“I changed my mind,” LeAnne says coolly, but her fury is evident. She squeezes the car keys in her hand as though they’re a stress ball. “You weren’t at the house when I got back. I got worried.”
“How did you know –”
LeAnne pulls her phone from her purse and holds it up. “Maybe if you don’t want your mother checking your location, you should block me in the future,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She puts her phone away and turns her back on us, studying the scene by the lake. Music is still playing, and everyone is happily mulling around, oblivious to the fact that Mayor Avery has shown up. “A bonfire?” she hisses through tight lips, twisting back around. “In apark? This was your idea, no doubt? Youidiot, Blake!”
“We aren’t harming anyone!” Blake argues, raising his voice in self-defense. “There’s no trees near the fire. We aren’t being too loud. We’re just—”
“Singing around the fire?” LeAnne sharply cuts in, nodding to the guitar case on the truck bed behind us. She raises an eyebrow as though challenging Blake to deny it. “All this trouble just so you get the chance to play in front of anaudience, huh?”
Blake remains silent, but, standing next to him, I sense the tremor of fury that ripples through him. In a seething voice, he growls, “You aren’t the goddamn Mayor of Fairview. You don’t control us here.”
LeAnne, terrifyingly calm, closes the few steps that separate Blake and her. She draws her face to his, then puts her hand flat on his chest so that he’s forced to look straight back at her. “Shut it down,” she orders venomously. “Right now.”
“Okay!” Blake barks in defeat, moving free of her. He brushes down his shirt and, nostrils flaring, cuts his eyes to me. “Mila, get in the truck.”
“No,” LeAnne retorts.
Blake’s expression twists as he looks back to his mother. “No?”
“You are staying here, Blake,” she declares. “You are sending all of those kids home. You are cleaning up every single item that was brought here tonight. You are putting that fire out and you aren’t leaving here until you ensure the remaining ash has completely cooled down. I don’t care if that means you’re out here all night.”
“I can do all that,” Blake mutters. “But I gave Mila a ride,” he insists, his voice stronger. “And Myles and Savannah. How are they going to get home?”
LeAnne doesn’t say anything at first, but she sets her fierce eyes on me and I know I don’t want to hear her answer. I shrink further into myself, drawing my shoulders in tight, wishing I could hide out of sight.
“I’ll take them home,” says LeAnne at last. She continues to glower at me with nothing short of contempt, as though I personally organized this little campfire singalong myself. “Mila, go to my car. Blake, go and get your cousins.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Blake reluctantly sets off, stopping after a few yards to turn back with a weary, torn expression. “I’m sorry,” he mouths. Then he continues toward the bonfire to shut down the night.
“Mila,” LeAnne says.
“What?” I bite back more aggressively than I mean to. How can she talk to her son like that? How can she always look at me as though I’m filth she’s just discovered trodden into on her shoe?
“This way,” she says, and begins to walk.
At first, I don’t want to follow her. Just moments ago, Blake’s lips were against mine and I was sinking happily into the scent of firewood and cologne and the sensation of his fingers brushing my skin. It all ended so quickly that I can’t help but question if it ever really happened. There’s still the soft taste of him on my lips, but it’s vanishing like campfire smoke in the night air.
How can I go from kissing Blake in the back of his truck to now being ordered around by his mom?
But it looks like Mayor Avery isn’t someone whose orders you ignore.
So, I follow her.
18
“Aunt LeAnne, this isunfair,” Myles grumbles. “You believe in fairness, don’t you? Your policies are all about beingfair, aren’t they?”
“Myles, you’re cruising for a bruising,” LeAnne says. “Be quiet.”
“You have officially been relegated to my least favorite relative,” he replies, fearless. “You’re now behind Uncle Ricky, andno onelikes Uncle Ricky.”
LeAnne pointedly ignores him. Her eyes are set fiercely on the darkness ahead as she weaves her luxurious Tesla down the narrow country roads. The radio isn’t on, so the deafening silence is only heightening the tense atmosphere in this car right now. Myles has spent the past ten minutes complaining in outrage, not only about the bonfire being shut down so soon after it began, but also about the embarrassment of having his aunt deliver him home to the Willowbank ranch, which makes me wonder if perhaps Patsy isn’t exactly aware of what it was that her kids were getting up to this evening.
Savannah, on the other hand, hasn’t said a single word. Neither have I.
