He looked at me as if I was trying to wipe poop on him after a bad toilet-paper swipe. “Why. Are. You. Here.” He gritted it out as if he had a mouth full of marbles.
“I just told you.” Maybe he had a head injury. That could explain the way he was acting.
“Not in this ditch,” he replied. “Why are you here, in the Landings?”
“Oh.” That was a very good question from his perspective. “I just moved here. I live on Yam Gandy Road. Do you know what a Yam Gandy is?”
Brody was deceptively blasé as he shook his head. “You don’t live here.”
“I do. I just moved in today.” I beamed at him proudly. “It’s my first house.”
He clearly wasn’t impressed. “You don’t live here,” he repeated.
“Of course I do.” Something occurred to me. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here. You can’t live here. This is my place.”
Uh-oh.It hadn’t even occurred to me that Brody would live here. I mean, what were the odds of that? “Do you know what a Yam Gandy is?”
Brody growled. “You do not live here!” He screeched, reminding me of his meltdown at the writer’s conference, something else I felt inexplicably guilty about.
“Just avoid Yam Gandy Road,” I suggested.
He started patting his clothes, and I assumed he was looking for broken bones.
“Does anything feel like it’s going to fall off?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he yanked out his phone and searched through his contact list. I watched, curious, as he placed a call.
“Yes, this is Brody Bates,” he said to whoever picked up. “I was run off the road by an idiot on a scooter just past Deer Creek A Coastal Grill, right by their parking lot.”
“That’s a really stupid name for a restaurant,” I pointed out.
Brody still wouldn’t look at me. He was completely focused on his phone. “Yes. Thank you. I’ll see you shortly.” When he turned to me, he was smiling. Not a good smile either. “You’re not going to live here long.”
The way he said it, so smug and full of himself, got my dander up. “Want to place a bet?”
“Gladly.”
IT WASN’T A POLICE OFFICER WHO RESPONDEDto Brody’s call. It was a community safety officer. At least that was how he introduced himself.
Ned Danvers was in his forties. He combed his hair over the top of his head and pretended it was a style choice and not a reaction to what was clearly turning into a bald spot. He was about five-foot-ten and a little soft around the middle. He had a winning smile and wore socks with sandals.
“What happened here?” he asked in the politest voice I’d ever heard a police officer use. Sure, he wasn’t a police officer, but that was essentially his function here.
I opened my mouth, prepared to wow him with my adorable personality, but Brody responded first.
“She flew into my lane when I was trying to leave, and I had no choice but to veer to the right to avoid a collision,” he announced. “The momentum was enough to roll my cart down the hill, and I have no idea how I’m going to get it out of there.”
I leaned to the right so I could look down the embankment. “I bet the four of us could push it up,” I offered helpfully.
Brody had laser eyes. Yes,lasereyes. He wanted to burn a hole in my soul. “I thought scooters were banned,” he said to Ned.
I frowned and jerked my attention away from the cart. “What?” I couldn’t have heard what I’d thought I’d heard.
“It’s true,” Ned said.
He looked appropriately grave to match his tone, which was basically telling me, “You might be pretty, but you’re not too smart, so I’m going to have to explain this to you like you’re two,” and it made me want to punch him in the nuts.
