Page 6 of Wyatt’s Fever

I walk past a row of storefronts with perfect flower boxes and zero customers since it’s way after closing time.

Tonight the sky is pink with the kind of sunset that makes you forget about air pollution for five minutes. The scent of grilling meat and cut grass floats through the air, mixed with a humid tinge of chlorine from the public pool. At the corner, a group of teenagers loiter by a bench, eyeing me like they’ve never seen a grown woman in heels and spandex outside of the internet.

Past the town square, a trio of boutiques anchors the next block. One sells designer clothes to all the millionaires in town. The second, a “specialty stationery” shop, offers monogrammed notepaper for people who consider email beneath them. The third is a hardware store run by a man who still handwrites receipts and keeps a shotgun under the counter, just in case.

I slow as I reach the center of the square. Here, framed by white oaks and string lights, stands the infamous fountain. It’s older than the town itself, donated by a robber baron’s widow in the eighteen hundreds and rumored to grant “true love at first sight” to anyone brave enough to drink from it. Supposedly, the town water supply also has the fountain’s magical powers.

My mom believes in it, of course. She even dragged me and Casey here after Dad died, made us drink a Dixie cup of its lukewarm water and wish for happiness. I wished for a puppy and a drama teacher who wasn’t a total pervert. One out of two wasn’t bad.

Tonight, the fountain burbles quietly as I sit on its edge and let my mind drift. It’s been ages since I let myself hope for anything as outlandish as “true love at first sight.” At this point, I’d settle for “mutual tolerance at medium distance” and maybe some halfway decent takeout.

Still, as the sun drops behind the courthouse, I find myself making a wish. Not for love. For courage. For the kind of luck that doesn’t run out at the worst possible moment.

The bells in the square clang seven times telling me I’m late. I get up, brush my hands on my skirt, and take off down the street toward The Sterling Rope.

The club is right around the corner. There’s no line outside, no neon, just the faint shimmer of smoked glass and a discreet security camera blinking high above the door.

For a second, I consider bolting. I could go home, eat the chicken salad, and spend the rest of the night binging true crime with Casey. I could apply to the community college, get a certificate in something boring but safe, let my life shrink to fit the seams of this town like a hand-me-down jacket. Nobody would blame me. Least of all myself.

But that’s not who I want to be. Not anymore. There’s no place in town that pays anywhere near what I’ll earn at The Sterling Rope.

I straighten my skirt, square my shoulders, and march up to the black metal door. I hold the watch Raven Sterling gave me at my interview up to the pad on the side of the door and it pops open.

“Showtime,” I whisper to myself, and step into the dark.