as he gets out.
“Lawyer,” he says. “Family practice stuff. That was my life before Ron got his hooks in me.” He laughs and shakes his head. “Anyway, sit tight, let me go run in and grab it. I know just where I put it all.”
He heads inside, leaving the car running. I look back at Dean and grin at him. “Jackpot.”
“Fuck yes.” He laughs. “It’s insane.”
I want to kiss him, but Leo comes back a minute later with a big, fat folder. He gets back in and hands it to me. “Here you go. Everything you need’s in there. The renewal should be a breeze.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
“Ah, well, anything I can do to stick it to Ron. Want a lift back to your hotel?”
“That would be great.”
Leo talks about his relationship with Ron the whole way over. Turns out, they’d been good friends and went to school together before Ron decided to ruin everything over his shady business. We pull into the parking lot of the hotel and he glides to a stop out front.
“Anyway, I washed my hands of it all,” Leo says. “But I do remember Loftville fondly. I hope you two kids do something great with that space.”
“Thanks so much for your help,” I say to him.
“Anytime. Good luck.”
I hop out and Dean follows. When Leo’s out of sight, I turn to Dean, the huge folder tucked under my arm and laugh.
He laughs back. It’s like we can’t stop. We laugh together and I throw myself against him. He wraps his big arms around me and holds me tight.
“My uncle…” I manage to gasp. “He was a crook… Oh my god… such a crook… and he still is!”
My sides hurt from laughing. Eventually, we calm down enough to go inside.
“Let’s go home,” he says. “I’m tired of being on vacation. I want to get back to work.”
“I agree.” I lean against his strong shoulder. I’d never be able to do any of this without him. “Loftville isn’t so bad.”