Officially Over It - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,1

attend the functions?”

The woman smiled at my explanation.

“When did you start doing this?”

That was a question from the man standing beside the woman.

He was intense.

I wasn’t sure why every time I looked at him I felt the need to confess all my sins, but I guess that was common when faced with who I was facing.

Dracon and Flo Green were a beautiful couple. Dracon, the city of Longview’s police commissioner, was an intense man that always made me stand up to attention.

His wife, Flo, looked nothing like I would’ve expected someone to look who could handle such a forceful personality like Dracon. But she didn’t seem too overwhelmed when it came to his presence like I did.

He was staring at me intently as I spoke, making my heart pound. God, he was a beautiful man.

“Umm,” I hesitated. “I just started, actually. I started by planning birthdays for friends. Things like that. Then I moved into larger-scaled things like reunions and anniversary dinners. I know East Texas like the back of my hand now. It’s pretty great.”

“So what’s the biggest thing you ever planned?” Flo asked.

I moved Dracon and Flo’s baby onto her side where she mewled in protest.

Dracon reached his big hand into the incubator and rubbed his blunt finger down the length of the baby’s arm. His finger and the baby’s arm were the same size.

“I planned the mayor of Kilgore’s commencement ceremony not too long ago,” I said.

“That was you?”

I winced.

Dracon’s words had me stilling.

“It depends on what you heard,” I admitted.

Flo’s laugh was infectious.

The mayor of Kilgore had his commencement ceremony last fall. The only reason anybody had really heard about me at all was thanks in part to what had happened at that ceremony. And, I’d just like to point out, that it wasn’t my fault that I’d allowed a gunman into the event that was intent on murdering the mayor before his commencement.

I did, however, make it all better by making sure that the man’s testicles were shoved up into his body so far that he would likely never have kids again.

Now, sadly, I was known as the ‘Princess of Kilgore’ thanks to saving a man that didn’t need to be saved.

“I heard what happened,” Dracon said. “I was actually there. And nothing that I ‘heard’ was anywhere close to the truth.”

That was true.

I swallowed hard thinking back to that day almost a year ago.

***

“Everything set?”

I looked up at the mayor and smiled, fiddling with the small kid’s McDonald’s toy keychain I’d found on the floor moments prior.

Smoothing my hand down the length of my dress, I looked up into the beautiful eyes of the mayor and nodded once.

“I think so,” I said. “We can open the doors when you’re ready.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let the greeters know,” Lynn, the mayor, said.

I gave him a thumbs up and he winked before disappearing into a side hallway that led to the offices.

I looked around at the perfectly set tables and the beautifully decorated room and knew that I’d done a great job.

I was so excited with how it’d turned out that I hadn’t realized that the doors had opened, and people were filing in until the room started to fill up around me.

I nodded at each and every person that smiled at me, giving them what I hoped was a gracious smile.

Feeling quite underdressed in my blue floor-length sleeveless gown that I’d gotten from a boutique in town for sixty bucks, I made my way to the outskirts of the room hoping that by doing so it would keep me out of the way.

The only thing that it did was bring me closer to a person that I hadn’t seen in a year.

A person that I’d have done so much better staying away from.

Hell, it took me way too long to even realize that he was there.

“Not even going to say hi?”

I squeaked and whirled, surprised to see that the darkness on the other side of the pillar was actually a man and not a shadow like I’d thought it was.

“Fuck,” I said, placing my hand over my heart and staring at the man that liked to make my life a living hell. “What are you doing here?”

He grinned at me. “I was home for the weekend and Wolf was asked to go. I tagged along as his plus one.”

My mouth twitched up into a grin. “As his plus one?”

“You know how he gets when he’s forced to do shit he doesn’t want to do.” Nathan shrugged.