Page 101 of Hottie on Her Shelf
Fuck. He was done with people saying they wanted something from him, which, admittedly, was a bad reaction from a guy trying to get an entire town to want him to work for them as mayor.
“It wouldn’t.” Fitz tried to ignore his irrational anger. Susan had a mini-crush. She was nothing like his mother who only wanted him for what he represented instead of for who he was inside. So he dug deep for a lighter tone. “First of all, I’d stop and administer first aid to the kid. Secondly? I’d never date Susan. She’s a power walker. I mean, good on her for exercising, but those people look freaking ridiculous. Like they have to pee.”
Two thumbs up signaled his friend’s agreement. “You’ve probably got another five minutes before we get interrupted again. It’s the end of the school year. Tensions are high. Mistakes are being made, desperate measures being taken. Want to finish your rant?”
Fitz had, technically, already finished. He’d told Everett the whole sordid story of what went down in his mom’s hospital room. How she wanted to cavalierly ruin the Scotts just to make sure the Montgomery name remained on the door of the mayor’s office.
How she’d kept her serious, major illness from him. How he wanted things to be different with his parents, but nothing ever changed.
The freshman had barged in right before Fitz rounded off with a soliloquy about how much he missed Hallie. How sitting next to her at events was torture. How he wanted to be with her no matter the consequences.
Everett didn’t need to hear that. Not again, anyway. He’d already heard it plenty over the past week as he tried to keep Fitz distracted with a full viewing of the Fast & Furiousseries.
He shoved to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. “Preston and Caroline have been manipulating me since the day I was born. Which, by the way? Even that wasn’t my choice. Mom had a scheduled C-section because she wanted to get it over with in time to make her annual girls’ weekend of Christmas shopping in Manhattan.”
Everett one-fingered his glasses higher up his nose. “Dude, I agree with every nit you’ve ever picked against your parents except that one. Her body, her choice. You gotta drop that from your list of complaints.”
Agreed. Fitz hated that it’d even slipped out to the front of his brain. It was proof he was way past the end of his rope. “Why do you think you’ve never heard me mention it before? I’m just so damned mad. So frustrated.”
“It’s about time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Uh, that they’ve treated you this way forever. Your unflinching sense of duty’s kept you from doing anything about it. The way you want to honor your family legacy is admirable, but it’s gone on too long.”
“The town’s still here, the duty’s ongoing.”
“Nope. That’s where you’re wrong. The town’s here—and so are other people willing to step up. This isn’t a ragtag settlement back in the 1600s that you’re holding together with grit by the skin of your teeth. We’re a functional society. Sure, we need a figurehead. It doesn’t have to be a Montgomery, though. It doesn’t have to be you.”
Fitz had come to that conclusion himself. It had hit him like a bolt of lightning the first time Hallie did great at a campaign event.
She cared. She wanted to do right by Swan Cove. She was smart enough, for sure.
She’d be a good mayor. That took the onus off him. Theoretically.
Except…he knew his parents would continue to do everything in their power to defeat her efforts. And at this point, Fitz felt it was weighted more toward them maintaining the status of the family name rather than choosing what was best for the town, let alone what was best for their son.
“They won’t let up. They won’t let me step aside. I’m trapped. I do my damnedest to do my best for this town while I’m trapped—”
“You do.” Everett lifted a hand to start ticking off points on his fingers. “You’re calm in a crisis. You listen better than anyone I know, including our trained school counselors. You always step up, lend a hand when needed. You’re universally likeable. You follow through on every commitment, including the ones you hate.”
“—but that doesn’t stop me from feeling the metaphorical metal teeth sinking into my ankle, holding me down, keeping me stuck where I don’t want to be.”
“Fuck. All right.” Everett rolled his neck, cracking it. “It was bad enough watching you give up Hallie. I can’t watch you give up on yourself, too.”
Acting like there was an obvious other path out there…it couldn’t be a cruel joke on his friend’s part. The sneaky bastard had an idea. “What’s the alternative?” Fitz asked cautiously.
“You’re loyal to a fault. So I’ve kept my mouth shut. I knew you’d have to be pushed to your limit to listen to this suggestion. Sadly, I think you’re ready to hear it.”
Now Fitz counted off on his own hand. “Uh, I don’t like my job. I’m unfulfilled by it. I don’t like my parents. Or respect them much anymore, even though I’ll always love them. Pretty sure I met the woman of my dreams and was on the brink of deciding I was in love with her. And I lost her because of the aforementioned job and parents. Yeah, you could say I’ve hit my limit.”
“You need to turn the tables.”
The revelatory suggestion might as well have been in Finnish. Fitz didn’t understand it at all. He leaned an elbow on the institutionally beige file cabinet. “Is there more? I’m willing to turn in my man-card if I can get an instruction manual to skim…”
After rolling his eyes up to the acoustical tiles with at least two dozen pencils impaling them, Everett gave a sigh that indicated further explanation would be as painful as carving it line by line into a totem pole.
“Fine. I’ll spell it out. You need to expose their dirty secrets.”
