More Than Everything

by Rachel Kane

  More than Everything

  Superbia Springs Book Two

  Rachel Kane

  Copyright © 2020 by Rachel Kane

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Noah

  2. Dalton

  3. Noah

  4. Dalton

  5. Noah

  6. Dalton

  7. Noah

  8. Dalton

  9. Dalton

  10. Noah

  11. Dalton

  12. Noah

  13. Dalton

  14. Noah

  15. Dalton

  16. Noah

  17. Dalton

  18. Noah

  19. Dalton

  20. Noah

  21. Dalton

  22. Noah

  23. Dalton

  24. Noah

  25. Dalton

  26. Noah

  27. Dalton

  28. Noah

  29. Dalton

  30. Noah and Dalton, Together

  31. Four Months Later

  In case you missed it… A Selection from “Spring Forward,” the first book in Superbia Springs!

  Afterword

  More Romance from Rachel!

  1

  Noah

  “You could imagine them all naked,” suggested Judah. “People say that makes public speaking easier.”

  Noah swallowed, his throat dry. He pictured himself in one of those Westerns where tumbleweed drifted across a dirt road. That’s what his throat felt like. Cattle skulls half-buried in the sand. A rattlesnake or two. Why hadn’t he brought any bottled water?

  “You’ll be fine,” said Liam, squeezing his shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

  He nodded. “I know. Time to shake it off, right? If there’s one thing I love, it’s the spotlight.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Judah told him. “Treat it like small-town dinner theater, instead of small-town government.”

  Liam’s brow did the little furrow that always showed up when he thought Judah had just suggested a bad idea. “Maybe dinner theater is the wrong way to go here.”

  “You don’t think the town council would enjoy a higher level of drama than usual?” Noah asked.

  “Oh, there’s going to be drama, just from you walking in.” Liam reached over and straightened Noah’s collar. “I do wish you’d worn a tie. And a suit. And used possibly fewer styling products. And—”

  Noah brushed his hands away. “Trust me. Once these people see me in all my glory, they’ll forget about suits and ties. Besides, this is cashmere. It’s soft. People like soft. Very nonthreatening. Judah, hold my index cards.”

  “Hold your own index cards!”

  “I don’t have pockets, Judah.”

  His friend peered at him. “Your pants don’t have pockets? Where do you put your…stuff?”

  “Liam,” Noah implored, “explain the facts of my wardrobe to your little brother, please?”

  “I’m not sure I understand the facts,” laughed Liam.

  “Clearly. You wear cargo pants everywhere.”

  Liam nodded and reached into one of the oversized pockets that hung off his trousers like saddlebags. When his hand emerged, it was holding a pacifier. “When you have a baby, every pocket counts.”

  “You should have brought Roo with you!” said Noah, fiddling with his index cards. “I could use the moral support.”

  “Yeah, there’s nothing babies like better than town council meetings. I think she’s much happier back home with Mason. Look…are you okay? We need to get inside.”

  He looked down at his notes. He thought about the practice he’d done in front of the mirror. He swallowed again, a ball of dust-bunnies and barbed wire.

  “Let’s go beg for money,” he said.

  Can a hush be noisy? That was the question when Noah walked into the Superbia Community Center. A tense silence filled the air, a sense that everyone had gone from talking normally to whispering. Gossiping. Would you look at his outfit? He must think this is one of his gay nightclubs. He bestowed his most winning smile on the room, nodding at the people he knew, hoping he’d shined it on a few people he didn’t know in the process. He needed allies among these people who had treated him like an alien since the minute he’d arrived to Superbia.

  They were so strange. Who comes to a council meeting in small-town Georgia on a Thursday night? People with literally nothing better to do. People for whom the lure of watching the local news and Wheel of Fortune was not as great as the pull of talking about whether the town could afford a stoplight on Sumter, or about that pothole that kept opening up on Bond.

  These were not his people.

  His throat alerted him to the need to cough, but he restrained it.

  Two folding tables were set up at the head of the room, rows of folding chairs facing them, the foosball and bumper pool tables moved over to the walls to make more room.

  “What kind of town doesn’t even offer a champagne fountain?” he whispered to Judah. “No finger sandwiches? No pineapple?”

  “You know,” said Judah, “if you hadn’t avoided every single other meeting we tried to drag you to, you’d be a lot less nervous right now. They don’t bite.”

  “It’s not their teeth I’m worried about. It’s their polycotton blends and their baleful stares.”

  Superbia’s portly mayor stood from the front tables and cleared his throat. “Y’all, I’m gonna call this meeting to order.”

  “Thank god,” whispered Noah. “Now, do I go up to the podium to make my speech, or do I—”

  Liam shook his head. “Settle down there, noble statesman, you’ve got a while before they call you. I got you on the agenda between the First Baptist bake sale announcement and the lady who always wants to complain about sales tax.”

  “What, I have to wait? But Liam, this is important!”

  The amusement drained out of Liam’s face. “Yes, I’m aware of how important this is. That’s why I forced you to come with us tonight. But there’s an order to things. You’ll see.”

  “Oh…oh hell…Liam…” Judah took Liam’s sleeve and began tugging on it, and Noah quickly got his arms out of the way, lest Judah tug on his sweater too.

  Liam turned the way Judah was facing, and sucked in air through his clenched teeth. “Oh hell.”

  Noah turned too. There wasn’t much of a crowd for the Superbia town council, yet it still parted like the Red Sea, except instead of Moses striding onto the dry sea bed, here came the Mulgrews, Violet and Justin, mother and son.

  “You didn’t tell me they were going to be here!” he whispered urgently.

  “They weren’t supposed to be!” Liam whispered back.

  “Can we reschedule?” asked Judah.

  Liam’s tense head-shake was answer enough.

  “Violet!” called the mayor. “Why don’t you come on and have a seat by me?”

  “Don’t mind if I do, Mayor Riley,” said the woman with a voice like poisoned sugar. “Oh, would you look at that, it’s the Cooper brothers, and their little friend Noah. How do you do, boys? I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

  She extended a gloved hand, and Liam, always the mature grown-up, reached out to take it. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Mulgrew.”

  Judah just stared at her open-mouthed. She didn’t offer her hand to him, but instead turned to Noah. Oh, that expression!

  He knew the look. Knew it as well as he knew his own face. It was a look he’d stored deep in his
heart, in memories he could barely dredge up.

  The kids at school used to look at me like that. The look a snake gave a bird’s egg as it slithered into the nest.

  Noah took her hand. “I love that shade. Prussian blue?” he asked, gesturing at the glove.

  “Your sweater is beautiful, dear, although do you think it’s quite proper for a town council meeting?”

  “Liam asked me the same thing.”

  Her smile was as grim as a hundred funerals. “I’m sure no one will mind. As long as you weren’t planning on speaking. Come,” she said to her son Justin, “Mayor Riley has a seat for us up front.”

  Noah looked down at his index cards. His hand had gotten so clammy, the cards were beginning to warp, although at least the ink wasn’t too smudged. He was the one who needed vintage gloves tonight.

  Prussian blue. What was she thinking? Was it a subtle message?

  He tried to put her out of his mind, as he studied his cards. Time dragged. The meeting was called to order, the minutes of the last meeting were read, and for some reason they had to vote on those minutes, as though the past wouldn’t quite exist if it wasn’t approved of.

  If only it were that easy to erase the past! He chuckled silently to himself.

  “And I don’t see what gives you the right to poke your nose into my purchases, taking five percent of every one!” said the lady at the podium, Mrs. Reynolds. She clutched the sides of the podium with righteous vigor. “Where does the money go?”

  “Well, now, Mabel, as we’ve talked about, a portion of your sales tax stays right here in town, for maintenance of the roads.” The mayor smiled and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Not to mention those nice firemen who are always on duty, in case your house were to burn down.”

  “I just think if something says it costs 19.99, I ought to get a penny back in change when I hand over a twenty-dollar bill! Otherwise it’s false advertising!”

  Mayor Riley nodded. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Mabel. Now, who’s next on the agenda? Ah, yes. The house. Y’all boys want to come up here?”

  “Moment of truth,” whispered Liam. “You ready?”

  Noah smiled and nodded and shook his head all at the same time, making his skull wobble on his neck. “Okay…? Yes. Yes, ready. No. Yes.”

  “Remember,” said Judah, “imagine them naked.”

  “Oh god no, don’t say that, I don’t want to see Mayor Riley naked.”

  “Would you hush and get up there?” said Liam, blushing.

  Noah brought up his index cards and set them on the podium. There were moist handprints from where Mabel had clutched the sides, and he avoided those.

  The room stared at him.

  He heard, from somewhere deep in the shadowy corners of memory, a schoolroom chant:

  Noah, Noah, he’s so poor,

  Can’t afford a house no more!

  But this was not school. These were not the sadistic kids who had tormented him. These were just people.

  He lifted his face to the room.

  “Mayor, Council. My name is Noah Turnstock, and as you know, I am Director of Outreach for Superbia Springs Resort, LLC.”

  The mayor nodded. “We know who you are, Noah.”

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah…yeah, I guess you do. I’m here today to proposition you—I mean, to propose—actually—”

  His throat tried to close off. He glanced back at Liam and Judah, sitting a few rows back. They gave him the thumb’s up. Liam mouthed: Be yourself.

  Yes, well that never worked, did it? People hated it when you were yourself. They wanted you to be what they wanted.

  That was the problem, wasn’t it? That’s where the nerves came from. Trying to read the room, trying to understand what people wanted from you. Trying to understand who they wanted to see, when they looked at you.

  Who did they see? A fashionable twink in designer clothes who had no business standing before this council meeting, when he should have been getting ready for a night of G&Ts and parties? Yes. And that was all they saw.

  Give them what they want. It’s the law of the world.

  “Well,” he said breathlessly, “I am here today to ask for your support. As you know—”

  “Dear,” interrupted Violet Mulgrew, “if you can start a sentence with as you know, then you hardly need to waste our time by saying it, do you?”

  “I know you know,” he said, deploying his smile again, “but in case anyone at tonight’s meeting doesn’t: We have been hard at work restoring Superbia Springs to its former glory, so we can make it into the hot-springs resort it used to be, fifty years ago.”

  “Yes, three boys in charge of a decaying old mansion,” Violet said. “We all know, Mr. Turnstock. I don’t think there’s a person here in Superbia that isn’t aware that you’ve been renovating that pile of debris so that you can make a quick buck off of it.”

  A murmur rippled through the crowd. He could hear Liam hiss behind him. No wonder: The so-called decaying old mansion had been willed to Liam by an eccentric great-uncle. It was family property, and the insinuation that they were putting all this effort into it for some get-rich-quick scheme was unconscionable.

  No, he thought, you don’t know a word like unconscionable. The personality you’re showing to them wouldn’t know that. The personality you’re showing them doesn’t get morally offended.

  He slightly turned his head, so that he was speaking to the mayor instead of Violet, effectively cutting her out of the conversation. “We have applied for a historical grant, Mr. Mayor, and there is so much paperwork, you wouldn’t believe it. But one thing we need, is the town council’s approval. In writing. The grant foundation wants to know that you support us, that you support our project. That all the appropriate zoning requirements have been met, that any historical district procedures are being followed—”

  “Of course,” beamed the mayor. “Proud to, son. Every single one of us remembers how that house was before you got here, and Violet is right, it was starting to decay, but you’ve put us back on the map. I think I speak for the entire town council when I say—”

  “Ahem,” said Violet. “Mayor, I know you mean well, but I’m not sure you can speak for the entire council.”

  The look she gave him was so full of knives, the mayor was punctured and deflated, visibly sinking back into his chair. “Does…does anyone have an objection, then?”

  She rose from her seat, and placed her gloved fingertips on the surface of the table. “Ladies and gentlemen, as not only an elected member of this council, but also President of the Superbia Beautification League, not to mention sitting on several charitable foundations at town, county, and state levels, I must object to Mr. Turnstock’s proposal.”

  Noah’s thumbs worked on the edges of his index card. “The Beautification League objects to us beautifying the most important historical landmark in Superbia, the grandest house, the—”

  Oh, that smile. It was amazing half the room didn’t turn to stone when she smiled like that.

  “What we object to,” she said, “is your turning a historical landmark into, how shall I say, a house of ill-repute.”

  The stunned silence of the room was broken only by the thudding of Noah’s pulse in his temples, like the beginning of a migraine coming on. “I’m sorry, a house of what?”

  “Come now, boy, don’t make me spell it out for you.”

  Often in life, when faced with a challenge that required a practical, grown-up answer, Noah would ask himself, What would Liam do? His friend was as pragmatic as he was big-hearted, and would think carefully through the options, judging what would work out best for everyone.

  When faced with a more intellectual problem, he’d ask himself, How would Judah solve this? The younger of the Cooper brothers prided himself on his logic and his mind, and would tease out scenarios like the galactic battle-plans of those science fiction novels he liked.

  Nobody ever asked What would Noah do? Because very fe
w problems in life were really solved by going to bars and picking up cute guys and trying to impress people with your knowledge of fabrics and design.

  Give them what they want. Clearly Violet wanted very badly to say something to him.

  “For me, for the council, for the record, please do spell it out, Mrs. Mulgrew,” he said in his most sugary voice. “Because that remark went right over my head.”

  She tsked with her tongue. “Well, I hardly like to sully the record with this kind of talk, but if you won’t allow a lady to be polite, I suppose I’ll just say it. Superbia is a traditional town, dear. It’s a town of history, of values. And I just don’t think opening a…a gay hotel is really what a town of this staunch morality needs. Maybe up in Atlanta they do things differently. Maybe up north, out west, I don’t know. You people with your pride parades, showing yourself off with all those leather straps and things, it’s not something I’m overly familiar with.”

  “I assure you that the only leather straps I wear are the ones on my shoes,” he said archly.

  “It’s a slippery slope. First you open your gay hotel. Then what? Lesbian weddings in the courthouse? Bisexual bakeries? It’s an abomination.”

  “What would a bi bakery even be?” he asked. “Are you—”

  The mayor rapped on the table with his gavel. “If I can get this meeting back in order—”

  “I am serious, Riley,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “The Beautification League will not put its imprimatur on any plan that funds, approves, or in any way supports the homosexual agenda.”

  “First off, it’s not a gay hotel,” said Noah. “It’s a hotel owned by gay people, which is different.”