“Now, if you have nothing further, I’ll ask you to vacate the podium so if someone else has something they wish to say, they can do so.” He looked beyond Boston and through the gallery. “I’ll state, however, that you all have also had an opportunity to study the referendum prior to attending this evening’s meeting. We will not entertain a delayed vote or an alternate resolution to be put to the vote. If you feel the town should consider compensating the entirety of the members of our fire department, request a new referendum to be researched by the council and presented for discussion and vote at a future meeting. I’ll warn you, however, this town relies heavily on the goodwill and generosity of time and skills from our firefighting force and we’re all aware of it. If we could have afforded to pay them, we would have. But if this town is content with increased taxes in order to see to that, that also can be discussed.”
“We just want one boy, Whit!” Bobby shouted. His head turned the way of a woman who was highly attractive, had great hair, and I could tell was definitely fit even only seeing her shoulders and head. She was sitting one bench in front of him and down, looking over her shoulder at him, appearing miffed. Then he finished, “Or a girl! Whatever!”
Well, there she was; firefighter Misty.
“Then let’s see about getting you that,” Whitfield replied. His eyes went back to Boston. “Boston, please step down.”
Boston glared at him then turned, and without a glance at anyone he stalked down the center aisle. He didn’t wait for the vote. He walked right out of the room.
I couldn’t believe that Boston connived to put the entire town in danger because he was angry I was with Mickey.
But apparently, it was because he was angry I was with Mickey.
Which meant Mickey was even more right than I thought he was that day when he told me not to date the guy.
Brilliant.
“Anyone else have something to say?” Whitfield invited.
There was a low murmur of noise but no one moved to the podium.
“Excellent, then we’ll put it to the vote,” Whitfield declared. “All in favor of allocating further resources to the Magdalene Fire Department to hire a full-time salaried firefighter, say aye!”
There were five ayes.
I grinned.
“No nays, the resolution passes,” Whitefield announced. “Now, the next order of business…”
“So, now how you feelin’ about not takin’ my advice about that asshole?” Mickey muttered in my ear.
He didn’t sound angry.
He sounded teasing.
And patronizing.
I snapped my eyes to him and narrowed them.
He gave me an easy grin before he gave me a quick kiss.
I was still glaring at him when he finished, which set him to chuckling.
“Heard through the grapevine he had somethin’ up his sleeve,” Bobby whispered as Whitfield kept talking and both Mickey and I looked to him to see him again turned to us. “Good news, that’s done. Better news,” he smiled, “task force of the county councilmembers have full hiring authority when it comes to the fire chief. Nothin’ comes to a vote. And they do this volunteer themselves so they aren’t gonna spend months goin’ through some hiring process, which will end with them goin’ for whoever I recommend in the first place. This means, when I put you forward, you’re in, son.”
“Yeah, Bobby, that is good news,” Mickey replied.
Bobby slid his eyes to me. “You seriously dated Stone?”
“No. It was only one date. And I did it before Mickey and I were together because I was angry at Mickey who was, at the time, being annoyingly bossy,” I shared.
“Seems good reason,” he uttered these words as the obvious lie they were.
“I’ll have you over for dinner, explain the entire thing to your wife, then let her explain it to you,” I stated.
His eyes twinkled and he murmured, “Ah.”
“That’s done, Bob, gotta feed my family,” Mickey put in, already shifting like he was going to exit the bench.
“Right,” Bobby said to Mickey then looked back to me. “Nice meetin’ you, Amy. Lookin’ forward to that dinner invitation and my brownies.”
Staring into his kind eyes, I was looking forward to dinner too.
“We’ll plan through Mickey,” I said, shifting after Mickey.
“Right. Later, sweetheart.”
“Later, Bobby,” I replied.
Bobby looked to Cillian who was moving down the bench behind me. “Boy,” he greeted.
“Uncle Bobby,” Cillian replied, giving Bobby a high five when Bobby raised his hand.
Next came Ash. “You walked by me once without givin’ your Uncle Bobby a kiss, pretty girl. Don’t do it again.”
“Uncle Bobby,” she muttered, bending in to give him a quick kiss then moving fast to follow us.
Together, we walked down the aisle, out of the room, out of the Town Hall and Mickey stopped us on the sidewalk.
I looked up at him. “Happy?”
He smiled down at me. “Oh yeah.”
“So cool, Dad! You’re gonna be fire chief!” Cillian shouted, jumping at his dad, and Mickey caught his boy in his arms, giving him a squeeze Cillian gave back.
“Totally cool, Dad. Happy for you,” Aisling mumbled when Cillian moved away. She slunk in, ducked her head but gave her dad a sideways hug that was genuine.
“Thanks, baby,” he murmured against the top of her hair, obviously not caring it was greasy. He didn’t let her go far, keeping her close to his side with his arm around her shoulders, asking all of us. “Lobster Market, Breeze Point, the Boathouse or Tink’s?”
My choice was Lobster Market or the Boathouse because the former was wonderful and I’d never been to the latter but I’d heard it was good.
Cillian shouted, “Tink’s!” just as Aisling said, “Tink’s.” So even not voting, I was outvoted.
“Amy, babe?” Mickey asked me.
“Absolutely,” I replied. “Tink’s.”