“Who’re you babysittin’?”
Avery glanced up at her with a stare that suggested Mac couldn’t be that stupid. “Uh, you.”
“Me?” Mac scoffed. “What the hell do I need a babysitter for?”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Answer the question.”
“Lunch.”
“Mhmm…with Will.” Avery grabbed a container of what looked like chicken lo mein, fell into a chair, and dug into the box with a pair of chopsticks. Around a bite, she said, “And before that?”
“Um…last night.”
Avery raised a brow as she chewed, as if she couldn’t even be bothered with a response.
“What? I don’t usually eat breakfast.”
The brow got higher, and this time, Avery’s foot started tapping a beat on the floor.
Okay, so Mac did usually eat breakfast, but she hadn’t been hungry lately. That wasn’t a crime. She also hadn’t really gone anywhere—like The Willow Tree, or, you know, the grocery store—so her food supply was pitiful. But, well, she was just so tired after work and wanted to go straight home and face-plant into her bed. And she hadn’t been in the mood to talk, so she didn’t want to chance running into anyone while she was out. Like…Edna. If she happened to avoid an encounter with Hudson while she was at it, well…
“You don’t have to treat me like I’m a child.”
“Your lack of basic adulting says otherwise.”
Mac rolled her eyes and finally dug into the bag in front of her, the smells too enticing to ignore. Settling on General Tso’s chicken, she grabbed a fork—Avery was a show-off with those damn chopsticks—and settled back into her chair.
Avery lifted her chin toward the paperwork strewn across Mac’s desk. “Whatcha working on?”
“Just gettin’ my ducks in a row before I approach Atticus and Darcy with the proposal.” She’d casually suggested it to them earlier in the week, and they’d both been receptive—the truce between them that Mac had initiated had paved the way for that nicely—but she still wanted to make sure her i’s were dotted and her t’s were crossed.
“It’s a great idea, Mac. And the funds the produce from the garden will bring in will go a long way in wiping out student lunch debt at the elementary school. People will be flocking to their businesses just to support them.”
“I hope so.”
But Mac still felt a nagging tug in her belly that this wasn’t what she should be doing—that it wasn’therjob to be pushing for things like this because she was only there temporarily. While, yes, what she was doing was for the good of Havenbrook, others may not see it that way. They may flat out reject it, or report back to her daddy that she was turning the town soft. She could hear the arguments now—Kids can pay for their own lunches, and if they can’t, their parents should just work harder.
But, well, as much as she didn’t want to rock the boat, she also didn’t want to sit by when she had the platform to affect real change in their town. So maybe a tiny little nudge wouldn’t hurt. Not too far…just a little.
“Hey,” Avery said, pointing toward Mac with her chopsticks. “Open the bottom left drawer.”
Mac furrowed her brow but did as Avery asked, pulling open the drawer. My God, her daddy’s desk was a complete pigsty. How he managed to make such a mess when he didn’t do any actual work was beyond her.
“You have a need for some used envelopes or extra napkins?” she asked.
“Nope, what I want is all the way at the back. Careful while you dig—never know what you’ll find in Dick’s drawers.”
Mac screwed up her face in disgust, definitely not interested in blindly sticking her hand in to feel around for God knew what. Instead, she grabbed a pencil from the desk and pushed the items aside with the eraser end, her gaze snapping to Avery’s when she uncovered something interesting.
Dropping the pencil on the desk, she grabbed the bottle of amber liquid and lifted it out by the neck. “Whiskey?”
“Not my favorite, but desperate times call for desperate measures.” Avery plucked two paper cups out of her purse, separated them, and dropped them on the desk. “Fill ’er up.”
“You always have those?” Mac gestured to the cups.
