Page 70 of Happily Ever After

“As I’ll ever be. See you later, Peanut.” She locked the door behind them.

He opened the passenger door for her. Cece slid into the seat and fastened her belt, watching him walk around the front of the car and get in behind the wheel.

Once they were on the road, he adjusted the air. Joe glanced at her at a stop sign, then back at the road.

“I went through the bylaws last night,” he said.

Maybe this would be the end of it. She looked at him expectantly. “And?”

“And I wish I had something better to tell you,” he said. “But the section on groups is not well written. Whoever did that must have failed contract law.”

She exhaled slowly. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough that Darcy isn’t wrong to think she has an argument,” he said. “The language is broad. It never clearly defines whether it applies to Colony-sponsored activities or to private resident gatherings.”

Cece stared out the window as familiar streets passed by. “So it’s open to interpretation.”

“Yes,” Joe said. “Which means if someone pushed hard enough, and if the board didn’t have enough backbone, it could end up in front of a judge.”

Cece turned toward him. “A judge.”

Joe nodded. “I don’t think it would get there easily. And I don’t think Darcy would necessarily win. But I also can’t say she’d lose outright. It would come down to intent, precedent, and how the language is read.”

Cece pressed her lips together. “I hate this.”

“I know,” Joe said. “I hate it, too. Ambiguity is where people with time and money like to play.”

“And Darcy has both,” Cece said quietly. “Apparently.”

Joe didn’t contradict her.

They drove for a few moments without speaking. Cece watched a woman walking her dog along the sidewalk, her mood no better for what Joe had told her. She’d really been hoping he was going to announce he’d found something that would save the day.

“So what do we do?” she asked finally.

Joe’s grip on the steering wheel tightened just a fraction. “Short-term? Document everything. And don’t react emotionally or otherwise. Maybe Darcy will drop it.”

“Right. And long-term?”

He glanced at her. “Long-term, clarification needs to happen. Either the board revises the language, or it gets challenged and happens that way.”

“So the board can just rewrite it?”

“Not without following the proper procedures, which means getting it on the agenda to talk about to begin with.”

“How do we do that?”

“You need to make noise. More than Darcy, anyway.”

Cece sighed. “Which means this doesn’t go away anytime soon.”

“No,” Joe agreed. “It doesn’t. Unless, like I said, Darcy drops it.”

They pulled into the parking lot of the lab, the white stucco building squat and nondescript, its windows tinted dark. Palm trees flanked the entrance but didn’t do much to beautify the place.

Joe parked close to the entrance and cut the engine. “You want me to come in with you?”

“Yes,” Cece said without hesitation. She certainly didn’t expect him to wait in the car.