The Lying Season (Seasons #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,65

But personal stories were always more effective than yelling about political topics that literally no one could debate civilly. I had no intention of getting into a shouting match. I just wanted people to make informed decisions and vote how they felt best.

We finished up with that group, collecting the seven additional voter registrations, and then walked away.

“I lost count of how many people have bought up Court,” I said with a sigh. “I hope what English is doing is helping.”

“It’ll take time. Especially with both Reyes and Quinn harping on it.”

I nodded and pushed my shoulders back. “All right, let’s get back to work.”

We spent the next several hours walking the park. It was a beautiful, sunny day in the city. And as we got closer to the start of the fireworks on the East River, our numbers swelled.

Sam and I made it back to the mayor’s tent in the park and handed over our stack of voter registrations. One of the field workers took it from us with wide eyes.

“This is just from the two of you?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said.

“Wow. Can we send you back out? You got more than my last group of volunteers. And there were ten of them.”

Sam chuckled. “Old habits die hard.”

“Yeah, we’re staff. We’ve done this before.”

“Oh wow! That’s awesome. You guys rocked it.”

“We’d go back out, but I think final tallies should be happening soon.”

The girl pointed to the voter registration. “We’re working through them now.”

“Excellent. Keep up the good work.” I gestured for Sam to follow me.

“You don’t think we should help?”

“I might have a surprise after the conference call.”

“A surprise, huh?”

I nodded. “I think we’ve earned it. The two of us did more VR than ten volunteers.”

He grinned at me, and my heart melted. “All right, you’ve convinced me.”

Once we were out of sight of the tent, I took Sam’s hand in mine and directed him out of the park. We walked companionably through the busy streets of Brooklyn and to the marinas on the East River.

Sam stopped when we approached the docks. “What are you doing?”

I couldn’t contain my excitement. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

I pulled him toward a medium-sized yacht on the dock. My friends Lewis and Rowe were already on board along with Rowe’s boyfriend, Nicholas, and Lewis’s girlfriend, Addie. A dozen other people were already on the yacht, awaiting the time when the Coast Guard would allow vessels into the water for the fireworks.

“Are you serious?” Sam asked with wide eyes.

“Yeah. Lewis invited me, but I didn’t plan on joining him. But…I thought you’d like to see the fireworks from the water.”

He turned his attention to me completely. “You’re amazing. You know that?”

“I mean, we’re hitching a ride.”

But he didn’t let me finish downplaying what I’d done. He placed his hands on either side of my face and crushed our lips together. I stood, momentarily frozen by his enthusiasm. I hadn’t thought it was that big of deal, but I’d never really shared this part of myself with him before. I’d spent so much time hiding Larkin St. Vincent, trying to be someone else, that he never saw all of me. And now that he had…he wasn’t pulling away. In fact, he seemed to be even more all in.

Whistles came from the boat, and we pulled away with laughs and blushes.

“Okay, okay,” I said to Lewis and Addie on the boat.

I grabbed Sam’s hand and pulled him on board. I made introductions to the people he’d heard so much about all those years ago. It was still strange to have my crew so disconnected, but with Penn still in Paris and Katherine already in the Hamptons, it was impossible. Not to mention, things were still…rough after Natalie’s party earlier this summer.

Almost as soon as we boarded, the yacht began to move out into the East River, and the party really started. I motioned for Sam to follow me to the front of the boat to watch us pull away.

“You have such a crazy life,” he admitted.

“No, it’s pretty boring ninety-five percent of the time.”

“But that five percent is pretty spectacular.”

I gazed out across the river and smiled. “I guess it is.”

Sam pulled out his phone and called into the conference call for the mayor, putting us on mute to block out background noise.

And then Shawn’s voice crackled through the line. “Hey, folks. This is Shawn Trotter here, campaign manager for Mayor Kensington. I’m pleased that we have so many people on the line tonight. The