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“When I first moved here, I made the mistake of being caught up at The Ridge with a girl on our first date.”
This time, Juliet’s brows flinch, but she pulls on a look of detachment to mask it. “Ah, yes. Make-Out Ridge. My dad used to love catching people up there. The ARPD used to have contests to see which officer could give out the most warnings.”
“I take it you never got one.”
“Of course not. I wasn’t some lovesick teenager who needed to get her fix with some loser in a car.” Her mouth falls open. “I mean, I’m not saying that was you or anything.”
“It kinda sounds like it.”
She cringes. “No, I just meant...”
She falls silent, and I shake my head, brushing it off. “It’s fine. You’re right. To be honest, though, I had no idea it was nicknamed that, and I never even kissed the girl that night. I’ve also avoided that area ever since, just to be safe.”
I don’t understand the look that crosses her features—something between relief and discomfort. The maple leaves above create dancing shadows across her front and the ground we walk on, but the brim of her hat shades most of her features.
I think I’ll suggest she wears it for the rest of her life.
“So did my dad arrest you on The Ridge or just let you off with a warning?”
“A warning. I wasn’t arrested...up there.”
Her gaze swings to mine. “Wait, wait, wait. He arrested you somewhere else?”
I’m fairly certain she’s close to being out of questions, but it doesn’t matter at this point. I want her to know all the facts so she can use them against her dad...if she chooses to do so.
“I was five miles over the speed limit in a residential area. I was distracted because I’d just purchased a new horse.”
“Speeding like that doesn’t normally result in an arrest though.”
“Well...” I hesitate. This story hardly paints me in a positive light. But then, wouldn’t it be worse to lie? “After your dad caught me on The Ridge and found out about my record, he kept a close eye on me. He warned me I had to be a good citizen, or I wasn’t welcome in town, which is fair enough. Unfortunately, I started to get tired of his constant nannying and treating me like a convict, so I started to do things to...get under his skin.”
They’d all been worth it up until now—having to admit the truth of my juvenile actions to the mayor’s daughter, this mature, stalwart individual who would never stoop so low as to seek revenge of any kind.
“When he pulled me over, I kinda egged him on. I compared his actions to that of a mall cop and...a few other things I don’t need to mention,” I finish in a hurry. “He arrested me for disorderly conduct, which, to be fair, was warranted.” I look at Juliet from the corner of my eye. “That was the last time I was arrested, though.”
“By him or by anyone?”
“Both,” I reply honestly.
“Good.” She looks at me, then nods—a sign that she believes me? I can only hope.
I thought I’d feel heavier by this point in our conversation, but for some reason, I feel like carefree leaves swept up in Juliet’s gentle breeze.
“Now,” she began, “I need to hear what you do to bug my dad.”
Darn it. I had hoped to avoid that altogether. If anything is going to make me sound more childish, it’s this.
“Harmless stuff, really. Convincing the town to prank him with plastic wrap around his car on April Fool’s. Petitioning to rename the town hall Wi-Fi to be ‘MayorNeedsAHug.’ Sending singing grams to his office.”
There’s about a hundred others I don’t share, like sending him pitiful, dying floral displays with the sign, “The Town Flourishes Like This Bouquet Because of Your Mayoral Efforts.”
To my surprise, Juliet laughs. “Those were all you?”
I nod guiltily.
“Dad texts me every time he gets one of those singing grams because he can’t figure out who’s sending them. He hates them.”
I gathered as much when I saw him receive the first from some anonymous admirer. He stood in embarrassed silence outside of Town Hall with a cherry-red face for five minutes as a woman dressed in a gorilla costume danced in front of him. Since then, I’ve sent them every few months using VPNs and cash to avoid being discovered.
