But when Chace found him, unfortunately, he didn’t hand Chace any bull.
What he told Chace was that he was avoiding him, and thus me since everyone in town knew I was with Chace, as he dealt with the issue “in-house”. This issue was that there was a member of the Council who wanted to close the library not because of funding issues. This was just what they were telling me to prime me just in case things got out of hand. But because there were books in the library that she deemed “inappropriate” including the Twilight series, Harry Potter (due to them having such “heathen” topics as vampires and magic) and a variety of art books what Cesar told Chace she described as having “nudie boobies”.
Cesar did not share who she was.
This did not mean Chace didn’t blow his stack to Cesar and me.
“We don’t need a fuckin’ powder keg like this one on top of all the other shit happening in this town,” he’d growled, prowling through his family room, his phone in his hand while I sat on his sectional, drinking wine, keeping my mouth shut and watching him.
He’d made this statement in between calls to who I surmised from his side of the conversation were Tate, Wood, Krys, Ty and my Dad.
In other words, lighting the match on that powder keg his own danged self.
But it was the call to my Dad that alarmed me. Dad would lose his mind if he knew the library was in danger of being closed down and why. Not only because his daughter would lose her job but because he abhorred censorship.
I was not wrong about Dad losing his mind. Chace got off the phone with him and my phone immediately rang.
It said, “Dad Calling,” and his greeting was a shouted, “I didn’t do two tours with the Marines only for my hometown to close down the library because of nudie boobies!”
I tried not to laugh anytime anyone said the words “nudie boobies” but I didn’t succeed at this and thus often got scowls from Chace whenever it came up seeing as Chace didn’t think anything was funny about this situation.
Needless to say, Dad was angry but Mom was quietly angry which was way worse. Therefore, Cesar Moreno got a visit from her the next day. Also Krys and Laurie created petitions and they were now all over town.
Cesar was not pleased. The bulk of the work cleaning up the Police Department was done but he needed a break and not another huge drama on his hands (this he told Dad). But also, he had hope that he could nip this in the bud without it blowing up into a huge deal. That said, considering the fact that whoever this woman was had not backed down in weeks, that hope was dwindling.
So now it was a huge deal and it was also on the docket for discussion at the next public town council meeting.
As for me, I was concerned, definitely. But I felt that if I let that concern show, Chace, Dad, Mom and all my friends would get even more up in arms about it than they already were and they were seriously pissed. So I decided to leave Cesar and the rest of the Council alone, attend the meeting, put out petitions in the library, urge people to sign them and hope.
This wasn’t all I was in a dither about.
Chace nor his colleagues nor Deck had found out what had gone down with Malachi and whoever murdered Darren Newcomb had not been found. Although Chace didn’t talk with me much about either of these, I could sense both were disturbing him and this escalated daily.
Not to mention the fact that Chace didn’t seem at all thrilled about going to dinner with his Mom. He did, however, communicate with me that it wasn’t about me.
It was, “She is how she is and she’s gonna be a fuckuva lot more than she is, tryin’ hard to make you like her. Head’s up, darlin’, this will not be fun in any way.”
I already knew this from the way he talked about her and I didn’t share that I thought it was sweet that he worried about her and me. It would be what it would be. Then it would be over.
This led me to the last part about why I was in a dither.
This being that I was wearing a little black dress, my first little black dress ever. Lexie, Laurie and Wendy went shopping with me to get it (and more sexy undies and little nighties to stock me up, Chace had seen all my others, repeatedly).
It fit like a glove from below my breasts to the top of my knees with a slit up my back nearly to my behind. It had tiny little sleeves created by panels that attached to the empire waistline and went up over my shoulders. My back was totally covered but in an enticing vee created by the panels, cleavage showed. I had a pushup bra that enhanced the cleavage and was seriously sexy to boot.